I have hitherto spoke only of solid food; liquors are not to be forgotten. In the last age a grievous error crept into physic, that health is the better, the more fluid the blood is; and by the advice of Bontekoe chiefly a pernicious custom prevailed of drinking warm liquors both night and day, whereby the human species has greatly suffered, and those of the present age sorely lament the injury which their forefathers sustained in the last, by impairing the strength of their nerves.
Grave authors, who knew better, and chiefly the illustrious Duncan, with Boerhaave, and the whole school of Leyden, have proscribed this error; and, if they have not reformed the abuse, have at least greatly checked it. But most valetudinarians still lie under the same prepossession, and, looking upon an over thick blood as the source of their disorders, have recourse to warm beverages, which others reject. It can scarce be told, it can scarce be believed, how many disorders proceed from this source: and I will take upon me to assert, that those pernicious bowls, overflowing with warm liquors, are the true box of Pandora, without even hope remaining at the bottom; for they are prolific sources of hypochondriac melancholy, which both adds strength to and is itself one of the worst of disorders. Nor is it to be wondered at, if warm beverages are more hurtful to studious men, who are naturally weak and feeble, than to others; for they are not troubled with an over thick, but, on the contrary, with too thin a blood. You are well aware, respectable auditors, that the density of the blood is as the motion of the solids: the fibres of the learned are relaxed, their motions are slow, and their blood of consequence thin. Bleed a ploughman and a doctor at the same time: from the first there will flow a thick blood, resembling inflammatory blood, almost solid, and of a deep red; the blood of the second will be either of a faint red, or without any colour, soft, gelatinous, and will almost entirely turn to water. Your blood therefore, men of learning, should not be dissolved, but brought to a consistence; and you should in general be moderate in the article of drinking, and cautiously avoid warm liquors.
The blood flows with difficulty in weak persons, stagnates, obstructs, not on account of its own density, but by the feeble contraction of the vessels, which is increased by hard drinking. The stomach first feels the disorder; because the liquors prepared by nature for the business of digestion, being immersed in the liquors that are drank, become unable to perform their functions, and the food is imperfectly dissolved on account of the imperfection of the menstruums. The fibres of the stomach, being too much stretched, at first give pain, and soon after lose their force, and become unable to push forward the aliments: they therefore load the stomach by being stopped: to cure which the sick persons again have recourse to drinking, which with the force of a torrent drives these half-digested aliments to the intestines. All these symptoms grow worse if warm beverages are drank; for this is the force of heat, it both relaxes the fibres, and, by more powerfully dissolving the phlegm, occasions more severe pains in the stomach.
Amongst the favourite beverages of the learned, the worst is the infusion of that famous leaf, so well known by the name of tea, which, to our great detriment, has every year, for these two centuries past, been constantly imported from China and Japan. This most pernicious gift first destroys the strength of the stomach, and, if it be not soon laid aside, equally destroys that of the viscera, the blood, the nerves; and of the whole body; so that malignant and all chronical disorders will appear to increase, especially nervous disorders, in proportion as the use of tea becomes common: and you may easily form a judgment from the diseases that prevail in every country, whether the inhabitants of it are lovers of tea, or the contrary. How happy would it be for Europe, if by unanimous consent the importation of this infamous leaf were prohibited, which is endued only with a corrosive force, derived from the acrimony of the gum with which it is pregnant: for experience shews, that what it has of an astringent principle is lost in the warm water.
I will not pass the same censure, though I must pass some censure, upon that celebrated beverage coffee, which both hurts by the power of the warm water, and by irritating; for nature cannot use itself to irritation without suffering. It is however rendered powerful by a nutritious flour, and by a bitter and strengthening aromatic oil; so that it may well be laid up in apothecaries shops as an useful remedy, but is improperly used in kitchens as part of our daily food. It raises the spirits, eases the stomach when loaded with phlegm, cures the head-ach, causes a chearfulness of mind, and, if we may believe some people, increases its penetration; for which reason the learned are so fond of it. But was coffee used by Homer, Thucidides, Plato, Xenophon, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Petronius, and the other great men of antiquity, who as much excelled us in genius, as we surpass them in experience and knowledge of nature.
Warm liquors being therefore justly set aside, cold water should be used, which has as much power in strengthening as the former in weakening the body.
Wine deserves its share of praise; but I have the same opinion concerning wine, with respect to the learned, that I have in regard to coffee, that it should be used as a remedy, and not as a drink. The Creator gave pure water as the universal drink, which he made a menstruum to all sorts of food, and agreeable to all palates: it should be chosen cold, soft, and mild; for it both strengthens and cleanses the viscera. Hence it has been generally looked upon as a panacea both by the Greeks and Romans, and it is the best of remedies when dryness prevails, or bile or acidity are in too great quantity[47]. Digestion will be more easy, sleep sweeter, the head seldomer clouded, and the strength greater, if, laying aside wine, we quench our thirst with pure water alone.
Wine has one fault that renders it exceeding hurtful to the learned; it forces the blood into the brain, and increases the several disorders thereof, head-achs, megrim, and the like, which are hardly to be cured without laying aside the use of wine: all these disorders are wonderfully removed by drinking water, which prevents too great a quantity of blood from being gathered in the head. What wonder is it then if it increases the intellectual powers, and if those who drink water alone have a more tenacious memory, a more lively imagination, and quicker perceptions than others. The abstemiousness of Demosthenes is a great example in favour of drinking water, which has likewise this virtue, it in a surprising manner subdues those catarrhs with which the learned are so often troubled, and which the use of wine is apt to increase. They have often acid eructations; but wine sharpens an acidity, water dulls it.
I will solemnly own, that I have cured more nervous disorders, (and learned men are generally troubled with such) by retrenching the quantity of liquor, forbidding all warm beverages, as well as wine, and recommending exercise, than by any other remedies. Nor should the danger of leaving off what people have been used to, be alledged: there is no such danger; or, if there be, it is easily avoided by a gradual disuse.
But take notice, if sometimes the too great laxity of the stomach, the great weakness of the body, and the depression of the spirits, require a remedy to brace, to strengthen, to excite, to exhilarate; wine is the most proper. In vain would you seek a more expeditious and agreeable medicine than this through the three kingdoms of nature: but let it be generous and smooth, and such as may vie with Falernian wine: