[THE INFLUENCE OF WHOLESOME DRINK.]
Three-quarters of that staunch body which you bring with you to the task of perusing these pages, my firmly-knit friend, notwithstanding substantial appearances, are nothing but thin water. If without your clothes you weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, one hundred and thirteen of those pounds are mere liquid, which could be poured through the spout of a tea-pot, or even the channel of a tobacco pipe. Are you surprised to find yourself of so watery a nature? If you are so, you have no good ground for your wonder, for I can tell you that liquid has plenty of work to perform for your good.
Water is continually being drained away out of the supply-pipes of your body, and therefore requires to be as constantly restored to them, unless the blood is to be allowed to get so thick that it can no longer flow freely through their channels. The Great Architect of your body purposed that this should never happen, because if it did, all the powers of your frame, which are sustained by the blood-movement, would suffer and flag. Therefore he has contrived a plan to prevent such thickening of the life-stream.
So soon as your blood has begun to grow thick and to flow slowly, it moves unwillingly and lazily through the structures of your throat, as well as through all other parts. The thick lazily moving blood there causes that unpleasant feeling which you call thirst; a feeling which is so disagreeable that the instant you are conscious of it, you seek to get rid of it by swallowing drink.
When you drink water to quench your thirst, the thin liquid goes down into your digesting bag, and is then directly sucked up into the supply-pipes which run about all over its inside. There it thins the thickened blood, goes with it to the heart, and is thence pumped out through the channels of supply, taking its part in all the operations of life, diluting and changing here, and carrying and cleansing everywhere. There are various outlets through which the waste is poured away, but the principal of these lie upon the skin and in the kidneys. Before it is poured away, however, it actually forms part and parcel of all the structures of your frame; is for the time a portion of your life! It runs not merely through the digesting-canal of your body to the outlets for waste, but actually through the blood, and heart, and brain. Hence you see good drink may carry health, and vigor, and activity to all these internal and delicate parts; but bad drink may at once introduce mischief there, and danger, and disease.
The best possible drink is, of course, that which has the most power to fulfil the main office for which it is required; that is, the keeping the blood duly thin, for easy and ready flow. In its capability to do this, Nature’s own liquid, pure water, stands altogether alone. No other fluid is at once so incorruptibly impartial, and so generously free; so ready to dissolve, so willing to carry, and so frank to return what is entrusted to it. When healthy people drink freely of pure water, the solid substance of their frames is actually washed and worn away, in consequence, more quickly; but this is directly made up to them by their getting stronger appetites, and eating more solid food. The food replaces the wear, and they do not waste, although their structure is more quickly consumed. The wear and tear goes to work, instead of to waste.
People do not, however, drink only pure water, perfect as that liquid is for the performance of the service for which it is swallowed. An immense amount of ingenuity and industry is spent in preparing beverages which are commonly preferred to plain water, because they have very agreeable flavors, and because it is believed that they are nourishing as well as thirst-quenching. These agreeable artificial beverages are principally prepared by the agency of boiling water, and the leaves and seeds of certain vegetables, which are cultivated for the purpose very extensively in various quarters of the globe.
Of these vegetable-furnished beverages, some are swallowed as soon as they have been prepared, and even while the warmth of the water is in a certain degree retained. Others are kept for some time, and allowed to pass into a condition of half decay, before they are used. The former class consist of the tea, coffee, and cocoa, so familiarly known in most households, besides being employed daily in a greater or less degree, by more than seven hundred millions of human beings.
Few persons undervalue the fragrant drink, which pours forth its pleasant leafy smell upon almost every table, from the cottage to the palace, once or twice in the day. Tea-drinkers are not, however, aware how enormous is the quantity of the fragrant leaf that is required every year for their supply, although only distributed to them by small spoonfuls.