SECTION XXII.

DRINK CONSIDERED AS AN ALIMENT-AS A

CORDIAL-AN EXHILARATOR.

Good wine moderately drank, assists digestion, and increases the perspiration.-SANCTORIUS.

As drink makes a considerable part of our aliment, it may not be here amiss to inquire, or rather to state, the opinions of our eminent predecessors, whose knowledge and experience has seldom been successfully or rationally questioned, what species of fluid or common drink is most proper to preserve health.

"Pure water," says Hoffman*, "is the best drink for persons of all ages and constitutions. By its fluidity and mildness it promotes a free and equable circulation of the blood and humours through all the vessels of the body, upon which the due performance of every animal function depends; and hence water-drinkers are not only the most active and nimble, but also the most cheerful and sprightly of all people. In sanguine complexions, water, by diluting the blood, renders the cir

* Dissert. Physico-Med. Vol 2. Des. 5.

culation easy and uniform. In the choleric the coolness of the water restrains the quick motion and intense heat of the humours. It attenuates the glutinous viscidity of the juices in the phlegmonous, and the gross earthiness which prevails in melancholic temperaments. And as to different ages, water is good for children, to make their tenacious milky diet thin and easy to digest: for youth and middle-aged people, to sweeten and dissolve any scorbutic acrimony or sharpness that may be in the humours, by which means pains and obstructions are prevented: and for old people, to moisten and mollify their rigid fibres, and to promote a less difficult circulation through their hard and shrivelled pipes. In short, of all the productions of nature or art, water comes nearest to that universal remedy or panacea, so much searched after by mankind, but never discovered."

"The truth of it is," says another author,* " pure, light, soft, cold water, from a clear stream, drank in such a quantity as is necessary to quench their thirst, to dilute their food, and to cool their heat, is the best drink for children, for hearty people, and for persons of a hot temperament, especially if they have been habituated to the use of it: but to delicate or cold constitutions, to weak stomachs, and to persons unaccustomed to it, water without wine is a very improper drink; and they will find it so who try it under such circumstances."

* Mackenzie's "History of Health and the Art of Preserving it."

"I can ascribe no great virtues to cold water," says Hippocrates, "but only that it is some times useful in acute distempers, for it neither eases a cough, nor promotes expectoration in inflammations of the lungs, but causes an irksome weight and fluctuation in the stomach. Neither does it quench thirst, but rather increases it. It is found also, in some constitutions, to increase the bile, to impair the strength, and to distend the bowels. As it is cold and crude, it passes off slowly, and promotes neither stool nor urine. And even in fevers, if you give it when the feet are cold, you do mischief. Nevertheless, in complaints of a great weight in the head, or when the understanding is disordered, we must either give water alone, or a small quantity of white wine, and some water after it; for by that mixture the wine will do less hurt to the head and understanding."

It is necessary, however, before we proceed further, to observe, that the father of physic, here quoted, seems in this place to describe the effects of cold water upon distempered bodies only; for in another place he remarks, "for there is no doubt that cold water is the best and most wholesome common drink in nature to strong healthy children, to vigorous youth, and to others of a good constitution who have been habituated to it, and with whom it has originally been found to agree."

With phlegmatic constitutions water may have considerable objections to encounter; and it is our opinion, though decidedly in favour of plain beverage,

man cannot subsist any more upon water than upon "bread alone." There are times which require a change of liquid as well as of solid aliment.

Water or small beer, or some other weak liquor, should be drank at meals, in quantity sufficient to dilute the solid food, and make it fluid enough to dilute and circulate through the small vessels, otherwise the animal functions will become languid, and obstructions consequently follow.

As with water so it is with other alimentary fluids, such as tea, coffee, chocolate, &c. in consequence of the impossibility to lay down general rules, every man's own experience should direct him how and when to use it; but remember the trial ought to be fairly made with caution and care.

Good wine, which "needs no bush," is an admirable liquor; and, when used with moderation, answers many excellent purposes of health. Plutarch, in his life of Cæsar, informs us, that when he had taken Gomphi, a town in Thessaly, by assault, he not only found provisions for his army, but physic also: for there they met with plenty of wine, of which they drank freely. Warmed with this, and inspired by the jolly god, they merrily danced along, and thus shook off the diseases contracted by their preceding diet, and changed their whole constitution.

Beer, well brewed, light, clear, and of a proper strength and age, if we except water and wine, is, perhaps, the most ancient, and best sort of drink that can be used.

Wine has been styled "the milk of old age." Dr. Johnson observed, that it was much easier to be abstinent than temperate-that no man should habitually take wine as food till he have passed the age of thirty at least. Another writer says, "No man in health can need wine till he arrives at forty: he may then begin with two glasses in the day: at fifty he may take two more.-Trotter on Drunkenness, pp. 151.

For further information on this subject, see Inquiry into the Effects of Fermented Liquors, by a Waterdrinker. 18mo. 1820.

Letsom on the Effects of Hard-drinking, &c. &c.

As many of the works on this subject are copied from their predecessors, and few, if any of them, founded on individual experience, it would be needless to say any more of these than what may conveniently be gleaned from the ancients, which, however, they may differ in some respects from our own knowledge, are, few of them, wide of the truth. Used in moderation, and sufficiently diluted, we have no hesitation in saying, wines, spiritous and fermented liquors, if well made and genuine, may all be occasionally used without producing any serious consequences to a man's health or course of life. Modern invention and epicurean refinement have concocted a variety of ways to beguile the palate, and consequently to affect both the head and the heart. But simplicity in drinking, like simplicity in eating, may be carried to a very pleasurable and beneficial extent, provided some degree of caution be taken, and regulated on the various de