My Patient the Warehouseman.
“I don’t grudge a man a glass of beer or anything of the sort,” I said to a patient of mine whom I was attending, and who it was said look more than was good for him; “beer is very well in its way, but I’m certain of one thing, and that is that a man is better without either beer or spirits.”
“What! in moderation, doctor?” he said.
“Yes, even in moderation; men existed and were well and strong and happy, depend upon it, long before beer or mead was invented.”
“Ah, doctor, I see you’re a teetotaller,” he said.
“Not I, my man, unless one who seldom takes wine, spirits, or beer be a teetotaller. When you get as old as I am, you will probably begin to think that it is as well to take as much care as possible of the machine in which you live. Suppose you had some clean, pretty mechanism—your watch, say, or a musical box, you would be very careful not to injure it.”
“Of course, doctor.”
“Then, why take anything that is likely to destroy so wonderful a piece of work as the human body?”
“But, does drinking beer destroy the body, doctor?”
“That depends,” I said. “If you have your half-pint or pint of beer for dinner and supper, I believe, honestly, you would be better without it, speaking as a doctor; but I don’t believe that indulgence would keep you from living in fair health to seventy, eighty, or ninety.”