So much has been written and spoken on the subject of alcohol, that it would seem almost unnecessary to discuss it fully here. Ten or fifteen years ago the necessity would have been vastly more pressing than it is to-day. For no change is more remarkable than that which has come over public opinion on this topic of recent years. For nearly a century temperance reformers have been combating the moral effect of strong drink. Then the medical aspect of the question came to the fore, and the moderate drinker began to wonder if the matter did not apply to himself as well as to the drunkard.
Excess is a matter of personal equation, and many men who have always considered themselves strictly temperate have begun to realise that while the amount they were taking was not sufficient to affect their moral fibre, it was too much so far as their bodily health was concerned. Consequently a welcome improvement has been manifest in the drinking habits of the community. The growth of athletics has no doubt had much to do with this change.
It may be, too, that the attitude of the medical profession has had a share. Twenty or thirty years ago it was a dangerous thing for a doctor to tell a patient to reduce his ration of alcohol. Now the profession gives its orders on the point with as little hesitation as it exhibits in ordering a diet. And the public has shown its appreciation of this fact in the view it has taken. Once a doctor who did not order wine during convalescence was looked upon as a faddist. Now he is regarded as old-fashioned if he does so, unless there is some special reason for it.
While reserving for every man the right of his own opinions as to alcohol as a beverage, medical men rarely order it save as a drug, as in the administration of brandy in acute illness.
Perhaps the most significant proof of the change in public opinion is the fact that many patients now ask a doctor, not which form of alcohol is “the best for them,” but which “will do them the least harm.”
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW TO EAT FOOD.
Mastication.
This is even more important than the nature of the food itself. The great majority of digestive troubles are due to the habit of taking food too quickly, and imperfectly masticating it. It is surprising what people can eat with impunity provided they take it slowly and chew it until it is reduced to a fine pulp, almost a liquid in fact, in the mouth. When staying at an hotel some time ago I met a gentleman of seventy who told me that he had never known all his life what it was to have a pain or a discomfort in his stomach. And his looks bore out his statement. Yet he would take most things that were set before him, but he ate them with a deliberation that is seldom met with nowadays.