Malt Liquors.—The distinguishing characteristic of malt liquors as articles of diet is their feeding-power, and they owe this to the presence in the malt of diastase, by which the insoluble and innutritious starch—the largest fat and heat-producing element in our food—is converted into the soluble and easily assimilable glucose sugar. The use of these beverages, then, in moderation—say 2 glasses a day, one at dinner and the other at supper—seems to be indicated, and would probably prove advantageous, in convalescence from wasting disease, extreme thinness, feeble digestion, or where there is difficulty in maintaining the animal heat. The following table, showing the composition and relative strength of representative malt liquors, may not be uninteresting to the reader:—

Malt Extract.Alcohol.Carbonic Acid. Water.
Burton ale14·55·9079·6
Edinburgh ale10·98·50·1580·45
Porter (Barclay and Perkins) 6·05·40·1688·44
Bavarian beer 5·83·80·1490·26

Malt extract has lately been brought into the market, and may be used where alcohol is for any reason considered undesirable. (Philip Foster, ‘Alcohol.’)

Smoking.—Though hardly a branch of dietetics, the habit of smoking is now so general (and to some people as necessary as their meals through long habit) as to deserve a few words of notice. Concerning its merits or demerits doctors are far from being agreed. One fact, however, is certain. Ptyalin, the active principle of the saliva or juice of the mouth, is identical in chemical composition with diastase, and has been supplied to us by nature for the purpose of effecting the necessary change of starch into sugar. Now the expectoration which so often accompanies smoking, and is unduly increased by it, means the loss of large quantities of this invaluable fluid.

As to the actual effects of tobacco smoke, Dr. Zulinski has recently published in a Warsaw medical journal the results of a long series of experiments made by him both upon human beings and animals with a view of verifying the physiological effects. He found in the first place that it is a distinct poison even in small doses. Upon men its action is very slight when not inhaled in large quantities, but it would soon become powerful if the smoker got into the habit of “swallowing the smoke,” and Dr. Zulinski ascertained that this toxical property is not due exclusively to the nicotine, but that tobacco smoke, even when disengaged of the nicotine, contains a second toxical principle called colidine, and also carbon oxide and hydrocyanic acid. The effects produced by tobacco depend, he says, to a great extent upon the nature of the tobacco and the way in which it is smoked. The cigar-smoker absorbs more poison than the cigarette-smoker, and the latter in turn than those who smoke pipes, while the smoker who takes the precaution of using a narghilie, or any other apparatus which conducts the smoke through water, reduces the deleterious effects of tobacco to a minimum. As a rule, the light-coloured tobaccos are supposed to be the mildest, but Dr. Zulinski says that a great many of the tobaccos are artificially lightened by the aid of chemical agents which are not always free from danger. He adds that several light tobaccos are also open to the objection of emitting a burning smoke, owing to the large proportion of wooden fibres which they contain, notably the French “caporal” and the English “bird’s-eye,” and that the smoke from these tobaccos is of such a high temperature as often to cause slight inflammation of the tongue, which with people of mature age is not unlikely to lead to cancer. The dark tobaccos are often adulterated, too, but Dr. Zulinski thinks that upon the whole they are the less dangerous. If tobacconists would only introduce a very cheap stem for pipes, smokers could afford to use a new stem every time they lit up, and by this means most of the evils of smoking pipes would disappear.

On cigarette smoking Sir Henry Thompson lately communicated the following remarks to the Lancet. (a) The cigarette, without a mouthpiece, is really never smoked more than half-way through in the East, where cigarettes are very cheap. It is well understood there, as it is by all practised cigarette smokers, that every inhalation from a cigarette slightly deteriorates in quality from the first. A small deposit of the very offensive oil of tobacco is deposited in the finely cut leaf, which acts as a strainer, and intercepts the deposit as it passes. Very little of this arrives in the smoker’s mouth if he stops when half is consumed. Many Oriental smokers consume no more than a third. (b) If a cigarette with a card mouthpiece is employed, the noxious matter may be intercepted by always introducing a light plug of cotton wool into the tube. If now the cigarette is nearly consumed, a considerable quantity of brown and very offensive matter will be found in the cotton wool, from the evil of which the smoker is thus preserved. The wool requires renewal after half-a-dozen cigarettes. (c) The maximum pernicious influence which occurs through cigarette smoking is attained by the practice of inhaling the smoke largely direct into the lungs, where it comes into immediate contact with the circulation, and the toxic effect is strongly perceptible after three or four consecutive inhalations, and felt by a sensitive person to the very tips of the fingers. Such smoking ought to be exceptional. All the fragrance, with a little only of the toxic effect, is obtained by admission of the smoke into the mouth only, still more by passing it through the passages of the pharynx and nose; but pulmonary inhalation, often associated with cigarette smoking, and rarely with the pipe, constitutes the great mischief of the cigarette.

Laying and Waiting at Table

Laying and Waiting at Table.—The following suggestions are condensed from a series of articles on the subject by H. Burleigh in the indispensable Queen, intended for households with 2 to 7 servants. Housewives with smaller establishments may still benefit much by the instructions given.

No table ought to be laid, no tablecloth brought into the room, until the hearth has been thoroughly swept up, and the mantelpiece and sideboard well dusted. The neglect of this spoils the look of a room. Then another most important item is the proper preparation in the pantry. Most half-taught servants, which means 19 out of 20, will be continually running backwards and forwards between the pantry and the dining room bringing things piecemeal, instead of first preparing every article and bringing up everything, and then shutting the door on themselves, and quietly laying the table, without the confusing scramble that the former want of method produces. Servants cannot know these things unless a mistress has it in her to teach and train them. It behoves good women to learn each one for herself how to do everything in her house, so that she may teach those who enter her service.

For each meal—breakfast, luncheon, and dinner—there are different rules for laying the table and sideboard. We may call breakfast and luncheons movable feasts, for each day the laying of the table for these meals varies according to the food to be sent up, as at these meals everything is put on at once; whereas for dinner there is one invariable rule, whether there be many or few courses.