Which baffles time, and triumphs over years,
Drives away grief, and sad perplexing cares;
Does all, and yet in fables sweet disguise,
O dire mishap! its only essence lies.
“Avicenna and Rasis, most excellent physicians of Arabia, say[3], that it is a thing very salutary and wholesome to get drunk sometimes.”
Monsieur Hofman confirms what has been just now said in relation to Avicenna, and adds thereto the testimony of another physician. “Avicenna,” says he[4], “absolutely approves getting drunk once or twice every month, and alleges for it physical reasons.”—Dioscorides says, “That drunkenness is not always hurtful, but that very often it is necessary for the conservation of health.”—Homer says, “That Nestor, who lived so long, tossed off huge bocals of wine[5].”
Monsieur Hofman believes also, that wine is an excellent preservative against distempers, and of an admirable use in their cure. In like manner, several divines believe, that there is no manner of harm in getting drunk, when it is done for health’s sake and not for pleasure. In this class one may reckon Pere Taverne, a Jesuit[6]. These are his words: “Drunkenness,” says he, “is a mortal sin, if one falls into it for pleasure only; but if one gets drunk for any honest end, as for example, by direction of one’s physician in order to recover health, there is no manner of harm in it at all.”
But, however, not to digress too much from our subject, to preserve their health the Africans drink a great deal of wine; and this they do to help the digestion of the vast quantity of fruits they eat.
Montaigne[7] tells us, that he heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say, “That to keep up the powers of the stomach, that they faint not, it would be very proper to rouze them up once a month by this wholesome excess. And if we believe Regnier, a young physician does not see so far as an old drunkard[8].
We also say with the French poet[9],