[9.] Lib. i. ode 18.
[9a.] Horace, Odes I.vii.17-19.
[9b.] Horace, Epistulae I.v.16-20.
[9c.] Ovid, Ars Amatoria I.237-242
[10.] Nunc est profecto cum me patior interfici, ne hoc gaudium aliquâ contaminetur ægritudine. —Eunuch.
[11.] Statii Sil. 2. lib. iv.
[11a.] Varro, Menippean Satires, fragment from Est modus matulae.
[12.] Ode ix. Anacr.
[CHAP. III.]
THAT IT IS GOOD FOR ONE’S HEALTH TO GET DRUNK SOMETIMES.
Although mirth and joy be absolutely necessary to health, yet it must be allowed that there are a great many pleasures very injurious and prejudicial to it; and we should act with precaution in using those we make choice of[1]. But this precaution is not necessary in those we seek in the sweet juice of the grape. So far is drunkenness from prejudicing our health, that, on the contrary, it highly preserves it. This is the sentiment of the most able physicians. These worthy gentlemen are arbiters of life and death. They have over us, jus vitæ et necis. We must therefore believe them. Ergo, let us heartily carouse. Every one knows that Hippocrates, the prince of physicians, prescribes getting drunk once a month, as a thing very necessary to the conservation of health; for, according to him, in the words of a certain French lady [2],