The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness.

  • Pattin, H. Cooper.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    acids and acid salts held in solution. It by no means follows that the final result of the temperate drinking of wine with meals is detrimental to the consumer : wines, so taken, increase appetite usually, and the contained alcohol and ethers stimulate the secretion of gastric juice so that the inhibitory influence is overborne and the digestion actually rendered quicker and easier than it otherwise would be. It will be agreed that the consumption of wine is a needlessly expensive method of exhibiting, therapeutically, the effect upon the body of certain acids, notably tannic acid, and acid salts, notably bitartrate of potash (Cream of Tartar) in association with alcohols, ethers, essential oils, and sugars—a fairly formidable compound, viewed as a prescription ; one withal which the sage dietetist will prescribe with sparseness. No, it is from the aesthetic standpoint that wines appeal to the person who believes in the temperate use of whatever adds to the agreeableness of living, The bouquets, the flavours, the colours, the nimble sparkle of a golden-tinted effervescing, and the ruddy reposefulness of red, still wine. These add vastly to the decorations of a table, and aid delightfully in transforming a meal into a dietary festival. I can well understand a diner doing what 1 not infrequently do myself, viz., having a glass partly filled with a wine he does not desire to drink, in- haling its bouquet and then keeping it near to him