Our Life, as a famous Physician [(56)] observes, is, as it were, a continual growing dry; but yet this kind of natural Consumption is imperceptible to an advanced Age: when the radical Moisture is consumed more sensibly, then the more balmy and volatile Parts of the Blood are dissipated by little and little, the Salts disengaging from the Sulphurs, manifest themselves, the Acid appears, which is the fruitful Source of Chronick Diseases. The Ligaments, the Tendons, and the Cartilages have scarce any of the Unctuosity left, which render’d them so supple and so pliant in Youth. The Skin grows wrinkled as well within as without; in a word, all the solid Parts grow dry or bony.
One may say that Nature has formed Chocolate with every Vertue proper to remedy these Inconveniences. The volatile Sulphur with which it abounds, is proper to supply the Place of that which the Blood loses every day through Age, it blunts and sheaths the Points of the Salts, and restores the usual Softness to the Blood, like as Spirit of Wine united with Spirit of Salt, makes a soft Liquor of a violent Corrosive. This same sulphurous Unctuosity at the same time spreads itself in the solid Parts, and gives them, in some sense, their natural Suppleness; it bestows on the Membranes, the Tendons, the Ligaments, and the Cartilages, a kind of Oil which renders them smooth and flexible. Thus the Equilibrium between the Fluids and the Solids is in some measure re-establish’d, the Wheels and Springs of our Machine mended, Health is preserved, and Life prolonged. These are not the Consequences of Philosophical Reflections, but of a thousand Experiments which mutually confirm each other; among a great Number of which the following alone shall suffice.
There lately died at Martinico a Counsellor about a hundred Years old, who, for thirty Years past, lived on nothing but Chocolate and Biscuit. He sometimes indeed had a little Soop at Dinner, but never any Fish, Flesh, or other Victuals: He was, nevertheless, so vigorous and nimble, that at fourscore and five, he could get on horseback without Stirrups.
Chocolate is not only proper to prolong the Life of aged People, but also of those whose Constitution is lean and dry, or weak and cacochimical, or who use violent Exercises, or whose Employments oblige them to an intense Application of Mind, which makes them very faintish: to all these it agrees perfectly well, and becomes to them an altering Diet.
On the contrary, I would not counsel the daily Use of it to such who are very fat, or who are wont to drink a good deal of Wine, and live upon a juicy Diet, or who sleep much, and use no Exercise at all: In a word, who lead a delicate, sedentary, and indolent Life, such as a great many People of Condition at Paris are used to. Such Bodies as these, full of Blood and Juice, have no need of additional Nourishment, and the Diet will fit them better which is mentioned in Ecclesiast. Plentiful Feeding brings Diseases, and Excess hath killed Numbers; but the temperate Man prolongs his Days [(59)].
[(1)] The Translator of this Treatise, who is a Physician, thinks it proper to observe, that the Opinions about Digestion, are deficiently related by our Author; for they are chiefly four, Trituration, Fermentation, Heat, and by a Menstruum, which are so far from being incompatible, that three of them necessarily concur to promote Digestion; to wit, Heat, and a Menstruum or Liquor, and Trituration, or the Motion or rubbing of the Coats of the Stomach: For it is plain, if the two former are absent, there can be no Digestion, and without doubt the last does assist, but which is the principal, I shall not take upon me to determine.
[(2)] Our Author seems here either to mistake Ferment for Menstruum, or to make them synonymous Terms: With this Allowance, his Reasoning is undoubtedly just; but as for a Ferment, in the usual Sense of that Word, it may justly be questioned whether there be any such in a Human Body.
[(3)] Our Author seems to make Phlegm and Spirit synonymous Terms in Chymistry.
[(54)] Pluribus abhinc Annis cum Sanguinem conveniente admodum digestione, præparassem, & solicitè distillatos Liquores supereffluentes flammâ lampadis rectificassem: Inter alia duo obtinui olea diversi omnino Coloris, quorum alterum Flavedinem, aut pallorem Succini, alterum vero intensissimam Rubedinem imitabatur; illud autem ingeniosis etiam, lynceisq; Spectatoribus, miraculi instar erat, quod licet ambo hæc Olea ab eodem sanguine emanassent, forentq; pura satis & limpida, non tantum distinctis in Massis sibi invicem supra innatarent, sed si agitatione commiscerentur, paulatim sese mutuo iterum extricarent, ut Oleum & Aqua. Historia Sanguinis Humani.
[(55)] Traité de Drogues, Pag. 127.