i ■•'■;.-:,--:=: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOUNDED 1836 WASHINGTON, D. C. GPO 16—«7244-l [MlAiWtELL & J® [HI INI SON, PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS, S. E. Corner of Ninth and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia: Have in Press, and nearly Ready, A HISTORY OF THE HORSE, ERRATA. Page 74, line 14 from top, for corn-bread read bread-corn. It It « and require no other care than to cover them with straw or mats during LEMON. 243 the winter. The lemon tree is of much hardier nature than the orange. Hence, with moderate attention to protect it from frost, it may be, as it is, cultivated to a considerable extent in tubs in the middle States, so as to yield an abundant supply of good fruit. Lemon-juice consists chiefly of an acid, which, diluted with water and a slight addition of sugar, constitutes the most refreshing and cooling of all beverages in hot climates or in summer of more northern latitudes. By a person overheated with exposure to the sun's rays in travel, or a feverish invalid, it is quaffed with a plea- sure and a feeling of refreshment that cannot find their equivalent in the effects of alcoholic potations of any description. Happily, even now, after perverted inge- nuity has made the inhabitants of nearly every part of the world cognizant of ardent spirits, the people of warmer climates, not spoiled by the miserable sophisms of drunken literature or the meteoric flashes of drunken poetry, still yield in large number to the instinct which seeks for coolness and refreshment of the system in ve- getable acids and the fruits which contain them, either alone, as in the case of lemons and limes, or mixed with mucilage and sugar, as in the case of so many other fruits. In southern Europe, as in Italy and Spain, the populace of the cities and the inhabitants of the country will be found quaffing their cool lemonade or merely cool water, slightly acidulated with lemon-juice, with a gusto at the time, and a freshness of feeling and hilarity of expression afterwards, which neither Tokay nor Champaigne, still less Madeira or Port, could supply to their votaries. A happy change is going on, even in northern climates, and with Mr. Phillips, one can say with pleasure, and hope of still farther amelioration, 244 FRUITS. " Lemonade and lemon-ices are as well known in the present day as punch was in the last age." The vogue which lemonade acquired in France as a drink was owing to its being recommended by physi- cians of that country in putrid fevers, so called, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. About the year 1660, an Italian from Florence, having learned a pro- cess of freezing confectionary, conceived the happy idea of converting such beverage into ice. This found a ready sale, and was the occasion of so great an increase in the number of sellers of lemonade, that in the year 1676 the Limonadiers of Paris were formed into a company. Carne, in his letters from the East, thus describes the pleasure of using an acidulated beverage in a hot cli- mate:—"Fatigued with heat and thirst, we came to a few cottages in a palm-wood, and stopped to drink of a fountain of delicious water. In this northern climate (of England) no idea can be formed of the exquisite luxury of drinking in Egypt; little appetite for food is felt—but after crossing the burning sands, you reach the rich line of woods on the brink of the Nile, and pluck the fresh limes, and mixing the juice with Egyptian sugar and soft river water, drink repeated bowls of lemonade, you feel that every other pleasure of the senses must yield to this. One then perceives the beauty and force of those similes in Scripture, where the sweetest emotions of the heart are compared to the assuaging of thirst in a sultry land." Lemon-juice has been extensively used in the cure and prevention of scurvy. More benefit, however, is derived from the free use of fruits in which this acid prevails than from the juice alone. As it is not easy to preserve the juice fresh for a length of time, chemistry has come to our aid, and shown how the acid of the CITRON. 245 lemon (called citric) is separated in a crystalline form. In this state it may be kept for any length of time and transported to all regions, and thus be in readiness for any exigency of appetite or disease. We must not confound this acid in its state of powdered crystals with another preparation called essential salt of lemons, which last is procured from wood-sorrel, and is in fact a salt com- posed of oxalic acid, the peculiar acid of this plant and on which its grateful acidity depends, united with pot- ash. It is sometimes called, also, salt of wood-sorrel. Citric acid is found in the acid juices of other fruits besides lemon and lime, or fruits of the genus Citrus, as I have already had occasion to observe when speak- ing of citric acid in the last chapter. Lime [Citrus AEris), is a small fruit, but contains more juice and citric acid than the lemon. It is brought principally from the West Indies. Citron—malum citreum—[Citrus Medica).—This species of the orange tribe is a native of Asia, and culti- vated in the south of Europe. Though analogous in its effects on the human system to those of the orange and lemon, this fruit is seldom brought to the table in the raw state. It makes excellent preserves and sweetmeats. Those who only know of the citron in this way will be surprised to learn that it sometimes attains a weight of more than twenty pounds. The peel, or rather the outer rind of all the orange family, viz: the sweet and bitter oranges, the citron, the lemon, and the lime, contains an essential oil. These oils are used to flavour various dishes brought to table, also medicines, unguents, perfumery, and as scouring drops to erase the stains of grease, &c. The leaves and flowers also furnish this oil. But the most noted of the Citrus genus for its essen- 21* 246 FRUITS. tial oil is Citrus Bergamia, or Bergamot Orange. The volatile oil ox. essence of bergamot imported from the south of Europe is procured from the rind of the fruit. Shaddock, a species of the Citrus, derives its name from Captain Shaddock, who first brought it from the East Indies, where it is indigenous. It is now cultivated to a great extent in the West Indies, where the fruit often grows to the size of twenty inches in circumfer- ence, and yields sometimes nearly half a pint of clear juice, which in its taste and properties resembles that of limes and lemons. Melons.—This fruit belongs to the extensive natural family—the Gourd ox. Cucurbitaceae—in which we find both the edible and actively medicinal. There are two kinds—the melon proper [Cucumis Melo) and the water melon [Cucumis Citrullus.) I shall speak of the former of these first. The melon contains a watery, sweet, and cooling pulp, which is slightly nutritious when taken raw. Like most of our esteemed fruits, it is of Asiatic origin; some refer it to Armenia, others to Khorassan. It is now spread over all central Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, and is particularly abundant in the western hemisphere. In the warmer regions, where the amount of food consumed by the inhabitants is small, and almost entirely of a vegetable kind, the melon comes in for a larger share of nutrimental produce than we who use it chiefly as a dessert .would at first suppose. In Persia they reckon no less than twenty different kinds of melons. Some are so large that three or four are a full load for a man. An incredible quantity of them is taken to Ispahan, chiefly from Khorassan, on the borders of Little Tartary; they are said to bear a transportation of thirty days duration without injury. Sir John Chardin, indeed, tells of his MELONS. 247 having eaten melons at Surat which had been brought from Agra; and Mr. Coxe (Travels, vol. i, p. 255) says that a small sort of melon of exquisite flavour is sent from Astracan to Moscow, a distance of a thousand miles. It is generally considered to be the kind men- tioned in Scripture. There are many varieties of the melon in France, in the central and southern parts of which kingdom it is largely consumed, being served up at table with boiled meat after soup, in the houses of the wealthier, and eaten with bread, &c. by the poorer inhabitants. The Honfleur melon sometimes weighs twenty-four pounds. The variety of melon most esteemed in every part of Europe is the Cantaleupe, which takes its name from the town of Cantaleupi, distant about fifteen miles from the city of Rome, where it has been cultivated since the Mithridatic war, it being one of the fruits brought from Armenia by Lucullus. The Musk melon appears to be a native of Tartary, where it is found growing wild. It has lately been found in great abundance in the sandy plains in the neighbourhood of Jeypour. Care should be taken, in the cultivation of the melon, that it be kept apart, and in fact at some distance from other plants of the same great family, such as the cucum- ber, pumpkin, or squash; otherwise, the pollen or fer- tilizing powder from these will contaminate it, and affect the seeds for future plants. In no region of the world is there a greater quantity and variety of melons than in the United States. They abound from Jersey to Louisiana, and furnish during the latter part of the summer and the autumnal months a refreshing and generally a wholesome treat to all classes. Melons ought not to retain a good name with royalty, 248 FRUITS. as it is on record that they have proved fatal to many crowned heads. It was this fruit eaten after supper that is accused of causing the death of George I. who expired in his carriage, (June 21st, 1727.) Simon Paulus says it has caused the death of four emperors. Pope Paul III. died of indigestion caused by Melons; and Clement VII. is said to have eaten of them with avidity during his last and fatal sickness. Frederick the Great fre- quently, even in his last sickness, gave himself an indi- gestion by eating three or four of them for breakfast. Much, however, of the bad name which this and some other fruits have acquired, proceeds from the improper time at which they are eaten. Wholesome in the morning, allowable as a dessert to a person in health, and even to some invalids after dinner, they may prove noxious when taken in the evening, and especially just before retiring to bed. Melons are generally eaten with sugar or salt and pepper as condiments; by some to increase the pleasure of taste, by others with a view of preventing them from being oppressive to the stomach. Water Melon.—This is the kind of melon which is so abundant in the United States, and which in some districts is entitled to the terms of praise used by Dr. Shaw, when he says, "The water melon is doubtless providentially calculated for the southern countries, and affords a cool, refreshing juice, assuages thirst, mitigates feverish disorders, and compensates thereby in no small degree for the excessive heat." Hasselquist says that the water melon, which is cultivated in the alluvial soil left by the inundation of the Nile, serves them for meat, drink, and physic. In the southern and middle States, the consumption of this fruit, both in town and country, by all classes, is immense—an evidence, this, both of its PUMPKIN. 249 abundance and its cheapness. In southern Europe it is also a favourite, and the traveller in Naples will call to mind its use in that luxurious capital; ladies seated in their open carriages, are seen of a summer evening eating water melons. The juice of this fruit is sweet and somewhat muci- laginous, and, when cool, it is exceedingly grateful and refreshing: the invalid, especially the dyspeptic, will find it most prudent not to swallow the pulpy part which remains after the juice is squeezed from it, and not to encroach at all upon the rind. In districts in which in- termittent fever is common, melons have the reputation of often bringing on a return of the disease in those who eat of them. Without undertaking formally their defence, we may readily believe that the blame does not attach to the properly matured fruit, eaten at a fit time of the day, as to that which is unripe or eaten at night. Besides, the brandy or whisky drinker, with his swelled spleen and liver, is particularly slow to acknowledge injury from those liquors and their like, and particularly prone to attribute his malady, or its aggravation, to any cause but the true one. Pumpkin.—In the same family as the melons, are found the pumpkin, squash or semlin, and cucumber. The alimentary use of the pumpkin (Cucurbita Pepo) is greater than of any of the cucurbitaceous family, both in the old and the new world. It has the ad- vantage, in its firmer substance, of keeping for a length of time, and even forming part of winter stores in thrifty housewifery. In southern Poland, the Ukraine, and throughout southern Russia, Persia, and Armenia, the pumpkin and the melon, and also the cucumber, are eaten to an extent hardly thought of elsewhere. Niebuhr, the celebrated traveller in the 250 FRUITS. East, says: "Of pumpkins and melons, several sorts grow naturally in the woods, and serve for feeding camels, but the proper melons are planted in the fields, where a great variety of them is to be found, and in such abundance, that the Arabians of all ranks use them for some part of the year as their principal article of food." The red, or fruit proper of the pumpkin, divested of its rind, is prepared by boiling, and then, after admixture with sugar, baked and served up with pastry. Our friends in New England claim, we believe, to be the best artistes in the preparation of this dish, as they in- contestibly are our exemplars in the large consumption of it. Mixed with a portion of apples similarly pre- pared, the flavour of the pumpkin pie is considerably improved. The Cucumber [Cucumis Sativus) is eaten in very different fashions: the first, and the common one, is that adopted in northern Europe and in the United States, and consists in peeling the cucumber, yet in its green state, cutting it into thin slices, and eating it with salt, pepper, vinegar, &c. In this way the fresh juice is taken, together with a resisting fibro-pulpy substance, neither of which is friendly to a weak stomach, but, on the contrary, will prove very often noxious. When allowed to reach maturity,its texture being softened,and the juice correspondingly changed and milder, it is often eaten in slices by the rural part of our population, either with salt or pepper, or often without any addition. The second fashion, and that resorted to by the larger num- ber of people in the south and east of Europe, and in Asia, consists in subjecting the cucumber, which is allowed to acquire its full growth, to some culinary process, by which it is rendered mild, soft and easy of cucumber. 251 digestion. The Tartar inhabitants of the Crimea, raise a large Turkish variety, which they fill with meat and rice, and eat of in abundance. The fruit of the egg plant is also dressed in the same way. There is yet another manner of preparing the cucumber, and also gourds, for food. They are allowed to ripen fully; are then gathered and cut into pieces, and still further dried in the sun or by artificial heat, and finally reduced by a kind of grind- ing, into a coarse meal: this is eaten with fat, oil or butter, and some condimental addition. The cucumber has been extensively cultivated from the earliest periods, as well as most of the other species of gourd. When the Israelites complained to Moses in the wilderness, comparing their old Egyptian luxuries with the manna upon which they were fed, they ex- claimed: "We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely—the cucumbers and the melons." The cucumber of Syria was cultivated in large open fields, in which a hut was erected for the abode of the watchman, who guarded the fruit against foxes and jackals. On the western side of the Jordan, Burkhardt saw fields of cu- cdmbers; and in India, beyond the Ganges, Bishop Heber saw a man in a small shed of bamboos and thatch, watching a field of cucumbers. He again ob- served a watcher of cucumbers, who lighted a fire during the night, to keep off the wild dogs and wolves from his fruit. [Lib. Ent. Knowledge. — Timber, Trees and Fruit.) We must suppose that the cucumbers were near maturity, when dogs and wolves were expected to make an attack on them. The instinct which warns against what is noxious, would keep even these animals away from green cucumbers. The next tribe of fruit-bearing trees, of which I shall make brief mention, are the Pomaceae. 252 FRUITS. Apple [Pyrus Malus).—The apple is the favourite fruit in the north, as the orange is in the south. It may, indeed, be designated as the fruit of the colder climates. It remains the longest in season, is used in the greatest number of ways, and, therefore, is the most generally cultivated. The useful qualities of the apple have ex- tended its cultivation throughout Europe, as far as the 60th degree, north latitude. In America, it does not flourish as far north as this, but still it has a great geo- graphical range, viz. from Maine to Tennessee. The American apples are among the finest in the world, and those from New York and New Jersey, are most prized. Those of England, and Normandy (France), are also of a superior kind. The apple-tree, in common with our most esteemed cultivated fruits, is a native of the East. The chief va- rieties in England are probably derived from France, as most of the names are French, either pure or corrupted. The golden-pippin is, however, generally regarded as English. Catharine of Russia was so fond of this ap- ple, that she was regularly supplied with it from Eng- land; and in order that she might have it in the greatest perfection, each apple was separately enveloped in silver paper before it was packed. Apples intended to be kept for the winter, should re- main on the trees until quite ripe, when they should be gathered in dry weather, and placed in a heap for five or six weeks, in order to sweat: they should then be carefully wiped dry, and those that are perfectly sound, packed in large jars or boxes, so as to be excluded from the air, which will keep them sound and plump, with a retention of their flavour. [Phillips's Pomarium Bri- tannicum, p. 57.) Apples are imported in considerable quantities into APPLES—CIDER. 253 England, from the opposite shores of France, Normandy being famous for this fruit, and also from the United States. The average amount in this way, for three years, ending 1831, was 36,000 bushels a year. With suitable care, apples might be sent to southern Europe in exchange for its oranges. The chief apple growing counties in England, lie on each side the Bristol Chan- nel; Worcester and Hereford to the north, and Somer- set and Devon to the south. To these may be added Monmouth, Gloucester and Somerset. Mr. Marshall calculates the produce of four of these counties to be 30,000 hogsheads a year. The entire quantity of cider and perry made in England, is about 75,000 hogsheads or 4,725,000 gallons annually. The quantity of apples required to make a hogshead of cider, is from 24 to 30 bushels; and in a good year, an acre of orchard will produce somewhere about 600 bushels. This is an estimate of an English orchard's productiveness. I have not seen a similar statement of the capability in this way of an American one. The produce of the orchards is very fluctuating, and the growers seldom expect an abundant crop more than once in three years. From an average of four years, ending in 1837, the annual export of apples from the United States, may be stated to amount to 19,462 barrels, valued at 35,886 dollars. Of this quantity, 3237 barrels were shipped for England, 6782 were sent to the British North Ameri- can colonies, and 4280 to the island of Cuba. [M'Cul- loch, Diet. Am. edit.) The value of the products of the orchard in the United States, in 1840, was about eight millions of dollars; but what was the proportion of apples and of peaches, and how much in cider and brandy (apple and peach), I am not apprized. In France, the people drink no less than 8,848,218 hectolitres of 22 254 FRUITS. cider, or upwards of 234,121,000 gallons, which, at 7 per cent, alcohol, (Mr. Brande makes it 9 for cider,) are equal to 32,777,908 gallons of common whisky or gin— a pretty good item this in the consumption of intoxicat- ing drinks in France. The apple, containing both malic and acetic acids, with some sugar, has a pleasant and refreshing flavour, and to persons in health, constitutes a useful addition to bread or other farinaceous food. It is inimical to the dyspeptic, the rheumatic, the gouty and those troubled with renal and cutaneous disorders: it is often a source of serious, sometimes fatal disease in children who have not masticated the fruit sufficiently, but swallowed it in pieces of some size. There are instances of portions of apple having been brought up again by eructation in the same state in which they had been swallowed two days previously. The words of Horace, pomifero grave tempus auno, are not then merely poetical. Subjected to various changes by roasting, baking and stewing, and the addition of sugar, apples acquire more nutri- tive value: and when eaten, as they often are, with milk or cream and bread, may be regarded as furnishing a meal equal to the subsequent requirements of active exercise if not of labour. Duduit tells us, that one-third part of boiled apple pulp, baked with two-thirds of flour, and properly fermented with yeast for twelve hours, makes a very good bread, full of eyes, and quite palatable and light. (New Month. Mag. June, 1821.) Of all pies, the apple has enjoyed the greatest reputation, except, perhaps, that of the pumpkin in New England; it is regarded with different eyes by the dyspeptic in- valid, who rails at the apples, when in fact the pastry was the chief offensive, if not the offending substance. A medical writer has said, that " nothing is more light PEAR. 255 than good apple pie," but singularly qualifies his praise, by adding, "always excepting the crust and the hurtful addition, so usually made of stimulating spices, by way of seasoning what seems to require none." The aphor- ism might be expressed somewhat differently, in these words: Apple cooked is light and generally wholesome; apple-pie, precisely because it is a pie, is often oppres- sive to the stomach and injurious to the invalid. Very pleasant confections are made of apples, called apple-butter and apple-jelly. Pear, (Pyrus Communis.)—The pear-tree would seem to be of great antiquity: Homer describes it as forming part of the orchard of Laertes; and by the Athenians it was consecrated to Minerva before the olive. Pliny mentions several sorts of pears that were grown in Italy; and particularly mentions that a fer- mented liquor was formed of their juice. It is probable that the Romans brought the cultivated pear to Eng- land; and that, subsequently, the monks paid great at- tention to its varieties. Most of the finest kinds of pears, at present, are admitted to be of continental origin,—the horticulturists of France and the Nether- lands having paid more attention to this species of fruit than was given to it in England. The two most marked divisions of pears are the sum- mer and the winter,—the former soft in texture and sweet; the latter less saccharine, but somewhat acerb and fibrous. Pears, if contrasted with apples, may be said to have more sugar and lignin and less acid in their composition than the latter fruit. They are not adapted to persons with weak digestion, nor to those of a phlegmatic constitution, nor to old persons. Baked pears with sugar make a pleasant dessert. The fer- mented juice of the pear, or perry, was in more repute 256 FRUITS. in former times than at present. It is made of the crudest and hardest varieties of the fruit. Quince,(Pyrus Cydonia.)— This fruit was originally from the island of Candia, (Crete.) The ancients held it in high estimation, considering it as the emblem of happiness, of love, and of fruitfulness: it was dedicated to Venus, and the temples of Cyprus and Paphos were decorated with it. Columella says, that quinces not only yield pleasure but health also. It is the opinion of some of the learned, that quinces were the golden apples of the Hesperides, and not oranges, as certain commentators assert. Notwithstanding these praises, he who attempts to eat the fruit just as it is gathered from the tree, will feel little inclined to join in them. But, on the other hand, when properly prepared, by boiling and simmering over a slow yet strong fire and mixture with sugar, quinces form one of the pleasantest conserves we have. An excellent marmelade is also made from this fruit: the term itself is derived from marmelo, the Portuguese name for the quince. In the south of France, particularly on the borders of the Ga- ronne, this fruit is cultivated very extensively; and the peasants prepare from it a marmelade, which they call catignac. The mucilage of quince seeds is nutritive, demulcent and emollient. It is by Pereira (Mat. Med., 1127) thought to be a peculiar principle, which he calls cydonin. The entire seed, if taken in large quantity, would, he suggests, act like bitter almonds, as they are said to yield hydrocyanic (prussic) acid. The mucilage is almost always employed, externally, as an emollient and sheathing application to cracked lips and nipples, to inflamed eyes, to certain painful tumours, &c. Hair- dressers use it as a cement for dressing the hair in braids, PEACH. 257 Belonging to the same natural family, viz., the Rosaceae of Jussieu, both the fruits last spoken of, but of a different tribe, are the Amygdaleas, under which are ranged the peach, the plum, the common almond, and common cherry. Peach, (Persica Vulgaris.)—-If any fruit in the United States can be called national from its abundance and general excellence of flavour, it is the peach. It unites the zones of the orange and the apple,—coming between and running into each of these, as we have seen maize to do between rice and wheat. The classical and botanical name of the peach be- speaks its origin from Persia, whence it was brought by those universal conquerors and colonisers, the Ro- mans, into Italy, and by them carried into France. Like so many of its good fruits and most esteemed vegetables, the peach dates its introduction into Eng- land about the middle of the sixteenth century. It is there chiefly a wall fruit. Much attention is paid to the cultivation of peach trees in the neighbourhood of Paris; and the peaches there are of excellent quality. The principal gardens for the supply of the French capital are at Montreuil, a village near Paris; and one tree sometimes covers sixty feet of wall, from the one extremity to the other. The Montreuil peaches are of the finest flavour; and their excellence is properly at- tributed to the exclusive attention of the people to their culture. The espalier peaches of the Due de Praslin, near Melun, are stated to be the finest in Europe.— (Timber Trees and Fruits.) The facility of raising the peach from the stone has probably tended to its general diffusion throughout the world. This fruit has steadily followed the progress of civilization; and man, "from China to Peru," has sur- 22* 258 FRUITS. rounded himself with the luxury of this, and of the other stone fruits, very soon after he has begun to taste the blessings of a civilized life. Such has been the profusion of peaches in some portions of our country, that the proprietors of orchards thought themselves obliged to convert a good share of the fruit into brandy in order to prevent waste. A better view of economy, connected with better ethics is, we believe, beginning to be taken on this point; and it will, we trust, ere long be generally.admitted, that an improved system of plant- ing and grafting, and close attention, will be rewarded by fruit of such a quality as will command a fair price at near markets, without the implied necessity of con- verting it into poison, and of deriving income from the vitiated appetites and the physical distresses and diseases, to say nothing of the moral degradation, of our fellow creatures. The flesh of the peach is both palatable and nutri- tious, on account of its sugar, gum, &c, and, as medical men term it, slightly refrigerant from the free malic acid which it contains. Peaches and milk, with sugar, constitute a dessert which loses nothing of its relish and salubrity by its commonness in this country. Before they are yet ripe, some kinds of them, almost too coarse to be taken raw, are usefully stewed with sugar,—and for the day; or if the process be a little prolonged, the result is a fine preserve, which will answer for the next year. Peeled, stoned and sliced, peaches are dried in large quantities, and put aside for use during the en- suing winter and spring. Stewed with sugar, and eaten alone or with milk and bread, they make a diet which an invalid, merely on the score of taste, might be well content with. I have been told of an in- stance, in the Valley in Virginia, of a family having PLUM—PRUNES. 259 made enough, by selling the products of a peach orchard, and mainly dried peaches, to enable them to purchase an adjoining farm, of several hundred acres. Captain Head, in his "Rough Notes," mentions the beauty and productiveness of the peach-trees which are scattered over the grain-fields in the country between the Andes and the La Plata; and he notices, also, dried peaches as an article of food in the mountainous parts, to which, of course, they must be carried from the plains. The two chief kinds of peaches are the free stone and the cling stone; from the former the flesh is easily detached,—to the latter it adheres closely. But although the fruit is wholesome and nutritious, when ripe, and eaten within the bounds of moderation at a suitable time of the day, not night, the kernels, the blossoms, the leaves, and the bark of the peach-tree possess poisonous properties. All these parts have a peculiar yet pleasant bitterness, similar to that of bitter almond, and depending on the same principle, (prussic or hydrocyanic acid.) The leaves are sometimes em- ployed in cooking and confectionary for imparting a flavour. This is not the place to speak of the medi- cinal application of the leaves, bark, &c; but it is well to state, as a caution, that injurious and even fatal effects have resulted from the empirical and domestic prescription of some of them for the cure of particular diseases, such as worms. Plum, (Prunus Domestica)—Prunes, (Drupae Sic- catae Pruni.)—The varieties of the plum are numerous. In England, some of them are brought to a large size and fine flavour. In this country it is, as yet, generally an inferior fruit. At best, however, it is more grateful to the taste than wholesome,—and cannot at all compete with 260 FRUITS. the peach. I introduce it here, with a view of noticing it in a dried state, when it acquires the name of prune. Prunes are principally procured from Portugal and the south of France. The plums are dried in warm countries, by solar heat, on hurdles; but in colder cli- mates, artificial heat is employed. In France, both methods are adopted; the fruit being exposed to the heat of an oven, and to that of the sun, on alternate days. Table prunes are prepared from the larger kinds of plum,—as the Saint Catharine and the Reine Claude (Green Gage): Medicinal prunes from the Saint Julien. The former have an agreeable, very sweet taste; the latter are somewhat austere. They are principally imported from Bordeaux. (Pereira, Op. cit.) The quantity imported into England, in 1S32, was 6,285 cwt. By drying, or even by baking for culinary purposes, the plum becomes salutary, and, in its former state especially, is taken with advantage by invalids of slow digestion. Stewed prunes is a favourite, and one of the few safe and useful domestic prescriptions. Almond, (Amygdalus Communis.)—The almond was well known to the ancients; it is mentioned in the book of Genesis, (xliii. 11.) The fruit is not so attrac- tive as that of the peach; because instead of presenting the same delicious pulp as the latter, the pericarp of the almond shrivels as the fruit ripens; and when the ripen- ing is completed, it has become a horny kind of husk, which opens of its own accord. The kernel of the almond is sometimes defended by so thin a shell, that the nuts break when shaken together. Almond oil is principally procured from the poisonous variety, or bitter almond. There is another constituent of almonds termed Emulsin, or the vegetable albumen ALMOND—CHERRY. 261 of almonds. It is white and soluble in cold water, and hence it is a constituent of almond emulsion. This lat- ter agrees in many of its properties with animal milk, with which it agrees in possessing nutritive and emol- lient qualities. Almond emulsion or almond milk, is made by beating h oz. of blanched almonds with \ oz. of powdered gum arabic; i white sugar, and adding water six ounces and a half, or about thirteen table- spoonsful. It is highly recommended in pulmonary af- fections, to appease cough and to allay irritation; and in inflammatory affections of the alimentary canal or of the renal apparatus. We should however regard it rather as a dietetic aid to active treatment, than as having itself any decided medicinal properties; and with this view I notice it in this place. Sweet almonds are nutritive and demulcent; but on account of the quantity of oil which they contain, they are sometimes difficult of digestion, at least if taken in large quantities or by persons whose digestive powers are weak. When rancid, they are still more apt to dis- order the stomach. The husk or skin (pellicle) of the almond has been known to occasion nausea, uneasiness in the alimentary passages, increased heat, oedematous swelling of the face, followed by urticaria or nettle rash. On this account, almonds for the table should always be blanched. Blanched and roasted, they have been used as a substitute for coffee. Cherry, (Prunus Cerasus.)—The cherry is a native of most temperate countries of the northern hemisphere. Though abundant, this fruit has not either the size or the flavour in this country which it so commonly has in England. This imperfect development gives additional effect to its naturally acid properties, and makes it an unwholesome fruit, especially when consumed in the 262 FRUITS. quantities and in the unripe state in which it so com- monly is among us. The skin ought to be rejected by those eating the fruit. Several liqueurs are made from cherries; among the most esteemed of which is cherry-brandy or cherry- bounce, which in flavour is superior to that of most wines; and if alcoholic drinks were ever safe for daily use, this diluted with water would be entitled to the preference. But in the case of the cherry, as of all other fruits, let us enjoy with thankfulness their pleasant flavour and their often nutritive properties, without either adding to them a poison, or converting them into one. Man has 'devilish devices' enough to answer for without this remaining any longer on the list. Of the pleasant genus Ribes, I have not room to say as much as their modest merits justify. They include the varieties of Currant and the gooseberry. Currant, (Ribes,) was once regarded as the Corin- thian grape degenerated. It is now more properly spoken of as indigenous to Great Britain, in many parts of which it is found growing naturally. There are three varieties, ivhite, red and black, in common cultivation and use. The white having the most delicate flavour, is most in request for the dessert; the red is more used in the preparation of jellies. For pastry the currant is among the most valuable of British fruits, being easily preserved, and growing in sufficient abundance, on ac- count of its hardiness, to offer a cheap luxury to the humblest classes. In parts of the country where it is the custom to train the currant against the walls of the house, its rich dark leaves, and its brilliant fruit, growing over the latticed window, offer almost as pleasing a pic- ture as the vines of Italy. I transcribe this passage from the English work already cited, (Timber Trees and GOOSEBERRY—RASPBERRY. 263 Fruits,) in the hope that it may incite more than one reader of these pages to imitate and prompt others to imitate this pleasant feature of English rural life. Our currants in the United States give a very faint idea of the size and fine flavour of those in England and Ire- land. We have suitable soil and climate; and a better and more careful horticulture is all that is requisite to procure for us cherries, currants and gooseberries, equal to the English. The berries of the black currant are larger than those of the red or the white, but they are not so juicy; and the crop upon a single bush is less abundant: they are supposed to have medicinal qualities, which do not be- long to the other species of currants. They can be made into a very pleasant jelly, which, in rural pharmacy, is recommended in cases of sore throat. Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia) is a fruit much better adapted to cold than to warm climates. If not a native of Britain, it flourishes there, and of a size which would astonish persons who had never seen any other than our poor dwarf specimens in this country. Great pains are taken, in different parts of England, to excite a friendly rivalry in bringing the gooseberry to the greatest perfection. The gooseberry shows of Lanca- shire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and other manufacturing counties, are conducted with great sys- tem, and an annual account of them, forming a little volume, is printed and published at Manchester. The heaviest gooseberry which appears to have received a prize, was exhibited at the Shakspeare Tavern, Nant- witch, in 1825: it weighed 31 dwts. 16 grs. Gooseber- ries are of various colours,—white, yellow, green and red: the yellow have generally the richest flavour. Raspberry, (Rubus Ideus.)—The red raspberry is 264 FRUITS. indigenous to Great Britain, it being often found wild there. Its present flavour and estimation compared with those which it possessed towards the latter end of the sixteenth century, in that country, show the improve- ment which this fruit has undergone by cultivation. The larger kinds of raspberry, both red and yellow, were brought to England from the Netherlands. The latter is most admired as dessert; and it is a somewhat curious fact, that all the white fruits of the berry kind, are sweeter than the coloured, whereas, other fruits that are coloured are sweeter than the white. The red rasp- berry is considered the finest for flavouring ices, jams, &c. There is a third kind, which produces two crops a year; they answer best when the shrubs are mixed with the others. The peculiar yet pleasant flavour of the raspberry, is quite evanescent. Even a few hours will diminish it; and if the berries be kept for two or three days, the flavour is almost entirely gone. Even on the bush, the flavour does not continue above two or three days after the fruit is ripe. A quantity of peat or bog earth greatly improves both the flavour and the size of the raspberry. New varieties may easily be obtained from the seed, the plants raised from which begin to bear the second year. The raspberry is among the most wholesome of our summer fruits, and is adapted to nearly all ages and constitutions. It contributes to preserve a regular state of the bowels. Strawberry, (Fragaria Vesca,) derives its name from the practice, once common, of putting straw round the plant. This fruit, by the extent of its growth, both in Europe and America, and the fine aroma and flavour which it possesses, has acquired a well merited STRAWBERRY—CRANBERRY. 265 reputation. In the western country, the wild strawberry is abundant and of excellent flavour; but those in our gardens do not exhibit either the size, variety or fine taste which they are susceptible of acquiring. Linnseus gave the strawberry a vogue among invalids as a remedy or prophylactic against gout, which the fruit does not deserve: its acidity is often prejudicial not only to the gouty, so called, but to the dyspeptic, and to young chil- dren who may be prone to intestinal disease. With sugar and milk, strawberries make a good dessert; but, to be fully enjoyed, they ought to be eaten at the moment of their being gathered from the vine, when their aroma is greatest, and there is less risk of their running into the acetous fermentation than after they have been some time in the market, and per- haps another period in the house. The old scarlet strawberry, and the old pjne or Carolina strawberry, both of them procured from North America, are the two varieties most prized at this time in Great Britain. The last is of a deep red on both sides, and it is the most highly flavoured and rich of all strawberries, constituting the most valuable variety that has yet been discovered. Strawberry jam is much esteemed; and the flavour com- municated to ice cream, by the strawberry, is preferred to that of the raspberry or indeed of any other fruit. Cranberry, (Vaccinium Oxycoccus.) This fruit, sometimes called red whortleberry, yields citric acid and astringency of the most grateful kind. With a suitable addition of sugar, and preparation by boiling and stewing, cranberries are used to a great extent in the United States, either with pastry, or as a sauce to meats, particularly turkey, or alone as a dessert. I know of no kind of preserves equal to cranberries for long voyages: they keep so well, and their acid flavour is so 23 266 FRUITS. refreshing to a palate which has for its chief stimulus, under these circumstances, salt meat. Cranberries are imported into England from Russia and North America. Tamarind, (Tamarindus Indica.)—The tamarind tree flourishes both in the East and West Indies. The fruit, or rather the tamarind pulp, as analysed by Vau- quelin, yielded citric, malic and tartaric acids, with bi- tartrate of potassa, sugar, gum, and vegetable jelly, parenchyma and water. Tamarinds are refreshing to the feverish patient, and at the same time medicinal. An infusion of tamarinds forms a very pleasant, cooling drink, as does also tama- rind whey. CHAPTER XI. ANIMAL FOOD. Proximate principles of animal matters—Fibrin—Albumen—Gela- tin—Casein—Osmazome.—Milk, its products and preparations— Alimentary or primary staminal principles—The aqueous.—Water in all the fluids and solids of organized beings,—its universality and use in all the organs—Mixture of staminal principles neces- sary—Milk, a general aliment,—its composition in different ani- mals—Causes affecting its quantity and quality—Milk the only pro- per food for infants—Its occasional mixture with farinaceous sub- stances—Dietetic value of milk—Properties of good and bad milk—Additions to milk, for food—Butter,—its composition, pre- paration, and preservation—Quantity consumed in Great Britain and United States—Ghee, the butter in India—Dietetic value of butter—Cheese,—its preparation and varieties; large use of—■ When, and how proper for food.—Egg,—its composition, and nu- tritive properties,—consumption of, in London. It will facilitate the acquisition of a knowledge of the nutritive properties of animal substances used for food, and at the same time aid us in classifying them, if, as was done in the case of vegetable food, I first indicate their chief proximate animal principles. These are fibrin, albumen, gelatin, casein, and oil or fat; some others will be more briefly noticed afterwards. If we cut off an outside piece of raw meat from an animal recently killed, we will suppose it to be either an ox or a sheep, we see a red part or flesh proper, next 268 ANIMAL FOOD. fat, and then externally a thin, sometimes a shining part, which forms a kind of cover to the others. Now the first part or red flesh, the lean as it is also called, con- sists of fibrin chiefly, the next of animal oil, or fat, and the third of gelatin. But the separation is never so complete and distinct as might be inferred from this dis- tinction, for if we cut out with the greatest care a piece of what we might call, at first, all lean or red flesh, a more attentive inspection, even with the naked eye, will show us layers of fine fat separating the interstices of lean, and each of these again connected more closely by a thin and delicate lamina or sheath, analogous in its nature to the thicker and outside covering of the whole piece. The inference from this second and more minute inspection is, that each piece of the lean of meat, how- ever small, consists in reality of red part or fibrin pro- per, with an investment of membrane, which is gelatin and albumen, and a looser layer which is of fat or ani- mal oil. This premised, the reader will follow me with more satisfaction in a brief description of the several proximate animal principles and the means of procuring them pure, as well as the parts of the animal in which they are most abundant. Fibrin. This principle enters into the composition of blood besides being the basis of muscular flesh. The red colour in both these substances is adventitious. If we stir freshly drawn blood briskly with a rod or birch, the fibrin coagulates slowly into colourless fibres which ad- here to the rod, while the rest of the blood remains fluid with the red globules or colouring portion floating in it. By washing in cold water, the adhering fibres are still farther whitened and purified, and are then simple fibrin. If we take the clot of blood which separates from the more fluid part, after it is drawn from a vein FIBRIN—ALBUMEN—GELATIN. 269 and cooled in a vessel, and wash it repeatedly in the hand, there will remain a twisted white cord-like sub- stance which is fibrin. Slices of lean beef subjected to soaking in repeated portions of warm water will also exhibit a residue which is fibrin, with, however, minute adherent particles of fat and membrane. Digested in concentrated nitric acid, fibrin swells and becomes a bulky tremulous jelly, which dissolves completely in a considerable quantity of hot water. Alcohol converts it into a fatty matter. Albumen. This animal principle exists in the se- rum, as it is called, or saline and watery part of the blood; also in the skin and lower tissue beneath it, and which mixed with fat surrounds the lean of beef. It is divided into two varieties, liquid and solid. Liquid albumen is best procured from the white of eggs, which consists almost solely of this principle. In this state it is a thick glairy fluid, insipid, inodorous, and easily miscible with cold water. Liquid albumen is coagulated by heat, alcohol, and the stronger acids. The character of being coagulated by hot water distinguishes albumen from all other animal fluids. Albumen is of great use in clarifying syrups, as by entangling in its substance all the fecula and foreign particles, it carries them with it to the surface or falls to the bottom of the liquid. Albumen is both an excel- lent test and the best antidote for corrosive sublimate. Gelatin. This principle is not found in the animal fluids in health, but it exists in large proportion in the tendons, cartilage or gristle, bones, and the membranes which invest the limbs and the muscles separately, as also in the loose filamentous tissue under the skin and between the muscles, and which is interwoven with the fat. It has been made a question by Berzelius and 23* 270 ANIMAL FOOD. others, whether gelatin is really a principle in animal tissues, or is not formed by boiling; for it is by this pro- cess that the parts already mentioned are converted into gelatin with the properties under which it is recognised and described. These are, its ready solubility in boiling water, and the solution forming a bulky semi-transpa- rent, tremulous jelly as it cools, which is again soluble in boiling water, by which it is distinguishable from albumen and fibrin. Its tendency to form a jelly is such, that one part of gelatin, dissolved in a hundred parts of water, becomes a tremulous solid on cooling. Isinglass, which is the purest variety of gelatin, is pre- pared from the sounds of the genus acipenser, especially from the sturgeon. The animal jelly of the confectioners is made from calves' feet, the tendinous and ligamentous parts of which yield a large quantity of gelatin. The common gelatin of commerce is the well known cement called glue, which is prepared by boiling in water the cuttings of parchment, or the skins, ears, and hoofs of animals, and evaporating the solution. The gelatin of bones may be obtained by the solvent power of water when exalted by heat and pressure, as in the celebrated digester of Papin. Gelatin is the principal ingredient in soup. Hence, by evaporation, soup may be reduced to the consistence of a glue, which, if osmazome be present, comprises, within a very small space, the materials for regenerating, with the aid of hot water, the soup from which it was obtained. In the in- durated state, gelatin has been sold under the name of portable soup: but as we shall see hereafter, gelatin alone requires additions to make it nutritive and pal- atable. The precipitation of gelatin by tannin and its fixation in a permanently solid state, give rise to the process of CASEIN. 271 tanning leather, and rendering it fit for shoes, boots, and numerous other purposes. Casein or Caseum. This is the chief or rather the most animalizing principle in milk. It is the curd obtained from milk by the rennet, and separated from the whey by washing with cold water. In this state it is a white, in- sipid, inodorous substance, insoluble in water, but rea- dily soluble in the alkalies, especially in ammonia. By alcohol it is converted, like fibrin and albumen, into an adipocerous substance of a fetid odour, and like these two principles, it may be dissolved by a sufficient quan- tity of acetic acid. Casein, in its coagulated state, is generally combined with some foreign substance, as salt, or an acid. Soluble casein may generally be obtained from curd spontaneously formed as milk becomes sour, in which state it is combined with acetic acid, by wash- ing the curd and neutralizing the acid with potassa. I omit the further particulars of the process, by which the casein is obtained pure and evaporated to dryness: in this state it forms a diaphanous mass, which strongly resembles gum arabic, may be long preserved without change, and still retains its solubility in water. In solution, flavoured with sugar and aromatics, casein may be serviceable to invalids and convalescents as an article of food. It may be taken in its dry state on long voyages; forming with water, butter, and sugar, an excellent substitute for milk. Casein, when kept in a moist state, undergoes a spe- cies of fermentation precisely analogous to that expe- rienced by gluten under the same circumstances. So close is the resemblance in some respects, that it has been employed, as I have already stated in page 139, in the manufacture of bread with potato starch and wheat flour. Casein is the basis and constitutes the chief bulk 272 ANIMAL food. of cheese, to which it imparts by a kind of fermentation a peculiar taste in old cheese admired by epicures. Having detailed the characteristics of the three chief proximate animal principles, and which with fat make up nearly the entire substance of an animal, it is proper to add that recent experiments make it very probable, if not absolutely certain, that fibrin and albumen are but modifications of the same principle, as they are con- vertible into one another, and both have the closest analogy to casein, so that for general purposes it would almost suffice to speak of them as one animal principle, designating them, as Prout has done, by the term albuminous. They all have nitrogen or azote in their composition, and impart emphatically the peculiar pro- perties of animal matter for the purposes of nutrition. It is worthy of remark in this place, that the line of difference is not so clearly drawn between animal and vegetable substances used for food, as would at first appear. The resemblance of gluten to casein has been already mentioned, and inferentially that of the former to fibrin and albumen may be admitted. Gelatin furnishes a sugar resembling the sugar of grapes, and by this con- version shows an analogy to starch, which, as we have seen, is convertible in such large proportion into sugar. Between vegetable albumen and animal albumen, the resemblance has been already noticed. Lactic, an ani- mal acid, is by many chemists regarded as a modification merely of the acetic. Fixed vegetable and animal oils ap- proximate also in many particulars. Both of them con- sist of two elements, stearine and elaine; both form soap, and both of them are wanting in azote. Milk yields sugar, which resembles that from vegetables, except in its not fermenting. Osmazome. This is the flavouring element of animal PRODUCTS OF MILK. 273 flesh, and abounds most in that which is red and be- longs to older animals. The higher flavour of broths made of beef or mutton than those of veal and lamb is due to the presence of osmazome in the former, in addition to the gelatin which predominates in the latter. This element dissolved in water constitutes the proper and relishing gravy of meat, and must not be confounded with the melted fat which is passed off as such by bad cooks. Osmazome is regarded as the most stimulating element of animal matter, and it has been compared to the aromatic or spices among vegetable substances. A nutritious powder or paste may be prepared as follows: dry osmazome, 1 oz.; dry gelatin, 4 oz.; gum arabic, |; cloves and ground pepper, celery twigs, carrot seeds, of each twelve grains. By adding salt to this powder, it can readily be made into a pleasant and nourishing soup. As reference has been made already to one of the chief elements of milk, I may as well at once describe its other ones, and then the reader will be prepared to fol- low me without confusion in my subsequent remarks on the relative value in an alimentary point of view of the chief animal substances used for human food. The principal products and preparations of milk, at least for dietetic and medicinal purposes, are cream, butter, curds, cheese, and whey. When milk is left at rest, there is a collection formed on the surface which is called cream, and which consists principally of fatty or butyraceous matter. If milk without prior change be subjected to continual agitation, the fatty globules coalesce and form butter; and when this is removed, the fluid part merely of the milk remains. Agitation of the cream alone gives a larger proportion of butter. This fluid part or whey, holds in solution the other remaining components of milk, 274 ANIMAL food. viz:—the casein, the sugar of milk, and the salts. Casein, separated in the manner already mentioned, leaves a sweetish fluid with, a small proportion of saline matter or simple whey. Curd made from unskimmed milk entangles with it a certain quantity of the oily globules or butter, and in this state it furnishes a richer cheese than if it be made after the separation of the cream. In the first case casein is mixed with a butyraceous matter, and is oily and of high flavour; in the latter, it is harder, and has, unless very old, less distinctive taste. The fluid remaining after the separation of the butter by churning, and hence called butter-milk, may be called a whey, with particles of.butter and casein mixed with it. If allowed to remain for a time, and especially in a some- what elevated temperature, it becomes acid by the evolution of acetic acid and of an animal acid called lactic, both of which give rise to sourness of the butter- milk. Cow's milk, from which the cream had been removed, was found by Berzelius to consist, in 100 parts, of 2.60 of casein, with a portion of fatty matter; 3.50 of sugar of milk, with some earthy and saline matters; water 92. The proportion of butter varies from three to four and a half per cent. It was, after observing that milk was composed of three chief ingredients, viz. saccharine, oily, and curdy or albuminous, that Dr. Prout was led gradually to the conclusion, that all the alimentary matters employed by man and the more perfect animals, might in fact be re- duced to the same three general heads. He has subse- quently extended this view, which,as expressive of really a natural arrangement, merits the favour that it receives from his contemporaries. Regarding fibrin and casein, and also gluten, as modifications of albumen, and gelatin AQUEOUS ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLE. 275 as a low mode of animalization, he ranks them in the albuminous division. Vegetable and animal oils, in- cluding butter, constitute the oily; and the saccharine or amylaceous group, include a great number and va- riety of vegetable substances as the cerealia, leguminosa, &c, the proximate principles of which are sugar and starch. There is yet another of what Dr. Prout calls the alimentary proximate or primary staminal prin- ciples, viz. the aqueous. Water, this writer truely observes, constitutes not only the medium in which most organic operations are performed, but its elements, either as water or separate- ly, enter into the composition of every living organized being. The subject of water, therefore, in a physiologi- cal point of view, may be considered under two heads; as the medium on, or by means of which, all organic operations are performed, and as an alimentary prin- ciple. The proportion of water entering into the composi- tion of organized beings is so remarkable, as to appear almost incredible. Not only does the blood contain four-fifths of its weight in water, but even the parts of the body termed solids, that is the muscular mass or flesh of which animals chiefly consist, contain in reality only about one-fourth of solid matter. According to an elaborate analysis of Berzelius, the muscle of an animal contains 77 per cent, of water, and 23 per cent, of other matters or solids proper. We have already seen the large proportions of water in esculent roots, such as the potato, the beet, &c. As a farther illustration, we may mention a fact stated by Blumenbach, that a perfectly dry mummy of an adult Guanche, (one of the original inhabitants of Teneriffe,) with all the muscles and vis- 276 ANIMAL FOOD. cera entire, did not exceed seven pounds and a half in weight. The water thus constituting a large portion of living animal bodies, is the medium by which all vital agen- cies are performed. In the blood, for instance, the solid, organized vital agencies are transported from one place to another; are arranged in the place desired; and are again finally removed and expelled from the body, chiefly by the agency of the water present. Water imparts, also, to the more solid constituents of the frame that peculiar flexibility and power of extension so characteristic of animal solids. The quantity of water they possess is continually changed by the ope- ration of organic bodies. The lungs, the skin, the act of drinking, the kidneys, all affect it. In fine, water and its elements enter into all organic processes. Dr. Prout contends, and in the main successfully, that a mixture of two, at least, if not of three, of the staminal principles is necessary to form an alimentary compound well adapted to man's use. " The com- position of the substances by which animals are usually nourished, favours the mixture of the primary staminal alimentary principles; since most of these substances are compounds, of at least two of the staminal princi- ples. Thus, most of the gramineous and herbaceous matters contain the saccharine or amylaceous, and the glutinous principles; while every part of an animal contains at least albumen (assuming here its general identity with fibrin), and oil. Perhaps, therefore, it is impossible to name a substance constituting the food of the more perfect animals, which is not essentially a natural compound of at least two, if not all the three great principles of aliment. But it is in the artificial food of man that we see this great principle of mixture MILK A GENERAL ALIMENT. 277 strongly exemplified. He, dissatisfied with the spon- taneous productions of nature, culls from every source; and by the force of his reason, or rather of his instinct, forms in every possible manner, and under every dis- guise, the same great alimentary compound. This, after all his cooking and his art, how much soever he may be disinclined to believe it, is the sole object of his labour; and the more nearly his results approach to this object, the more nearly do they approach perfec- tion. Even in the utmost refinements of luxury, and in his choicest delicacies, the same great principle is at- tended to; and his sugar and flour, his eggs and but- ter, in all their various forms and combinations, are nothing more or less than disguised imitations of the great alimentary prototype, milk, as furnished to him by nature." (Prout's Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion: Amer. edit. p. 234.) In milk we find illustrations of the four great stami- nal principles, viz. the aqueous (as water) constituting nearly 90 per cent, of milk, the saccharine (sugar of milk), the oily (butter), and the albuminous (casein). I shall devote a few paragraphs to a notice of the use by man of this widely-diffused aliment. Milk is the chief animal principle added to his other food, by the Laplander within the Polar circle, and the Arab in the burning deserts of the South,—by the Tartar on the bleak table-land and Steppes of Asia, and by a no small proportion of the inhabitants of the chief coun- tries in Europe. The reindeer supplies milk to the Laplander—who, on emergencies, eats of its flesh also; the Tartar obtains this nutriment from his mares, and the Arabs from their camels, their sheep, sometimes from their goats. The Yezeedes, a Turkoman tribe, living chiefly by themselves in the mountains of Singar, 24 278 ANIMAL FOOD. who pasture their camels upon the Southern desert, feed chiefly upon the milk, and sometimes upon the raw flesh of these animals. Of like fashion was the mode of living of the Numidians, described by Purchas, when he quaintly tells us, " their food is oftentimes patience with an empty belly, which when they fill, bread or meat after any sort, is absent. Only they have their camels' milk, whereof they drink a dishful next their heart." The number of cows kept in London and its environs, is 9,000, and their annual produce 28,000,000 quarts of milk, valued at 720,000/. sterling. Before proceeding to speak any farther of milk and its products, as aliment, it will be well to introduce the following tabular view of the several elements already described, as found in the milk of different animals. The analysis is made by MM. O. Henry and Chevallier. MILK OF THE Constituents. Cow, Ass, Woman, Goat, Ewe. Casein, 4.48 1.82 1.52 4.02 4.50 Butter, 3.13 0.11 3.55 3.32 4.20 Sugar of milk, 4.77 6.08 6.50 5.28 5.00 Various salts, 0.60 0.34 0.45 0.58 0.68 Water, 87.02 91.65 87.98 86.80 85.62 Total, 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 Solid substances, 12.98 8.35 13.00 13.20 14.38 The quantity of nutritive matter contained in milk, varies not only with the species, but with the indi- vidual, nay, with the same individual under different circumstances. The quality of human milk is affected by constitution, age, food, period after parturition, men- tal emotion, disease, the use of medicine, &c. Re- specting the kind of diet suitable to nurses, Dr. Cullen make this emphatic declaration: " I allege it to be a matter of experience, that supposing the quantity of CAUSES AFFECTING MILK. 279 liquid to be the same, nurses living entirely, or for the greater part, upon vegetable aliment, afford a greater quantity of milk, and of a more proper quality, than nurses living upon much animal food. This I venture to assert from the observations of fifty years." In order that good and pure milk be procured from the cow, the animal ought to be allowed a free range in the open air for at least a part of every day. The modifying influence of the food on the milk is shown in the better quality of this liquid in the spring and sum- mer than in winter, and in its flavour, as well as that of the butter, being sensibly affected by the cow eating certain articles, such as wild onion, &c. We should infer from these facts, even if direct proof were wanting, that the milk of the mother will be considerably mo- dified in its qualities by articles, both of food and medi- cine, which she herself has used, and that the infant at her breast will be affected in consequence. "We can modify the colour of the milk by mixing saffron or madder with the food; the odour may be affected by various cruciferous and alliaceous plants; the taste may be altered by the use of bitters, as wormwood; and lastly, the medicinal effect may also be influenced." Drastic purgatives and opiates, respectively, taken by the nurse, will produce their characteristic effects on the child. Whatever modifies the secretion of milk, either by unduly exciting, as by gross stimulating food, or altering the quality of this liquid by distilled or fer- mented liquors of any kind, will injuriously affect the child. It is a common, but a most pernicious belief, that the habitual use of malt liquors, for example, will increase the flow of milk, and keep up the strength of the nursing mother. So far from this being the case, her digestion will be impaired, she will be feverish, 280 ANIMAL FOOD. and her milk neither as good nor abundant as if she made water her sole drink. The child suffers in con- sequence. Thousands of children, says Mr. Courtenay, are cut off by convulsions, from the effects of these beverages on the mother.* Mental emotions also affect the quality of the milk; and the child's bowels are often disordered in consequence. The probability of diseased states of the system of the parent rendering the milk unhealthy, is so well and briefly set forth by Mr. Pereira, (Mat. Med. p. 1407,) that I shall use his language on the occasion. " Labillardiere (Diet. Mat. Med. IV. 23) states, that the milk of a cow af- fected with a kind of tuberculous phthisis (pommeliere) contained seven times more phosphate of lime than usual. Dupuy (quoted by Andral, Treat, on Pathol. Anat.; by Townshend & West, Vol. I. p. 675) also speaks of the large quantity of calcareous matter in the milk of cows, in whose lungs abundant deposits of the same substance were found. Other morbid changes have been observed by Donne, Robiquet and Lassaigne, and have been already alluded to. Now these are facts of the greatest moment, not only in reference to the fre- quency of disease in cows, and, therefore, to the pos- sible morbific character of their milk, but it is of con- siderable importance in reference to the milk of the human subject. I think with this statement before us, it is highly improper to allow a female, with any trace or suspicion of tuberculous disease, to suckle. Not that a few grains, more or less, of phosphate of lime in the milk, can probably do any injury to the child, but the fact once established, that the milk may be thus altered by disease, leads to the suspicion that some * See on this point a note by the author of the present work in Dr. Combe's work on Infancy, p. 161-2. CAUTIONS IN NURSING. 281 other substances, not recognized by the physical or chemical characters, may be in the milk of diseased nurses, and may have an injurious influence on the child; and the suspicion does not confine itself to those affected with tuberculous diseases,—other hereditary or constitutional affections may also be attended with altered conditions of the milk. This suspicion is strengthened by the common observation, that the milk of any nurses will not equally suit children. A child quite healthy and in good condition, will some- times, without any evident cause, fall off, and get into what is commonly called a bad condition, apparently from a change in the nurse. I am aware, that we can- not always refer this to any positively hurtful matter in milk. The quantity of nutritive matter in the same quantity of milk of two nurses may be very different: according to Payen, (Journ. de Chim. Med. Vol. IV. p. 118,) milk, with too much nutritive matter in it may disagree with the child. Another point worthy of at- tention, is the quantity of milk yielded in a given time. Payen says it varies in different women as much as from one to ten and a half." It hardly requires the testimony of medical authority or of philosophy of any kind, in favour of milk being regarded as the natural nutriment of the young of all the mammalia, including our own species; yet certain pre- judices, under the garb of shallow science, not unfre- quently interfere to prevent a result to which the emo- tions both of mother and offspring would of themselves inevitably tend. Under the most opposite pleas, foreign additions are made to the maternal supply: at one time the infant is said to be so feeble and puny as to require more nutriment than the mother can give it in the form of her own milk; at another time, it is alleged that the child 24* 282 ANIMAL FOOD. is so strong and large, and sucks so greedily, that she can- not supply its cravings. For the first three months after birth, a child wants and ought to have no other food than that of its mother's or a healthy nurse's milk; for the following six months, the most that is required is a very small quantity of some farinaceous powder, either of wheat flour or of arrow-root, or tapioca, &c. boiled with sugar into a thin jelly, to which, if the supply from the breast is irregular or at all deficient, some fresh cow's milk should be added. During all the period mentioned, farinaceous food, with cow's milk, ought to be regarded as a substitute for the occasional defective supply of the mother's milk, but never as a necessary addition to this latter when it is secreted in regular and adequately full supply. Even after the teeth appear, the food of children ought not to be more of an animal nature than is furnished in the elements of milk itself. These teeth are not the natural index of requirements for animal food, so much as of ability to masticate a greater variety of farinaceous and other vegetable substances, including a moderate allowance of ripe fruit. A great number of persons seem to have no idea of any article being really substantial and nutritive food, unless it be in a solid state; and hence milk is by them regarded more as drink than aliment. A slight glance at the analysis of milk ought to suffice for the removal of this error, and to show that milk is neither intended to be a drink after a meat repast, nor a preliminary for more substantial viands. It is a very healthful practice, in general, to breakfast on milk with bread in some form, less so to take butter with the bread, for then two por- tions of this animal oil are taken,—one free, and one combined with other elements in the milk. But a break- fast of this nature does not entitle a person to eat a MILK IN CHRONIC DISEASES. 283 heartier dinner of meat than his companion or friend who merely took coffee or tea and bread and butter for his morning repast. The reverse should be the practice. I have seen invalids who, having been probably directed by their physicians, to take milk daily, with the inten- tion, doubtless, in the mind of the adviser, that it should be the chief aliment, act as if the drinking of a bowl of milk was but a whetter, a medicinal introduction to partaking of all the varieties of meat at table. In such instances as these, the sick man, instead of eating, as he obviously ought, less than those in full health, eats a great deal more than them, of the strongest animal food, and which would be far beyond the appetite and natural requirements of a ploughman or a pavior. In nearly all chronic maladies, such as pulmonary consumption, gout, dyspepsia, and certain anomalous diseases of females, in which a regulated regimen ought to be persevered in for a length of time, milk is entitled to a preference as the nutrive basis of the aliment pre- scribed on these occasions. Sometimes it disagrees with the stomach, on account of its butyraceous or oily prin- ciple, and then buttermilk will answer a good purpose. According to the indications in other respects, this latter will be taken either soon after the churning, or after a longer period, when it is decidedly sour. If obtainable, asses' milk, in which the proportion of oily matter is smaller and of sugar greater, is better suited to the in- valid, whose stomach is irritable. We find, in some cases, in which milk alone disorders the bowels, and causes pain and flatulence, that the addition of a very little farinaceous powder, as of arrow-root or ground rice, to the milk, obviates these disagreeable effects. If the coldness of milk be inconvenient to some stomachs, the addition of a little hot water removes this objection, and 284 ANIMAL FOOD. besides prepares it better, in common, than boiling,—a process often recommended for making it lighter for digestion. When it is desired to substitute a milk aliment for the supply from the breast, when this is very deficient or en- tirely arrested, and when circumstances prevent the pro- curing another nurse, fresh cow's milk, diluted with a third part of hot water, and a portion of loaf sugar dis- solved in it, will answer a very good purpose. The whey, or watery part of the milk after the removal of the curd, makes a salutary and, if it be slightly acidulated, or the milk have been turned with buttermilk, making the two- milk whey, as it is called, a very refreshing beverage in slight cases of fever, or convalescence from diseases in general. A very limited quantity of milk will suffice, in the way of animal food, for the presevation of health, if an ade- quate amount of wholesome farinaceous substance be furnished at the same time. In all cases in which milk is used,—either as a part of the daily food of the healthy, or dietetically for the invalid,—this liquid ought to be fresh and pure, pro- cured from healthy and well fed and exercised cows. '' Good milk should be quite liquid and homogeneous, not viscid; and should contain only spherical transparent globules, soluble in alkalies and ether; should not be- come thick when mixed with ammonia, and should form a floculent precipitate by acetic acid, but not be coagu- lated by heat. The relative quantity of cream afforded by milk, is estimated by a graduated glass tube, called a lactometer. The changes produced in the quality of the milk, by diseased condition of the cows, has re- cently attracted considerable attention in Paris, owing to the prevalence of a malady called the cocote, among TESTS OF QUALITY OF MILK.—BUTTER. 285 the cows in that capital. In New-York, a somewhat similar state of things was indicated, in detail, a few years ago, in the public papers; depending,as was alleged, and generally believed, on the cow's being fed with dis- tillery slops. " The following are the essential morbid changes which have been reckoned in milk: want of ho- mogeneousness, imperfect mobility or liquidity,capability of becoming thick or viscid, on the addition of ammonia, and presenting, when examined by the microscope, cer- tain globules (agglutinated, tuberculated or mulberry- like, mucous or pus globules,) not found in milk." If a milk aliment of a more nutritive kind be required than this liquid alone, it will be well to mix it with a decoction of some of the more reduced or less stimulating animal substances, such as a decoction of hartshorn shavings, or veal or chicken broth, from which every portion of the fat has been carefully removed. Shavings of isinglass, boiled into a jelly, with milk, constitute an aliment of the same nature, with the recommendation of greater simplicity and purity. It is worthy of remark, for the benefit of certain in- valids with whom milk disagrees, that they will some- times find cream sit better on their stomach. To give it a full trial, butter ought to be abstained from at the meal in which cream is taken with bread or other fari- naceous matters. Butter, generally spoken of as one of the constituents and proximate principles of milk, consists, itself, of three fatty bodies, stearine, elaine and butyrine. The latter substance yields three odorous fatty acids, viz. butyric, capric and caproic acids. A small quantity of these acids exists in ordinary butter, especially when it has been exposed to the air, and imparts to it its peculiar odour. Milk-butter is not so rich as cream-butter, but 286 ANIMAL FOOD. will keep much longer sweet: when churned, as is usual in large dairies, in a barrel-churn, it is still poorer, but its quantity is increased sometimes double, as the milk is left quite exhausted. For the purpose of preserving butter, it is usually salted and packed in barrels. The proportion of salt is generally an ounce to a pound of butter. The follow- ing experiment is worth recording here. Thirty pounds of Lancashire butter, well salted with a double allow- ance of salt, were put into two mugs, and each covered with a pint and a half of brine. After keeping them in a cool cellar for thirteen months, they were examined, and found to be perfectly good; two years and five weeks having elapsed, the mugs were broken by an accident, and the butter being found to be perfectly good, the salt was washed out, and the butter sold for fresh butter in the Liverpool market. For exportation to hot climates, butter ought to be clarified before it is salted. For this purpose it is put into a lipped vessel, and placed in another of water, which is to be gradu- ally heated until the butter is melted. It is to be kept melted for some time, to allow its albuminous or case- ous particles to settle; the clear melted butter is then to be poured off from the dregs, and when sufficiently cooled it is salted. This clarified butter is paler than the fresh, and it acquires nearly the consistence of tal- low. Butter is sometimes preserved with honey as a delicacy. It is first clarified, and being poured off from the dregs, an ounce of firm honey is added to each pound of butter, and well mixed with it. This mixture will keep for years without becoming rancid. The production and consumption of butter are very great, as might be inferred from the countries in which animals are kept, and more or less domesticated with a LARGE CONSUMPTION OF BUTTER. 287 view to procure their milk. The consumption in Lon- don is estimated by Mr. McCulloch, to be 16,S30 tons, 37,700,000 lbs., being at the rate of half a pound a week, or 26 lbs. a year, for each individual, supposing the population to be 1,450,000. If to this be added 4000 tons for the victualling of ships, and for other pur- poses, the total, in round numbers, will be 21,000 tons, or 47,040,000 lbs., which, at tenpence per pound, would be worth 1,960,000/. The average produce per cow of the butter dairies, is estimated by Mr. Marshall, at 168 pounds a year; so that supposing we are nearly right in the above estimates, about 280,000 cows will be re- quired to produce an adequate supply of butter for the London market. Butter forms a prominent article in the export trade of Ireland. Some of the best Irish butter brought to London, after being washed and repacked, is sold as Dorsetshire and Cambridge butter. The quantity im- ported into Great Britain from Ireland, is little short of 500,000 cwt., and from foreign parts about 131,000cwt., of which Holland and Belgium furnish 92,000 cwt. The salt butter of Holland is superior to that of any other country. During a period of four years, upwards of 600,000 pounds of butter have been, on an average, exported annually from the United States, mostly to the West Indies and South America. The best butter that is put up, so as to keep for a considerable time, is that of Goshen, in New York. The fresh butter brought to the Philadelphia market, has the character of being as good as any other of the same description. (McCulloch, Com. Diet. Am. edit.) In hot countries, butter is generally liquid. In India it is denominated ghee, and is mostly prepared from the 28S ANIMAL FOOD. milk of buffaloes: it is usually conveyed in duppers or bottles made of hide, each of which contains from ten to forty gallons. Ghee is an article of considerable com- mercial importance in many parts of India. It is said to be prepared from coagulated acid milk, which is often kept two or three days, by which time it is highly rancid. Mention has been made already of the exces- sive fondness of the Arabs for butter; and of their com- mon fashion of drinking every morning a coffee cupful of melted butter, or ghee. On the score of nutrimen- tal value and preparation for bodily labour and fa- tiguing march, this national allowance argues a much higher civilization than the early dram, by whatever odd or pleasing name called, still too common in Eu- ropean and American communities. The dietetic utility of butter will depend very much on the quantity of other animal matter taken at the same meal, or on the same day with it. But if eaten with good bread, neither hot nor too fresh, or other farinaceous substances, including the leguminous, and if these aliments make up either the entire meal or the greater part of it, then is butter wholesome. When added to meals, or taken with abundance of milk, it is less apt to agree with those whose exercise is limited. It is more difficultly incorporated with farinaceous or other vegeta- ble food than the fibrinous or albuminous or gelatinous part of animal substances; and it is more apt to offer resistance on being converted into good chyme than these. Hence we see why pastry is a bad food. Cheese, another product of milk, being the curd separated from the whey, and pressed or hardened, has been used as an article of food from the earliest ages. Vast quantities of it are consumed in great Britain, and in most countries in Europe. England is particularly DIFFERENT KINDS OF CHEESE. 289 celebrated for the abundance and excellence of its cheese. From one county (Warwick), no less than 20,000 tons are sent annually to the London market, besides a very large supply to Birmingham. Large quantities of very good cheese are produced in Holland. In the manu- facture of Gonda cheese, which is reckoned the best made in Holland, muriatic (hydrochloric) acid is used instead of rennet in curdling the milk. This renders it pungent and preserves it from mites. Parmesan cheese, so called from Parma, in Italy, where it is manu- factured, is merely a skim-milk cheese, which owes its rich flavour to the fine herbage of the meadows along the Po, where the cows feed. The best Parmesan cheese is kept for three or four years, and none is ever carried to market till it be at least six months old. Swiss cheese, particularly that denominated Gruyere, from the bailiwick of that name in the canton of Fri- bourg, is very celebrated. Gruyere cheeses are made of skimmed milk, and are flavoured with herbs. (M'Cul- loch, Com. Diet.) There is scarcely a district in France which has not its kind of cheese. Those most noted are the Neufchatel, the Sassenage, the Roquefort, and the Guise. In Liguria (Genoese territory), the cheese made of ewes' milk is preferred. The Laplanders make a sort of cheese of the milk of the reindeer. According to Mr. Marshall, the average yearly pro- duce of cheese from the milk of a cow, in England, is from three to four cwt. or more than double the weight of the butter. The imports of cheese, in 1831, into Eng- land, amounted to 134,459 cwt., almost the whole of which came from Holland and Belgium. In the United States, the quantity of cheese made is considerable, particularly in the northern and eastern states. The export of this article, mainly to the West 25 290 ANIMAL FOOD. Indies and to British North America, has amounted to $650,000, (Comm. Diet. Am. edit.); although in 1840 the entire amount of both butter and cheese exported was only $210,750. There is hardly any alimentary substance, on the die- tetic value and digestibility of which so much contrariety of opinion has been expressed, as in respect to cheese. The question has been mainly discussed, however, by overfed citizens, dyspeptics, epicures and dyspepsia doc- tors. Large masses of mankind have eaten largely, from the earliest times, of cheese, and have made it their chief animal nutriment, without any doubts as to its being wholesome, and certainly with no gastric uneasi- ness or laborious digestion in consequence. The weight of medical testimony, at least of city doctors, from Celsus to Gregory, is adverse to the s'alubrity of cheese as a condiment, or kind of dessert after dinner, or for supper; and they are right, considering the class whom they address—persons leading a civic life, who eat an abundance of meat, and who take inadequate exercise in the open air. It certainly is a great fallacy to be- lieve that a person after he has eaten to repletion of sub- stantial viands of all kinds, including a large proportion of boiled, roast and fried meats, can eat cheese with any advantage, or if at all, with any impunity. The practice would only be paralleled by his nibbling instead at the white of egg, hard boiled, with a little butter, or a thin slice of highly seasoned and dried beef or venison. Cheese after dinner, is a new dinner after the first. Cheese, and especially toasted cheese, is albuminous food with oil; for cheese consists of casein and butter, when it is made of cream, and even when made of unskimmed milk, it still contains some butyraceous matter. Now, food of this kind for supper, and before the hearty din- EGG—ITS COMPOSITION. 291 ner of a few hours preceding has been digested, is too much for a common stomach; and either it will show its uneasiness by pain, spasm, or feeling of weight at the epigastrium, or there will follow headache, or stricture across the chest, and other disagreeable effects con- nected with the latter stage of digestion. If a person of a gouty habit sup on cheese, he will not be sur- prised at an attack of gout in consequence of this indulgence. But all this does not prove cheese to be unwholesome, but only that the time is ill chosen for it to be eaten. Let the citizen, like the ploughman, break- fast or even dine on bread and cheese, and he will have small cause of complaint. If he have any fears about the cheese being insoluble in his stomach, he may as well be apprised that vinegar is a solvent of this substance, but that alcohol and its combinations are not. This reminds me of the fact, that cheese and butter which have been salted, suit many stomachs better than the fresh articles. Egg.—The egg is another animal product, which is largely and extensively used for the food of man. The relative weight of the different parts of the egg are, ac- cording to Dr. Prout, as follows: shell and membrane, (in a thousand parts) 106.9; albumen or white, 604.2; yelk, 28S.9. The white or glaire (albumen), consists of two or three laminae; it is composed, according to Gmelin, of albumen 12.0, mucus 2.7, salts 0.3, and water 85.0 per cent. The coagulability of albumen by heat, distin- guishes it from casein. Albumen or glaire (or ovalbu- men), is distinguished from albumen of the serum of the blood (seralbumen) by its being coagulated by ether. Yelk (vitellus ovi) is a kind of yellow emulsion sus- pended in water by means of albumen, and inclosed in 292 ANIMAL FOOD. a sac called the yelk-bag. The yelk consists of yellow oil, with cry stalliz able fat, 28.75, albumen containing phosphorus, 17.47, water 53.8 per cent. (Pereira, Op. cit. p. 1389.) The nutritive properties of both the white and the yelk of the egg are generally known. Popular opinion, which attributes more nutrition to the latter, is borne out by the preceding analysis; but the belief of the more ready digestibility of the yelk is at variance with our knowledge of its composition. It is the part most fre- quently employed in emulsion with sugar and water, or wine, to impart nutriment and some feeling of strength to those exhausted by excessive labour or by protracted disease. Both the white and the yelk are more readily digested when in the soft than when in the hard state. The difference indeed is often as great between a soft boild egg and one that is hard boiled, as between any easily digestible article we might select, and one that is avowedly indigestible. The remarks which I made on the dietetic value of ■cheese will apply to eggs. Alone, soft-boiled, and eaten with bread or potatoes, or their equivalents, it is nutri- tive and digested with ease; but if hard boiled, or made a part of a meal in which animal flesh is freely used, then will eggs often be complained of, not because they are unwholesome, but because they needlessly augment the quantity of animal food at a meal. Mixed with flour and butter, or lard and sugar, they are largely used in the manufacture of cakes: in this state of combination they are, it seems to me, often oppressive to weak sto- machs. The common addition of butter to an egg which has been overdone, is adverse to peptic precepts, since it is adding one kind of animal oil to another kind, that of the yelk, and which is of itself more than can always be well disposed of by a weak stomach. EGGS EATEN IN LONDON. 293 A stranger to the great and diversified alimentary wants of a great city will be surprised to hear of the immense number of eggs taken to and consumed in London. In addition to the vast quantities brought to that capital from the^ country, there have been no fewer than 62,591,817 eggs imported from the conti- nent, chiefly from France, for the use of the people of the metropolis and Brighton, in one year, (1832.) Those imported from France amount to 55,000,000. "At this moment, indeed," writes Mr. M'Culloch, " the trade in eggs forms a considerable branch of our commerce with France, and affords constant employment to a number of small vessels." 25* CHAPTER XII. ANIMAL AND MIXED FOOD. Division of animal substances of the higher order—The fibrinous— beef, mutton, pork, duck, fowls, and venison. The gelatinous— veal, lamb, young poultry, certain fish—Animal food of a middle nature—Albuminous aliment—Modes of preparing meat for the table—Preservation of meat—Salt, an aid to digestion—Its early and general use—Whence procured—Quantity consumed in some countries—Beef and pork, the chief meats salted—Dry salting and pickling—Quantity of salt meat consumed—Irish exports—Salting of fish—Herring and cod salted—large exportations of—Alimen- tary value of salt meats—Scurvy, how avoided—Variety with simplicity of food—Mixed food—Experiments in Scotland—Ad- vantages of an abstinence from animal flesh—Mr. Stephens's ex- perience—Large consumption of meat not a test of civilization— Proportionate use of meat in London, Paris, Brussels, Glasgow, and Geneva—Portable soup—different kinds and preparation of— Mode of preserving meat unchanged for a terra of years. My notice of the higher forms of organized animal substances used for food will be brief. They have been divided into the fibrinous, the gelatinous, and the albu- minous. Under the first head, in which fibrin predomi- nates, we have the flesh of those animals of adult age whose muscles are red and charged with osmazome. When dressed for the table, the flesh assumes a brownish or reddish-brown hue: it includes beef, mutton, venison, hare, geese, ducks, and pigeons. These are called the dark meats, and when the animal which furnished them was RELATIVE DIGESTIBILITY OF BEEF AND MUTTON. 295 not too old, and the muscular fibre is not too firm or hard, they supply abundant and stimulating nutriment. The chief art, and that which in common cookery is seldom attained, for preparing them for the table, is to preserve sufficient softness of fibre and natural juices. Of the various fashions, stewing is perhaps the best for a weak stomach. These meats furnish the most stimulating and nutritive soups, and both in their solid state and in the last mentioned mode of preparation, they are best adapt- ed to the phlegmatic, to those who encounter much labour and bodily fatigue in the open air, and in the case of convalescents where there is no fever, thirst, or hot skin, or suspicion of remaining inflammation of any organ. There are differences in the nutritive power as well as digestibility of some of these meats. Beef is regarded as more nourishing, and as enabling a person accustomed to flesh meat, to bear more fatigue and display more strength than if he were to eat mutton. Humphries, an English pugilist, was for a while fed on beef, but as he got too much flesh in consequence, he was obliged to change to mutton. On the other hand, I am fully per- suaded that beef is not nearly as digestible as mutton, by dyspeptics and other invalids; and hence, by these persons, whether they refer their sufferings directly to the organs of digestion or to oppression at the chest and palpitation of the heart, or to violent headache, or remoter pain of the limbs, mutton should have the preference over beef. They who are predisposed to convulsions, or to apoplectic seizure, will incur no little danger by careless and imperfect mastication of beef, and swallowing the pieces without adequate comminu- tion. I have known fatal apoplexy to be brought on by a full meal of beef in an old person, who had scarcely 296 ANIMAL FOOD. masticated the meat; and on another a fatal return of the disease from a similar cause. When animal broth is allowable, the lean of good beef is better than that of mutton, as less greasy, and with more osmazome in its composition. Pork, classed with the fibrinous meats, has less tena- cious fibre, and more fat both external to the muscles and interposed between their filaments. Except the Jews and Mohammedans, the people, in most parts of the world, are eaters of the flesh of swine. Pork was considered, by the ancients, as the most wholesome and nourishing of meats; and hence, as Galen has remarked, after Hippocrates, it is the food best adapted to the strong and robust, and to those habituated to violent exercises. It formed the chief animal aliment of the athletae of Greece and Rome, who complained of a sensible diminu- tion of their strength, when they abandoned its use for any length of time. To the labourer in the open air, pork, in moderate quantities, is a nourishing and whole- some aliment, on condition that a full proportion of esculent roots, or of boiled cabbage,* or spinach, be eaten with it. The addition of a little vinegar to the salt used will not be amiss. But the artisan, and the citizen generally, who takes little out-door exercise, and whose digestion may, from other causes, be enfeebled, had better avoid pork. It not unfrequently purges those who are unaccustomed to its use. The gelatinous class of meats include those of the young of most animals, in which not only fibrin is in smaller proportion than in adults, but in which, also, * If the water from the first or half boiling be thrown away, and the process completed in fresh water, much of the unpleasant fla- vour and effects of boiled cabbage will be prevented. GELATINOUS FOOD—POULTRY—FISH. 297 osmazome is nearly wanting. Certain tendinous parts of animals, such as the feet and legs, furnish gelatine in large proportion, and hence they are used in the prepa- ration of jelly. Broths made of gelatinous meat, such as veal, should be boiled sufficiently long for the extraction of the gelatine, and until they become so charged with it that they readily gelatinize on cooling. Common veal broth, wanting the stimulus of osmazome, and having acquired more fat than gelatine, is hard of diges- tion by dyspeptics. But if the boiling be continued in a moderate quantity of water until the gelatine is freely exhausted, the broth, with a suitable addition of salt, is both digestible and nourishing. Lamb six months old, is, we are told, more tender than one two months old. Meats of this class are better adapted than the fibrinous to the young, the sanguine and the plethoric, to those recovering from fever and inflammatory diseases, and, in general, to those who are restricted from a free use of animal food. Of a middle nature between the fibrinous and gela- tinous,— that is, participating in both,—is the flesh of poultry and of certain fish: the fibres, though of a less decided colour, and even in some cases white, are akin to those of the dark meat, while the intervening tissue furnishes gelatin largely. Poultry, again, such as ca- pons, pullets and turkeys, varies in its dietetic effects, according as it is young and gelatinous, or old and more fibrinous and mixed with fat. Associated with the former, are sole, whiting, perch and carp, and with the latter, cod, mackerel, eel, shad and salmon. Poultry of middle age furnishes the most esteemed food to the chronic invalid and the convalescent from acute disease. The fatter ones are not so well adapted 298 ANIMAL FOOD. to dietetic uses as the others; and it ought to be enjoined on the cook, if she be required to make chicken broth, for example, to remove the skin first, for there adheres to it a good deal of fat, which, if allowed to remain in the broth, would cause gastric uneasiness in the invalid. In eating either roast or boiled fowl, of either the white or dark meats, a dyspeptie ought always to abstain from the skin. Albuminous aliment includes oysters, muscles, eggs, roe of fish, brain, liver and blood, and sweet bread. There are various modes of preparing animal flesh for alimentary use,—as by boiling, baking, roasting and stewing. The external or hard coat, formed by baking and roasting, and into which much fat has infiltrated and been converted into empyreuma, should be avoided by the invalid. By the common fashion of boiling meat for the table in a large quantity of water, and in open ves- sels, much of its flavour and juices are lost. In a close vessel, and in a small quantity of water, over a slow fire, the result is different: the texture of the meat is soft, and its flavour well preserved. Various plans have been adopted for preserving meat so as to render it fit for use at future periods and in dis- tant places. Of these, salting is the most common, and that which has been practiced to the greatest extent. I ought to mention, in advance, that of all condimental additions to food, and particularly to animal food, salt is the most generally employed. Its use in this way is very instrumental to healthy digestion; indeed, according to some physiologists, it is by its decomposition that the gastric juice derives the supply of hydrochloric (mu- riatic) acid, which is one of the chief solvents of food in the stomach. By both civilized and savage people, salt is used with their food, and is in virtue of what might SALT—ITS UTILITY AND ABUNDANCE. 299 be called an instinctive appetite. The earliest notice of salt occurs in Genesis, xix. 26, Lev. xi. 13, and in the Iliad, lib. ix. 214. Its moderate and regular use, is a good preservative against intestinal worms. We are told of different instances of persons who, from aversion to the use of salt, have been dreadfully affected with worms. Its effects on animals, particularly the rumi- nants, are very salutary: it gives more consistence to the fat and more taste to the meat of animals, fed with a view to their being killed for market. It also pre- vents in them the effects of rainy seasons and wet pas- turages. The sources of supply of this valuable article, are, first, from the water of the ocean, hence its com- mon name of sea or marine salt; second, from mines; and third, from saline springs. It is found in certain plants, and in the blood and other fluids of man. The chemical names of salt are muriate or hydrochlorate of soda, and, more recently, chloride of sodium. The salt consumed in Great Britain, is procured by the evaporation of the water of brine springs. The salt districts are in Cheshire, Staffordshire and Worcester- shire. The principal salt mines on the continent of Europe, are at Wielitska in Poland, Catalonia in Spain, Loowur in Hungary; to these may be added many places in Asia and Africa. In the United States, a large quantity of salt is procured from the saline springs, in Sa- lina, state of New York, near Pittsburg in Penn., on the Kenhawa in Virginia, and elswhere, making a total of 7,000,000 bushels. In addition to this home supply, a great deal is imported from Portugal and the Cape de Verds, where it is made from sea water. Upwards of 2,500,000 bushels were obtained from the Salina springs, in 1838, and about 2,000,000 from the Kenhawa springs. The consumption of salt in some parts of Europe and 300 ANIMAL FOOD. in the United States, is immense. That in France is estimated at nineteen and a half pounds per individual annually, and in England as high as twenty-two pounds for each person. Taking the population of Great Britain at 16,500,000 persons, at the time when the calculation was made, and this would require the consumption of 363,000,000 pounds, or 161,000 tons. Exclusive of this immense home consumption, there is an annual export of 10,000,000 bushels, which, at 56 lbs. a bushel, is equal to 250,000 tons:—of this, in 1831,2,130,000 bushels were sent to the United States. In 1840, our imports of this ar- ticle were valued at rather more than a million of dollars. All kinds of animal substances may be preserved by salt; though beef, pork and fish are the staples for this purpose. The pieces of the animal in general best suited for salting, are those which contain fewest of the large blood-vessels, and are most solid. Salting is performed in different ways, either by dry rubbing, or by immersing the meat in pickle previously prepared. Meat will keep longer by the first of these processes, or dry salting; but it is more altered in its desirable properties, than by the latter. Beef, and pork in a less degree, properly salted with salt alone, acquire a green colour, but if an ounce of saltpetre be allowed to each five pounds of salt, the muscular fibre takes on a fine red colour: this apparent improvement, however, is more than compensated for by its becoming harder and harsher to the taste, to cor- rect which a proportion of sugar or molasses is added; but the red colour, if desired, may be given without hardening the meat, by the addition of a little cochineal. Salted meat is either preserved immersed in pickle inclose vessels, or dried, when it gets the name of bacon, ham, or hung beef. The drying of salt meat is effected either BACON AND SALT BEEF. 301 by hanging it in a dry and well warmed place, or by exposing it at the same time to wood smoke, which gives it a peculiar flavour, much admired, as in the Virginia and Westphalia hams and Hamburgh beef, and which also tends to preserve it by the antiseptic action of the pyroligneous acid. The quantity of bacon and hams exported from Ire- land and sent for the most part to England, is believed, by Mr. McCulloch, to amount to little less than 500,000 cwt. a year. That of pork, salted and packed, may be estimated at 150,000 cwt. The consumption of salt beef is not nearly as great now, in England, as it was in former times, when it was usual for most families, at least in the country, to supply themselves with a stock of salt beef in October or No- vember, which served for their consumption until the ensuing summer. The universal establishment of mar- kets, where fresh beef may at all times be procured, renders the practice of salting beef no longer necessary. From considerations similar to those which existed in England, the agricultural part of the population in the United States, which includes, happily, by far the greater number of the whole, have recourse to the salting of pork, and, in the southern and western states, of subse- quently smoking it. The consumption of this kind of meat must be immense in this country. There is hardly a household south of the Potomac, in which, as a matter of course, a quantity of pork is not cured by salting and smoking, every winter, adequate to the wants of the family, including often a large number of negro de- pendants, for the ensuing year. A similar provision of salted or pickled pork is made by the inhabitants of the northern section of the Union. The exports of pickled pork, bacon, lard and live hogs, 26 302 ANIMAL FOOD. in 1S40, from the United States, amounted to 1,894,894 dollars; and of beef, tallow, hides and horned cattle, to 623,373 dollars. The entire amountof animal provisions, including butter and cheese, was about 2,750,000 dollars. The salting of fish constitutes a still more important and extensive branch of industry, and consequently con- tributes more to aliment, if we have reference to the number of countries concerned in the trade, than the salting of meat. The chief fish caught and preserved in this way are herring, mackerel, cod, salmon and pilchard. To Beukels or Beukelson belongs the honour of the invention of pickling or salting herrings, in the latter part of the fourteenth century; and it was better timed gratitude than most sovereigns exhibit, when Charles V. visited his grave and ordered a magnificent tomb to be erected to his memory. Since this early period, the Dutch have uniformly maintained their ascendency in the herring fishery; but owing to the Reformation, and the relaxed observance of Lent, in Catholic countries, the demand for herrings upon the continent, is less than it was three or four centuries ago. The total quantity of herrings cured by those engaged in the English herring fishery, in 1831, was within a few hundreds of 440,000 barrels, of which 265,000 barrels were exported. Cod is prepared in two different ways; that is, it is either gutted, salted, and then barrelled, in which state it is denominated green or pickled cod,—or it is dried and cured, and then it is called dried cod. About eight-tenths of the dried fish exported from Newfound- land by British subjects, are sent to Spain, Portugal, and other continental nations; the rest goes to the West Indies and to Great Britain. In 1831, the American exports, resulting from the Newfoundland fisheries, amounted to 250,514 quintals of dried, and 102,770 of SALT MEAT—SCURVY. 303 pickled cod; their aggregate value being 1,050,000 dollars. In 1840, the amount was only equal to 541,000 dollars. The average annual produce of the French cod fishery, from 1826 to 1830, was 244,601 quintals. The quantity of codfish, particularly that which has been dried, ex- ported from Norway, is great. The average annual amountof mackerel taken by United States citizens and vessels, from 1831 to 1835, was 274,000 barrels. The alimentary effects of salt meat and fish will vary with the quantity of vegetable food taken at the same time, and the state of atmosphere in which the persons using it habitually live. The disease of scurvy, which was at one time attributed almost entirely to a diet of salted animal matters, is fully as much developed by a humid atmosphere and defective or faulty vegetable ali- ment, as by the cause popularly assigned. On board ship, if the crews have dry and well aired quarters, there is great probability of their being exempt from scurvy,even though their food should be, as far as relates to the ani- mal portion of it, entirely of salt meat. My own ob- servation induces me to believe, very firmly, that if the crews of vessels be supplied with fresh water in abund- ance, biscuit of good quality, and the customary allow- ance of beans or peas, with a modicum of molasses and vinegar, they may eat daily, for a twelvemonth, of salt beef or salt fish, without suffering from scurvy, provided all the condition before mentioned, of dry hammocks and dry clothing, when they turn in, be complied with. I have been on board a vessel which had a six months passage, all but seven days, from the Mediterranean to China, without my having had to treat a single case of scurvy, or even of disease complicated with scorbutic symptoms. The return passage in another vessel, with another crew, from Canton to Cowes, England, was five 304 ANIMAL AND MIXED FOOD. months and a half; but we were equally clear of scurvy as before. In both instances, the men were well fed and well treated—in the manner which I have just indicated. Heartburn, waterbrash," and other dyspeptic symp- toms, are represented to be very common among those who eat much salted and smoked meats. That the ac- cusation is well founded, in many cases of persons of feeble powers of digestion, must be admitted; but in general, when not eaten in quantity, and if good bread and succulent vegetables be taken at the same time, this kind of aliment may be considered as well adapted, at any rate, to the active and laborious class of people, in both town and country,—by whom, in the United States, it is freely consumed. But although the quality be not objectionable, we must protest against the ex- cessive quantity used by the American people, both of this and other kinds of meat—the salted and the fresh. I have throughout this work advocated variety, and admit that a small portion of animal food is useful and proper to be added to the fuller supply of nutri- mental vegetable substances at the same time. The classes of persons to whom this cautious limitation more emphatically applies, are children and females, whose health and constitution are so often broken down by excessive alimentation and deficient exercise. In proof of the relatively small amount of food of any kind, and the fraction of reduced animal matter particularly, on which health can be well maintained, I shall introduce, in this place, the following particulars. They are derived from the " Fifth Report of the In- spectors of Prisons of Scotland," &c: By Frederick Hill, 1840.* * This Extract was sent to the author of this work by Mr. DIETETIC EXPERIMENTS. 305 " During the present year, an experiment in diet has been made in the Glasgow Bridewell, which, although not carried on for a sufficient time, and under a suffi- cient variety of circumstances, to render it safe to adopt as a guide, appears to me to be of sufficient interest and importance to record, and to submit to your lordship's attention. Eight different forms of diet were prepared, and a class of prisoners was placed on each diet, and confined to it for one month. Before commencing, each prisoner was examined as to the state of his health, and weighed; and the same was done at the end of the experiment. The following were the dif- ferent diets, and the results of the various trials of them: First Diet.—Cost, including cooking,* 2id. Breakfast.—Eight ounces of oatmeal, made into por- ridge,t with a pint of buttermilk. Dinner.—Three pounds of boiled potatoes, with salt. Supper.—Five ounces of oatmeal, made into por- ridge, with half a pint of buttermilk. Ten prisoners were put on this diet (five men and five boys), all under sentence of confinement for two months, and all employed at light work (picking hair and cotton). At the beginning of the experiment, eight were in good health, and two in indifferent Combe, with a view to its insertion in that gentleman's " Notes on the United States of America;" but it came too late. Mr. Combe will not, it is believed, be displeased at the use to which his docu- ment is now applied. * The cost of the different diets was calculated according to the prices of food at the time the experiment was made (Feb- ruary, 1840); at the ordinary prices of food, the cost would be lower. f Porridge is oatmeal boiled in water, with as much salt as is wanted. 26* 306 MIXED FOOD. health; at the end, all were in good health, and they had, on an average, gained more than four pounds each in weight, only one prisoner (a man) having lost in weight. The greatest gain was nine pounds four ounces, and was made by one of the men; the prisoner who was reduced in weight had lost five pounds two ounces. Second Diet.—Cost, including cooking, 2id. The only difference between this diet and the last, was the substitution of a third of a pint of skimmed milk at breakfast for a pint of buttermilk. Five young men and five young women were put upon this diet, some of whom had been in prison for several months. The men were employed at net- making; two of the women at weaving, and three of the women at winding and twisting. The result of the experiment on this diet was similar to that on the last, and was so far confirmatory of it. All were in good health at the beginning of the experiment, and all were in good health at the end. On an average, each prisoner gained rather more than four pounds in weight, —the greatest gain being twelve and a half pounds (by a woman), and the only loss (also a woman) being one pound. All the prisoners liked this diet; but they said they should prefer having it twice a week only, to having it every day. Third Diet.—Cost, including cooking, 2§d. This diet was the same as the first, excepting that the po- tatoes were baked instead of boiled. Three young men, two boys, and five young women were put upon this diet. Most of them had been in confinement about five months. The men and boys, and two of the women, were employed in weaving, and the three other women in winding and twisting. All were in GLASGOW BRIDEWELL. 307 good health, both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. There was, however, an average loss of one and a half pounds in weight,—the greatest loss being ten pounds, by a man, who had been in prison nearly five months; and the greatest gain, six and a half pounds, by a woman, who had been in prison about eight weeks. The prisoners all disliked the baked potatoes. Fourth Diet.—Cost, including cooking, 3ld. Break- fast and supper, the same as in the first diet. Dinner; potato-soup, containing two pounds of potatoes, and a quarter of a pound of meat. It should be remarked, that this is the first of the diets which contains any ani- mal food except milk. Twenty-one prisoners were put upon this diet, viz. sixteen males, varying in age from fifteen to twenty- three, and five females, whose ages varied from fourteen to twenty. The periods of previous confinements varied from one month to nearly ten months. Thirteen of the males and one of the females were employed in weav- ing, one male in warping, one male in shoemaking, and one male in netmaking; the other four (females) were employed in twisting. At the beginning of the experi- ment, twenty were in good health and one in indifferent health; at the end, these twenty continued in good health, and the remaining prisoner had improved in health. On the whole, however, the prisoners lost in weight, the average loss being about one and a quarter pounds. The greatest loss was nine pounds, (by a male weaver, who had been in confinement about five months;) and the greatest gain was also nine pounds, (by a female weaver, who had also been in prison about five months.) Notwithstanding the greater expense 308 MIXED FOOD. of this diet, all the prisoners, without exception, dis- liked it. Fifth Diet.—Cost, including cooking, A\d. Break- fast and supper, the same as in the first diet. Dinner, half a pound of meat and a pound of potatoes. Twenty prisoners (fifteen males and five females) were put upon this diet. With the exception of two men who were rather old, the ages of the male prisoners varied from twenty-four to forty-five; those of the fe- males from twenty-two to thirty-eight. The periods of previous confinement varied from a fortnight to ten months. Nine of the male prisoners were employed in weaving, two in warping, one in shoemaking, and the others in sundry employments. One of the females was occupied in weaving, and the others in twisting. At the beginning of the experiment, fifteen of the pri- soners were in good health and five in indifferent health; at the end, those who had been in good health con- tinued to be so, and two who had been in indifferent health had improved; the health of the other three re- mained indifferent. The average weight of the prison- ers was nearly the same at the end of the experiment as at the beginning; upon the whole, however, there was a slight loss. The greatest gain was seven pounds, (by a woman employed in twisting, who had been in prison nearly five months;) and the greatest loss was eleven and a half pounds, by a man employed in weav- ing, who had been in prison about one month. This was the most expensive of all the diets; never- theless, it will be seen that its effects on the health of the prisoners was not so satisfactory as that of some of the other diets; nor was this diet generally liked by the prisoners, all in the class, except five, (four of whom were females,) preferring the ordinary prison diet, which, MILK AND POTATOES—BROTH. 309 with variations in quantity according to the different kinds of work, &c. is the same as the seventh diet. Sixth Diet.—Cost, including cooking, 3c?. Breakfast.—The same as in the first diet. Dinner.—One pound of bread. Supper.—One pound of potatoes. Ten prisoners, five males and five females, were put upon this diet. All were young, their ages varying from thirteen to twenty, and only one being more than seventeen. The periods of previous confinement varied from six weeks to seven months, the average being four months. Excepting one, who was a shoemaker, all were employed at light kinds of work. All were in good health, both at the beginning and at the end of the experiments. On an average there was a gain in weight of two and three-quarter pounds per prisoner; the greatest gain being nine pounds, (by a female,) and the greatest loss six pounds, (by a shoemaker.) All the prisoners, except two girls, preferred the ordinary prison diet to this diet. Seventh Diet.—Cost, including cooking, 3id. Breakfast and supper.—The same as in the first diet. Dinner.—Two pints of broth,* containing four ounces of barley and one ounce of bone, with vegetables; also eight ounces of bread. This, as already observed, is very much like the ordi- nary prison diet. Ten prisoners were put upon this diet, (five young men and five young women.) The periods of previous confinement varied from three weeks to nine months. One of the men was employed in shoemaking, two in cabinet-making, and two in winding. Four of the wo~ * Anglice "Soup." 310 MIXED FOOD. men were occupied in winding and one in sewing. All were in good health, both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. Upon the whole, there was a decrease in the average weight of the prisoners, but the decrease was not quite half a pound each. The greatest loss was five and a half pounds, by a man who had been in prison five months, and who had been employed in winding; and the greatest gain was seven pounds, by a woman, who had also been in prison about five months, and who was also employed in winding. Eighth Diet.—Cost, including cooking, \%d. Breakfast.—Two pounds of potatoes, boiled. Dinner.—Three pounds of potatoes, boiled. Supper.—One pound of potatoes, boiled. A class of ten young men and boys was put on this diet. All had been in confinement for short periods only, and all were employed at light work, teasing hair. At the beginning of the experiment eight were in good health and two in indifferent health; at the end, the eight continued in good health, and the two who had been in indifferent health had improved. There was, on an average, a gain in weight of nearly three and a half pounds per prisoner, the greatest gain being eight and a quarter pounds, by a young man, whose health had been indifferent at the beginning of the experiment. Only two prisoners lost at all in weight, and the quan- tity in each case was trifling. The prisoners all ex- pressed themselves quite satisfied with this diet, and re- gretted the change back again to the ordinary diet. Upon the whole, the prisoners who were put upon these different diets increased in weight and improved in health, the females improving most in health, and gaining most in weight. How far any one of these diets would prove to be superior to the others in a long MONKISH REGIMEN AT MOUNT SINAI. 311 experiment, and with prisoners of different ages, em- ployed at different kinds of work, and confined for dif- ferent periods, I cannot say; but so far as a trial of one month can be depended upon, it would appear that the cheaper diets, and those containing no other animal food than milk, are the best. There can, however, be no doubt that, whatever diet be chosen, whether one with- out meat or not, it should allow of frequent changes, giving a preference to each article of food in its season." To the same purport, the advantages of a limited quantity of reduced food, that is, of vegetable, with a very small proportion of aninial substances, and under different circumstances, is the testimony of Mr. Stephens, who is certainly no ascetic. The passage to which I refer is in Chapter XVI. of his entertaining work, entitled,—Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land; and occurs in his remarks on the monks at the convent of Mount Sinai. "Their discipline," says Mr. S., "was not rigid, save in one particular, and that a matter in regard to which there has been much discussion with us; they never ate meat; no animal food of any kind is permitted to enter the walls of the convent. During all the various periods of their abode in the convent, some thirty, some forty, and one more than seventy-five years, not one of them had eaten a particle of animal food; and yet I never saw more healthy-looking men. Hardier men I have seen, for they are indolent in their habits, take but little exer- cise, and in most cases show a strong disposition to cor- pulency; but I had some little opportunity of testing their ability to endure fatigue; and, though the superior soon walked himself out of breath, the monk who guided us up the mountain, and who was more than sixty years old, when he descended, after a hard day's labour, 312 ANIMAL AND MIXED FOOD. seemed less tired than either Paul or myself. I am aware that climate may make a difference; but, from my own observation and experience, I am perfectly satisfied that, even in our climate, invalids and persons of sedentary habits, and, indeed, all except labouring men, would be much benefited by a total abstinence from animal food. I have travelled for a week at a time, night and day, not under the mild sky of the East, but in the rough climate of Russia, and found myself perfectly able to endure the fatigue upon bread and milk diet; and I have been told that the Tartars, who ride post from Constan- tinople to Bagdad in an incredibly short time, never sleeping, except on horseback, during the whole of their immense journey, rigidly abstain from anything more solid and nutritious than eggs." It so happens that the greatest consumers of meat in civilized countries are inhabitants of the cities,—the very class of persons, who are prevented, in general, from taking that exercise in the open air, or working under a similar exposure, by which alone the bad effects of this kind of gross alimentation can be obviated. Mr. McCulloch seems inclined to make the increased consumption of animal food a kind of evidence if not test of progressive civilization; but the English, from the time of Julius Caesar, always indicated a marked pre- ference for beef and other meat, and their fondness for, and consumption of such aliment at this time may be regarded as an original penchant of the same nature as some other longings of their Anglo-Saxon de- scendants in both hemispheres; such, for instance, as that of appropriating to themselves the lands of other people, whether they are on the Ind or beyond the Ganges, in New Holland or in Texas and Mexico. The inhabitants of the Llanos in Caraccas, and of the Pam- MEAT EATEN IN ENGLAND. 313 pas of La Plata are greater beef-eaters than the repre- sented wisdom of the Londoners, in Common Council; but yet we cannot say much of either the actual or pro- gressive civilization of these people. Some idea may be formed of the great attention given by the English to the raising of cattle, for the dairy and the supply of animal flesh, as well as of horses, &c. for draught and locomotion, from the proportion of land in pasturage. Mr. Marshall* shows, after a tabular state- ment of the superficies of each county in England and Wales, and the quantity of land for pasturage and til- lage in each, that the entire amount in both these last mentioned countries is, in tillage, 10,661,000 statute acres,—in pasture, 15,869,120; and in woods and un- productive, &c. 10,125,080. The amount of cattle annually slaughtered in Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland,) for the use of the inhabitants, is estimated by Mr. McCulloch at 1,275,000. Assuming the population of London to be 1,450,000, and the entire amount of meat consumed in this capital being 154,434,850 lbs., the annual consump- tion of butcher's meat is, this gentleman thinks, very near 107 pounds for each individual, young and old. The estimate of Mr. Middleton goes far beyond this: he supposes it to be, exclusive of fish and poultry, 234 lbs. for every individual. According to Mr. Chabral, the consumption of butcher's meat in Paris amounts to between 85 and 86 lbs. for each individual. Another estimate (see Bowring, Com. Report on Switzerland) makes it 93 lbs. At Brussels, the consumption is sup- posed to average 89 lbs. for each person. In Glasgow, * Digest of all the accounts relating to the population, produc- tions, revenue, &c. of Great Britain and Ireland. 27 314 ANIMAL FOOD. the use of butcher's meat is in nearly the same propor- tion as it is in London. In Geneva (city), it is the highest, being 118 lbs. for each individual,—-or for the entire population of 24,000 inhabitants, 3,068,170 lbs. of beef, veal, mutton and pork. Allusion has been already made to the preparation of gelatin, called portable soup. This is more readily procured, by digesting the bones in hydrochloric acid, so as to extract the earthy matter (phosphate of lime), and then by boiling the residue in water under pres- sure. This process, by the benevolent exertions of M. D'Arcet, in Paris, has been carried on to a great extent, with a view of furnishing the poor with animal nutriment at a small cost. But without the addition of some fatty matter, such as lard, and also osmazome, this much-lauded gelatin is a very indifferent food. The introduction of some leguminous seeds, and a little onion into the gelatin soup, gives it a higher flavour, and the beans or peas increase its nutrimental properties. The following is a better, and more generally used, kind of portable soup for long voyages: Beef and gelatinous parts, in the proportion of twelve pounds of beef, ten pounds of mutton, four calves-feet, three fillets of veal, are to be boiled in water, as in the common way of preparing meat-soup for the table, every now and then skimming off the fat until the soup possesses the requisite flavour. It is then to be allowed to cool, and is better skimmed at this time than before: whites of egg are to be added to clarify it, and afterwards it is to be slightly boiled. The liquor is then to be strained through flannel, and gradually evaporated, in the water bath, to the consistence of a very thick paste, which is to be spread rather thin upon a smooth stone, then cut into cakes, and, lastly, dried in a stove until it becomes brittle. MEANS OF PRESERVING MEAT. 315 These cakes consist of gelatin and osmazome, and are of course quite nutritive: they will keep for years, if carefully put away in boxes and protected from the air. When intended to be used, nothing more is required than to dissolve a sufficient quantity in boiling water, which, with the addition of salt, makes at once a palatable soup. Fowls, as hens and turkeys, may enter into the composition of these cakes; or, if a cheaper compound be required, the gelatinous portion may be increased by the addition of bones, prepared in the manner already specified. Animal food of every kind, and even the most delicate vegetables, may be preserved unchanged, if heated to the temperature of boiling water, in vessels from which the air is completely excluded. Food, thus prepared, has been kept for fifteen years; and upon opening the vessels, after this long time, it has been found as fresh and well-flavoured as when originally put in them. The process is as follows:— Let the substance to be preserved be first parboiled, or rather somewhat more, the bones of the meat being previously removed. Put the meat into a tin cylinder, fill up the vessel with seasoned rich soup, and then solder on the lid, pierced with a small hole. When this has been done, let the tin vessel thus prepared be placed in brine and heated to the boiling point, to complete the cooking of the meat. The hole of the lid is now to be closed by soldering, whilst the air is rarefied. The vessel is then allowed to cool, and from the diminution of volume, in consequence of the reduction of tem- perature, both ends of the cylinder are pressed inwards and become concave. The tin cases, thus hermetically sealed, are exposed in a test-chamber, for at least a month, to a temperature above what they are ever 316 ANIMAL FOOD. likely to encounter; from 90° to 110° F. If the process has failed, putrefaction takes place, and gas is evolved, which will cause the ends of the case to bulge, so as to render them convex, instead of concave. But the con- tents of those cases which stand the test will infallibly keep perfectly sweet and good in any climate, and for any number of years. If there be any taint about the meat when put up, it inevitably ferments, and is de- tected in the proving process.— Ure's Diet, of Arts and Manufactures. There is yet one other means of preserving parts of animal flesh, which is quite general in some countries, as Germany, and, to a certain extent, common in a great many. It is by cutting up or mincing different parts of the animal, adding savoury herbs and spices, and pressing the whole into masses of various sizes, often into the clean intestines of animals, and then smoked. To this compound the term sausage is ap- plied. Blood-sausages, usually called black-puddings, made of bacon and coagulated blood, are among the coarsest and least digestible variety. Sausages some- times undergo a modified putrefaction, and become an irritant poison. Various accounts have been given of the sausage poison by Drs. Kerner, Daun, and Horn. It has, at various times, committed great ravages in Germany, especially in the Wirtemberg territories, where 234 cases of poisoning with it occurred between the years 1793 and 1827; and of that number, no less than 110 proved fatal. Those sausages only become poisonous, which have been boiled before being salted and hung up, or when the spices and salt are deficient, and particularly when they are smoked too late or not sufficiently. They are poisonous only at a particular stage of decay, and cease to be so when putrefaction POISONED SAUSAGES AND CHEESE. 317 has advanced so far that sulphuretted hydrogen is evolved. The central part is often poisonous when the surface is wholesome.* (See Christison on Poisons, p. 585-8: 3d edit.; and Liebig, Organ. Chem.p. 307-8.) Cheese, also, on occasions, becomes poisonous, with- out any peculiarity in its appearance, taste or smell to indicate such a property. The symptoms produced by it are nearly the same with those caused by the poi- sonous sausage. They constitute various degrees and combinations of gastro-enteric inflammation. In the most severe cases, the quantity taken did not exceed four ounces, and was sometimes only an ounce. In some of the poisonous cheeses noticed, " the curd, be- fore being salted, is left for some time in a heap to fer- ment, in consequence of which it becomes sour, and afterwards ripens faster. But if the milk has been curdled with vinegar,—if the acid liquor, formed while it ferments, is not carefully drained off,—if the fer- mentation is allowed to go too far,—if too little salt was used to preserve the curd, or if flour has been mixed with the curd, the subsequent ripening or decay- ing of the cheese follows a peculiar course, and a con- siderable excess of caseic acid is formed, as well as some sebacic acid." (Christison, Op. cit.) * The person poisoned by putrefied sausages suffers from a gradual wasting of muscular fibre, and of all the constituents of the body similarly composed: he becomes much emaciated, dries to a complete mummy and finally dies. The body is stiff, as if frozen, and is not subject to putrefaction. During the progress of the disease, the saliva becomes viscous and acquires an offensive smell. 27* CHAPTER XIII. DRINKS. Water the basis of all drinks—Its importance in organized life— Thirst only to be allayed by water, or drinks chiefly watery—In- stinct always craves water—Is the only fitting drink—lis restora- tive powers,—contrasted with alcohol—Water of various degrees of purity—Means of clarifying water—Zinc roofs deteriorate water flowing from them—Hippocrates and Dr. Gregory's opinion respecting water—conditions adapting it to all persons, at all times—Temperature,—cold often beneficial—Water is nutrimental —Drinks, made of various acids, fruits, &c. added to water —Simple, saccharine, gummy, and bitter drinks—Conditions for a drink being salutary—Tea, its varieties,—first use in England;— consumption of, at this time, in England and United States—Com- position and properties of tea;—when it is detrimental.—Coffee,— its native country,—different varieties of,—amount of its pro- duction and consumption,—its first use in France and England— Is affected by other substances near it—Composition and properties of raw and of roasted coffee—Cases in which coffee is beneficial, and in which injurious. Drinks, on which I shall now make some observa- tions, are either of pure water or have water enter into their composition. Even those most inimical to health and the discharge of the functions of the living frame, or the alcoholic, consist, in good part, of water. But for this salutary dilution of their strength, alcoholic liquors, when drunk, would prove almost instanta- neously poisonous. Of the continual necessity of the WATER NECESSARY TO ORGANIZED LIFE. 319 human, as indeed of every organized living body, for a supply of water, the reader has been able already to form an idea, from remarks in a preceding chapter, on the aqueous principle of food. Vitality cannot be evinced, by a manifestation of any of its proper- ties, in vegetable or animal structure, without the pre- sence of water, which forms so large a proportion of the sap of plants and the blood of animals, and enters into the composition of all the vegetable and animal substances used for food. Digestion cannot be carried on in any of its stages without a due, and that is a large, proportion of water. Without this liquid, the alimentary matter could not be reduced to chyme, nor the chyme furnish chyle, nor the chyle become blood. By it is this vitalizing fluid fitted to flow in its vessels, and be conveyed to all the organs and tissues, in order to deposit in them their appropriate materials for growth and renovation. Largely introduced into the body for its support and vitality, water is also largely given out in the various secretions. It is indispen- sably necessary for a balance of the functions to be preserved. Thirst can only be allayed by water, or drinks mainly composed of water, with the addition to it, in a small degree, of some other principle, acid, saccharine, mucilaginous, or sometimes bitter. Whenever man is left to the cravings of the instinct of preservation of his frame,-as when wandering in the desert, or on a wrecked vessel, or tossing about with fever, he snatches at water as the only beverage to quench his thirst, cool his system, and renovate his decaying strength. Next to the nutritive fluid furnished by the maternal bosom, water is the one taken with avidity by the infant, as, if left to his primitive taste, it ever would be 320 DRINKS. by adult man; and even he, who in the madness of his evening revel drinks deep of the intoxicating bowl, and stoutly denies the fitness of water as a beverage, will, on the following morning, entreat for and clasp with eagerness the full pitcher of this liquid, which a few hours before he had so insolently derided. Both instinct and recovered reason now suggest the choice of the proper beverage; and, but for the curse of imitation and evil example, their joint influence could never be mistaken. When we say that water is the only fitting drink for man's daily and habitual use, we are sustained by the facts of the case. Water is the only liquid which is essential to the formation, development, and support of his frame: it is equal to all the exigencies of thirst, for the relief of present inconvenience, and of dilution, by mixing with his blood and other fluids, to prevent far- ther suffering and disease. Water is found in all cli- mates and habitable regions of the earth; and Provi- dence has nowhere offered in fountain, stream or well, in river or in lake, any liquid as a substitute for water. To be the universal beverage, it ought to be, as it is, everywhere attainable, and adequate to all our natural wants,—of appetite, growth, bodily and mental exer- cise, and activity. Even when the health suffers, and the body and mind are ill at ease, where is the restora- tive liquid or agent of any kind which can revive and renovate like water,—whether taken alone, in its purity, or with some slight saline and mineral impregnation. It is the beneficent menstruum and conductor of me- dicinal matter into the blood; and even when they are refused entrance, it readily finds its way, and not seldom accomplishes the cure for which they are lauded. How different the case with alcohol. If it is the men- MEANS OF PURIFYING WATER. 321 struum of medicinal substances,—it soon abandons them, and can neither obtain for them entrance, nor find its own way into the blood; and if in strange and anomal- ous cases it even is introduced, its action is deleterious, and, if in quantity, is soon deadly. It does not form a constituent part of any tissue or of any fluid in the healthy body; it retards, in place of aiding, those series of changes which the aliment undergoes before it is converted into blood: it is perturbating always, and de- leterious generally to the functions, whether they be merely of nutrition, or those by which man is enabled to speculate on his own situation, and to fulfil his higher destiny. Water, although it is found in all regions of the earth, is far from being equally good in all,—as when it bubbles up from the mountain spring, or is distilled from the clouds in the shape of rain. The two most common changes which it undergoes adverse to its culi- nary uses are, 1, owing to the large addition and mix- ture of earthy matters, by which it becomes turbid or muddy; 2, owing to its impregnation, and consequently unpleasant taste, by the solution in it of saline matters, and sometimes of gases. By rest, the earthy matters, which were merely suspended in the water, will mostly subside, and leave it comparatively clear; but a still more efficient means of clarifying it, is by filtering. There is a great variety of processes for attaining this object; but all are founded on the same principle, viz. the in- terposition of bodies, in the passage of the water, through which it parts with the foreign matters that are merely suspended or imperfectly mixed with it. The separation, therefore, is mechanical. A common instrument for the purpose is a filtering stone, suffi- ciently porous to allow of the percolation of water 322 DRINKS. through it, but retentive of the grosser particles and impurities. Of the like nature, but, in some respects, better, because allowing of a complete removal of the impurities which obstruct the passage of water through the filter, when it has been some time in use, is the following simple contrivance: A large earthen funnel, or stone bottle with the bottom beaten out, may have its neck loosely stopped with small stones, over which smaller may be placed, supporting layers of gravel in- creasing in fineness, and, lastly, covered to the depth of a few inches with fine sand, all thoroughly cleaned by washing. This apparatus may always be renewed, by taking out and washing the upper stratum of sand. A better method, again, is to filtrate by ascension:—this is done by having two jars, communicating together at the bottom; one contains the gravel, sand, &c; in the other, the turbid water is poured, which finds its way into the second, and, rising through the filtering matters, comes up quite clear. By means analogous to these, but on a large scale, river water is purified for the use of the inhabitants at Paris, Glasgow, Paisley, Chelsea, and other places. An improved apparatus consists of a small box, lined with lead, and having at its lower part charcoal between two layers of sand. The passage of the water through this filter, is accelerated by artificial pressure, by which, from an equal body and surface of water, seventeen times the quantity can be passed as through a common filter in the same time. (Ann. d'Hyg. &c. t. XXI, p. 230-1.) The nauseous odour and disagreeable taste imparted to water by vegetable or decayed substances, or animalculse, are removed by filtration,—through animal charcoal, or by common fil- tration and subsequent boiling. In many places where both spring and river water are deficient, rain water is saved by the inhabitants in CLARIFYING THE WATERS OF THE NILE. 323 large cisterns for the purpose. At sea, when the regular supply of water runs out, recourse may be had, if fa- vouring showers fall, to catch the rain, as it descends, on a sail spread horizontally midship; the centre of the sail being pressed downwards by a weight of any kind, so as to give it a conical shape. From this dependent and projecting part, the water drops through the can- vass, and is received in a proper vessel beneath. Re- course has been had also to distillation of sea-water, with more or less success, and by apparatus of more or less simplicity. Its empyreumatic taste is prevented by the passage of the vapour from the still through animal charcoal. The Egyptians clarify the water of the Nile, by put- ting almonds into it. Into an earthen jar filled with river water, a person introduces his arm and rubs the inside of the vessel with an almond paste in all direc- tions, until a prescribed portion has been rubbed away: the inside of the jar being rough facilitates this opera- tion. In this process the almond forms a kind of emul- sion by its oil uniting with the earth of the water, and thus causes an imperfect precipitate. In Sennaar, Dongola, and in Nubia, beans and even castor oil seeds are used instead of the almond. M. D'Arcet, after describing the above, and the common method of filtration by fil- tering stones, next details a plan which he found more successful in clarifying Nile water. It consists in the introduction of a solution of alum or of the powder itself, in the proportion of a quarter or even half a grain to a quart of water. (Ann. d'Hygiene, &c. t. IV, p. 377-81.) This means had already been used with success by the father of M. D'Arcet, in purifying the water of the Seine, at Paris. The Chinese had long been in the practice of clarifying the turbid water of their rivers, by stirring the fluid which has been drawn, 324 DRINKS. with a bamboo cane, into the hollow joint at the end of which a piece of alum had been introduced. It is less easy to correct the taste of water which is impregnated with saline and mineral substances, such as common salt, and salts of lime, sulphur and iron. Fortunately, however, these waters are not found to be detrimental to health, and the people using them soon become accustomed to their peculiar taste. Where the water is impregnated with earthy or mineral carbonates, boiling will, to a certain extent, decompose these, and cause a precipitate to the bottom of the vessel; and in this way correct the unpleasant taste, and prevent in a measure the inconveniences to which those unaccus- tomed to them would otherwise be subjected. Various methods were recommended and practised for purifying the water on board ship, which, after a time, becomes offensive to both smell and taste. One of the simplest and easiest is to expose the water to the air, by increasing its surface or by agitating and dividing it in the air by the aid of machinery. Char- ring the inside of the water casks was another approved method. But that which is now general in vessels of war, and in many merchantmen, is to put the water for the voyage in large iron tanks. The only recognisable change is an oxidation of the inside of the tank, and sometimes a slight ferruginous taste imparted to the water. The presence of iron seems to be necessary to the preservation of the purity of the water. When a water cask was coated with matter impermeable to mois- ture, the contained fluid still underwent the changes of decomposition, and became offensive, but when in a vessel similarly coated, some pieces of iron were put, the water remained as pure as if it was in iron vessels. (Keraudren, Ann. d'Hygiene, &c. t. IV.) It has been ascertained by M. Boutigny, who insti- WATER THE PROPER DRINK. 325 tuted a number of experimental observations on the subject, that the rain water flowing from zinc roofs is sufficiently impregnated with the oxide of this metal to be unfitted for a drink or being used in cookery. (Aim. d'Hygiene, &c. t. XVII.) Of the superior fitness of water over every other liquid, as a drink, we have the testimony of nearly every physician of eminence, from Hippocrates down to the present time. After speaking of different kinds of water, —hard, soft, saline and chalybeate,—Hippocrates, with his accustomed practical spirit, says: "A vigorous man, who enjoys good health, need not care about a choice of water: he may drink that which is near him with convenience. But when he desires, on account of dis- ease, to select the most fitting drinks, he will be guided by the following rules." I need not repeat them in this place, but proceed to observe, that with the invalid, the true question is, not what he shall add to water for his drink, either to make it palatable or to prevent its sitting heavy on his stomach or disordering his bowels: it is, the purity of the water and its temperature, as also the quantity to be drunk, and the time for drinking it. Dr. Gregory, after praising pure spring water,—and river water is still better,—as the best and most wholesome drink, and the most grateful to those who are thirsty, whether they be sick or well,—aiding, also, digestion, and strengthening the stomach, continues as follows:— Sect. MXXVII. " There are, indeed, some, though very few in number, to whom cold water, on account of a notable weakness, either of the body generally, or of the stomach, seems, on account of its coldness, to be preju- dicial. Water, however, either made tepid or boiled, and allowed to cool, and thus made soft, as it were, is still suitable to these persons." (Compestus Med. Ther.) 28 326 DRINKS. There is, in fact, no excuse for recourse to any cordial, especially to any alcoholic liquor, for drink, under the plea of either original or acquired weakness of stomach. On the contrary, almost the sole means, as far as drink is concerned, for recovery from and future avoidance of this infirmity, is to give a decided preference to a watery regimen. Even for the alleviation of present pain and spasm of the stomach, a tumbler full or two of hot water will, I know, prove prompt and efficient. I have again and again prescribed it in such cases, with the very best effects. The temperature at which water should be drunk, at or between meals, is partly a matter of habit, and partly of temperament and original constitution. In general, that is best which represents the mean temperature of the place, in temperate latitudes, at least, in which one lives. Cold water may be more safely indulged in during the earlier part of the day, when the body is in its greatest diurnal vigour, than towards evening, when it is less able to resist strong impressions of any kind. In sum- mer, when the skin is hot and dry, and the mouth and throat also dry, cold and even iced water, in moderate quantity, will be an agreeable and, at the same time, a salutary drink, by abating the excessive and almost morbid heat, which is apt to become, by the excitement it produces, a cause of indirect debility. Water of this coldness is better just before than during and after a meal, and if taken in the latter periods, it ought to be in smaller quantities. Water, besides serving the purpose of dilution, and be- ing the indispensable menstruum and medium by which other substances are kept in solution and conveyed from one part of the body to another, has also nutrimental properties of its own. A large proportion of that which WATER NUTRITIVE. 327 is drunk, is speedily absorbed by the veins, and finds entrance at once into the circulation, some time before the product of the digested food is introduced by the way of the lacteals. We have well authenticated cases of per- sons who have lived for a length of time entirely abstinent from all customary aliment, and whose only drink was water. In the "Transactions of the Albany Institute," for 1830,Dr.McNaughton relates the case of a man of the name of Reuben Kelsey, who lived on water alone for fifty-three days. " For the first six weeks, he walked out every day, and sometimes spent a great part of the day in the woods. His walk was steady and firm, and his friends even remarked that his step had an unusual elasticity. He shaved himself until about a week be- fore his death, and was able to sit up in bed.to the last day." At the time of his death, Kelsey was twenty- seven years of age. His fasting from food was entirely voluntary, and under the influence of a delusion, mani- fested in his assigning as a reason, at. the beginning of this course, that when it was the will of the Almighty that he should eat, he would be furnished with an appetite. For all the proper wants of the animal economy, simple water, of the desired temperature, is generally, sufficient. It often happens, however, that there is thirst dependent on the state of the mouth and fauces, without any proportionate excitement or craving of the stomach and internal organs: this is most liable to occur in fevers, and after great labour and exercise in a hot sun, or being in a hot air: sometimes it depends upon a morbid state of the stomach, and hence almost constant thirst is an accompaniment of some of the va- rieties of dyspepsia. Whether we admit this distinction or not, it is still certain, that even after the stomach has received copious potations of water, in amount 328 DRINKS. necessary to allay its heat and excitement, that in a very short time afterwards, thirst is complained of.—On such an occasion, the addition of some sapid substance to the water, produces a change in the organ of taste, and the entire mucous membrane of the palate and fauces, and the thirst is either greatly abated or removed. An interminable list of articles has been employed with the view of adding them to water, and of agreeably affecting the palate, whilst they remove thirst. I shall only mention the chief of these; and first in importance, the acids, which, as abundant in the fruits of hot climates, and as readily developed by their fermentation, would seem to be destined by Providence to serve as quenchers of thirst and as refrigerents to the overheated frame. The chief ones are the citric, the acetic, and the tartaric; but as I have already spoken of their use in this way in a former chapter, I shall not return to the subject here. Lemonade ranks foremost of all the acid drinks; infusion of apples (apple water) is also a pleasant beverage; the same may be said of the infusion of tamarinds. Acetic acid, with water and sugar or molasses, make a drink much used, and the quantity and time of taking which are soon safely ascertained after a few trials. Mineral acids, such as the hydrochloric or muriatic, the sulphuric and the nitric, in a state of extreme dilution with water, impart to it a refreshing acidity; and in the absence of the vegetable acids, may, in cases of feverish thirst, and in serious disease, be had recourse to with advantage. The juices of most of the mature fruits of our climate, containing as they do saccharo-acid matters, make, when mixed with water, a pleasant beverage. The jellies of some of them, as of currants and cranberries, are much and deservedly used in this way. I may mention, how- ever, in this place, that a rising in the stomach, or feel- DRINKS OF VARIOUS KINDS. 329 ings analogous to those of heartburn, acidity of stomach, as the disease is called, is more apt to follow the use of the compound juices of many fruits, in which the acid is in small proportion, than where it abounds or exists alone. Hence, the juice of the orange will often disagree with a dyspeptic or febrile patient, when lemon juice, or even lemonade, with a small quantity of sugar, would be attended with no inconvenience. Cider or wine will cause heartburn and acid eructations,—whereas vinegar and water, so far from giving rise to such disorders, will sometimes alleviate them. Simple saccharine drinks, such as sugar and water and molasses and water, will often assuage thirst, and be relished by the persons using them. The eau sucree is a common drink among the French, as molasses and water is among many of our own people. Sugar candy has, on occasions, served both for nourishment and to allay thirst, where neither common aliment nor water was procurable. Infusions of different herbs which have a slight aromatic and bitter taste conjoined, are often used as beverages,—such are, among others, balm and sage teas. Even a decidedly bitter flavour, imparted by different vegetable substances to water, sometimes affects both the sense of taste and the stomach in such a manner as greatly to abate tormenting thirst in fever. Substances again, of quite a different nature, as the pure gums, destitute almost of taste and of any stimulating pro- perty whatever, will soothe the irritation which causes violent thirst, and prevent its return for a longer time than simple water or even water mixed with the vege- table acids. Gummy or mucilaginous drinks, and the best is that prepared with gum arabic, seem to act in two 28* 330 DRINKS. ways,—first, by soothing the nervous and capillary ex- citement of the mucous surfaces which gives rise to thirst; and secondly, by a portion remaining adherent to these surfaces; evaporation and consequent dryness of the tongue and mouth are prevented,—and consequently the call for fluid to moisten the mouth and throat is less urgent. One remark is applicable to all the drinks hitherto enumerated; the craving for them ceases with the re- moval of the thirst for which they were first taken, and they are never continued on account of any pleasurable effects on the nervous system, whether of a stimulating or narcotic nature. Their occasional seldom becomes a continual use and habit, unless they are found, as in the case of saccharine or gummy drinks, to be in harmonious relation with the nutritive wants of the system; that is to say, of being beneficial to digestion, while they at the same time contribute somewhat to the nourishment of the frame. These are the only safe conditions on which any drink can be continued; they are complied with in the case of water and to infusions or mixtures of sugar, of saccharo-acids, of gum, of farinaceous matters,—such as toast and water, rice-water, and barley-water, &c, of which I have already treated. But these conditions are not complied with in the case of the infusion of any vegetable bitter, and still less of any alcoholic drink. There are two beverages which, in modern times, and, still more, at the present age, have acquired a dietetic importance which entitles them to a fuller notice than their nutritive properties alone would require—I refer now to tea and coffee. Of the detailed histories of their introduction into general use in Europe I am un- able to treat in this place, nor to repeat the many anec- dotes connected with their first use. The leading traits TEA—ITS FIRST USE. 331 of each, in their dietetic and medicinal character, must suffice for my present purpose. Tea (Thea Viridis et Thea Bohea).—One of the earliest notices of tea-drinking in England is also cha- racteristic of the unceasing vigilance of the rulers of that country to tax everything which is eaten or drank, or is used either as a necessary or a luxury. By an act of Parliament, passed 1660, in the reign of Charles II., a duty of eight pence per gallon was laid on all tea made and sold in coffee-houses, which were visited twice daily by officers, whose duty it was to ascertain what quantity had been made. The tea at this time was probably brought from Holland, for it was not until 1669 that the first invoice of tea was received by the East India Com- pany, amounting to 143§ lbs. In a little more than a century from this time, or in 1771, and for nine years succeeding, there were no less than fifty millions of pounds of tea brought from China in English ships, of which thirteen millions were consumed in the British dominions. It appears, says Mr. McCulloch, that the consumption of tea in Great Britain has been about stationary, or has rather diminished from 1800 to the present period. This has been occasioned, he thinks, partly perhaps by the increased use of coffee, but more, he adds, by the enhanced price arising out of the increase of the duty, and the operation of the monopoly. In Ireland, the consumption has been about stationary since 1801, notwithstanding the population has more than doubled in the interval. The quantity of tea re- tained for home consumption in Great Britain in 1833, was 31,829,620 lbs., and for Ireland in 1827, the last year of record, 3,887,955. In 1800, the consumption in Great Britain was 20,358,702 lbs. Now as the popula- tion at this last date was a little under eleven millions, or 332 DRINKS. 10,941,778, and in 1830 was 16,575,605, including in both instances the army and navy, the consumption of tea ought to have increased in this latter time to nearly 32 millions, even supposing no increased taste for or con- sumption per individual. The actual consumption in 1830 was a little over 30 millions,—justifying Mr. McCulloch?s observation that the consumption had been about sta- tionary, or has rather diminished since 1800, to the period when he wrote. The rate of consumption would from this estimate be less than 2 lbs. annually for every individual in Great Britain. In 1838, there was an in- crease in the entire amount, which was 32,366,412. That for Ireland, supposing the entire quantity con- sumed in 1830 about the same as that in 1827, the ave- rage for each person would be not quite half a pound. The population of this country in 1830, was 7,734,365. The average annual imports of tea in the United States, for the six years, ending with 1840, were about 14,500,000 lbs. In commerce, two principal kinds of tea are distin- guished,—the Black and the Green,—to the first belong Bohea, Congou, Campoi, Souchong, Caper and Pekoe or Paho; to the latter, Twankey, Hyson-skin, Hyson, Imperial and Gunpowder. Frank (Gmelin, Handb. d. Chem. II, 1252) analyzed both black and green teas, and obtained the following results:— Black. Green. Tannin, - 40.6 34.6 Gum, - 6.3 5.9 Woody fibre, - 44.8 50.3 Glutinous matter, - 6.3 5.7 Volatile matter, and 1 OSS, 2.0 100.0 2.5 100.0 Sir H. Davy, (Phil. Trans. 1803, p. 268,) also found more tannin in black than in green tea, in the proportion EFFECTS OF TEA. 333 of 48 to 41. But these results are opposed to our daily experience, as derived from flavour, which indicates the greater astringency in the green tea, and to the experi- ments of Mr. Brande, (Quart. Journ. XII, 201.) The difference in the quantity of tannin in the two kinds of tea is not, however, very great. A few years ago, Oudry announced the existence in tea of a crystalline, salifiable base, to which he gave the name of theina; but, more recently, Jobst (Ann. a. Pharm, XXV, 63, 1838) has asserted its identity with caffein, (Pereira, op. cit.) It is not easy to ascertain correctly the precise effects of tea on the constitution,—separately from concomi- tants, in persons who are prone to use it largely and in excess. We cannot agree with Dr. Cullen in the opinion that the effects, whether good or bad, depend on the warmth and quantity of the water in which the tea is infused. Its astringency is proved not only by analysis but by its occasional use as an antidote in cases of poi- soning from substances containing vegetable alkalies or emetic tartar. Hence, in cases of torpid bowels and costiveness, tea of any strength ought to be avoided, even if it be taken at all. The agreeable exhilaration of the nervous system after drinking tea recommends it to the studious, the sedentary and to those oppressed with hypochondriasis or indigestion. Dr. Johnson, v/ho com- bined in himself all these qualities, was a devoted lover of tea, which he would not admit to be productive of any injurious effects on health. That it does not abridge life may be asserted from his example, but that it power- fully affects the nervous system, and like every excitant is followed by depression and gloom, is clear from the recorded feelings of this celebrated man. In praise of tea, it is well said, that "it contributes to 334 DRINKS. the sobriety of a nation; it imparts all the charms to so- ciety which spring from the enjoyment of conversation, without that excitement which follows upon a fermented drink. Raynal has observed that it has contributed more to the sobriety of the Chinese than the severest laws, the most eloquent harangues of Christian orators, or the best treatises of morality. The people on the continent are reverting to the habit of tea drinking, which they had abandoned during the long war, when they were shut out from the possibility of obtaining it, and therefore sought a substitute in coffee. In Holland, in Germany, and in Russia, tea is much prized, whilst even in France, where for so many years coffee was considered the only good beverage, and was used either strong or mixed with milk, according to the meal that was taken, our favourite shrub is beginning to be as much in use as long established custom has rendered it in England."—(Sigmund—Tea, its Effects, Medicinal and Moral.) The sedative power of tea is alleged soon to succeed the first excitement caused by it, and hence Dr. T. Per- cival recommends its use in feverish and inflammatory diseases. It is more readily drunk than most beverages by the sick, but the great importance of their procuring sleep, which is the grand restorative, and the tendency of tea to produce wakefulness, ought generally to deter us from prescribing it in the above-mentioned forms of dis- ease. Tea ought to be abstained from by the nervous, so called; that is, by those who suffer from palpitation of the heart, tremors of any kind, weakness or disturb- ance of any of the senses, morbid sensibility, and any notable irregularity of function. A common and un- pleasant symptom or sensation caused by the frequent use of strong tea is a sinking or gnawing at the stomach COFFEE. 335 shortly after the morning repast in which it has been used, especially if to the exclusion of substantial aliment. Vertigo and sick headache are also frequently referable to tea drinking. But, on the other hand, plethora or morbid fulness of the system, and a feeling of tension and excessive excitement of the brain are lessened by this beverage. It is opposed to a very active nutrition, and hence it is better adapted to full and fleshy habits and phlegmatic temperaments than to the thin and the nervous. Although chemical analysis may fail to indicate any notable difference in the composition of green and black teas, and botanists are not agreed as to their being dis- tinct species, their effects on the system are undoubtedly different. Wakefulness, tremors, palpitations, and other distressing feelings, are no uncommon results of green tea: they are much less, if not entirely, wanting after drinking black tea. Dr. Lettsom found that a strong infusion of tea introduced into the abdomen of a dog caused paralysis of the hind extremities of the animal. Coffee (Coffea Arabica).—The coffee-plant is a na- tive of Arabia Felix and Ethiopia, but is extensively cultivated in Asia and America. The varieties of coffee are distinguished in commerce according to their places of growth, but considered with reference to their physi- cal properties, they are characterised by colour (yellow, bluish, or greenish) and size. Arabian or Mocha coffee is small and dark yellow. Java and East India (Ma- labar) kinds are larger, and paler yellow. The Ceylon is more analogous to the West India kinds, which, as well as the Brazilian, have a bluish or greenish-gray tint. The coffee of Mocha is generally esteemed the best, then follow the Java and West India. The amount of export of coffee from the principal 336 DRINKS. countries in which it is produced, is estimated by Mr. McCulloch to be 147,000 tons, of which Brazil and the Spanish Main send the largest quota, or 42,000 tons,— Cuba and Porto Rico next, or 25,000,—and Hayti 20,000. The consumption is rated as follows:— Tons. Great Britain,......10,000 Netherlands and Holland, - 40,500 Germany and country round the Baltic, - 32,000 France, Spain, Italy, Turkey in Europe, the Le- vant, &c. ... - - 35,000 America,.......20,500 138,500 The average annual importation into France for the years 1S30, 1831, and 1832, was nearly 11,476 tons, or 25,716,214 lbs., or not more than three-fourths of a pound for each person in that kingdom. In Great Bri- tain, the consumption is about 22,000,000 lbs., or nearly a pound for each person in both islands. In the United States, the proportion of coffee consumed from 1834 to 1840, has been 4.7 lbs. for each person; the entire amount annually averaging during the above period of seven years, 79,833,369 lbs. (American Almanac for 1840.) We are ignorant of the precise time when coffee began to be roasted and used as a drink, though the discovery is not supposed to date farther back than the early part of the fifteenth century. A public house was opened for the first time in London in 1652. The first coffee-house for the sale of coffee in France was opened at Marseilles in 1671, and next in Paris in the following year. Coffee-berries readily imbibe exhalations from other bodies, and thereby acquire an adventitious and disa- greeable odour. Sugar placed near coffee will in a short time so impregnate the berries as to injure their flavour. COMPOSITION OF COFFEE. 337 Dr. Moseley mentions that a few bags of pepper on board a ship from India spoiled a whole cargo of coffee. The roasting of the coffee-berry to a proper state re- quires great nicety; the virtue and agreeableness of the drink depend upon it; and both are often injured by the ordinary method. If it be underdone, its virtues will not be imparted, and on use it will load and oppress the stomach: if it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste; its virtues will be destroyed; and in use it will heat the body, and act as an astringent. (Moseley on Coffee, quoted by McCulloch.) Roasted coffee is, when ground, extensively adulter- ated (in England) with chicory. To detect the adultera- tion, shake the suspected coffee with cold water in a wineglass: if it be pure coffee, it will swim and scarcely colour the fluid; but the chicory sinks, and communicates a deep red tint to the water. Chicory-coffee yields a perfectly wholesome beverage; but it wants the fine flavour for which genuine coffee is renowned. The presence of roasted grain of any description may be de- tected by the blue colour produced on the addition of a solution of iodine to the cold decoction. Chemical ana- lysis has not given us very satisfactory results respecting the composition and qualities of coffee. The distilled water offers traces of a volatile oil. Pfaff declares that the aroma of roasted coffee depends on the volatili- zation, or rather decomposition, of a peculiar acid, con- tained in raw coffee, and which has been denominated caffeic acid. It is probable that a volatile oil is generated during torrefaction, though it is not known what consti- tuent of the raw coffee produces it. Caffein is a volatile, crystalline, neutral constituent of coffee. The decoction of coffee is coloured green by the persalts of iron, pro- bably in consequence of the presence of catechuic acid. 29 338 DRINKS. By the action of alkalies on a volatile principle of coffee, a green substance is produced, called coffee green. The other constituents of coffee are—gum, resin, fixed oil, extractive, albumen and lignin. The peculiar coffee principle constitutes 17.59 per cent, of raw coffee, and 12.50 of roasted coffee. Rata coffee must be slightly nutritious, on account of the gum and other nutritive principles which it contains. Rasori employed it, like powdered bark, in intermittent fever; and Grindel used it, in other cases, also as a sub- stitute for cinchona. By roasting, its nutritive principles are (for the most part) destroyed, while the empyreu- matic matters developed exert a stimulant influence on the nervous system. Roasted coffee possesses powerfully antisoperific pro- perties; hence, its use as a drink by those who desire nocturnal study, and as an antidote to counteract the effects of opium and other narcotics, and to relieve in- toxication. It has also been employed as a febrifuge in intermittent; as a stomachic, in some forms of dyspepsia; as an astringent in diarrhoea; and as a stimulant to the cerebro-spinal system, in some nervous disorders. Floyer, Dr. Percival, and others, have used it in spasmodic asthma; and Laennec (Treat, on Diseases of the Chest), says, " I have myself seen cases in which coffee was really useful." It is sometimes of service in relieving headache. (Pereira, op. cit.) Coffee is accused of caus- ing constipation,—more generally it has an opposite ef- fect, and its discontinuance in those who have long used it is followed for a while by constipation. This latter state may be regarded as the effect of a torpor of the intestinal canal left by the cessation of an habitual sti- mulus, as coffee undoubtedly is. In diarrhoea and other looseness of the bowels, coffee ought to be abstained WHEN COFFEE IS INJURIOUS. 339 from, and in dyspepsia generally, beyond the temporary relief of an unpleasant symptom its effects are detri- mental, viz. thirst, heat, acidity, and sometimes gastric pains or spasms. The same remark applies to sick and inflammatory headache; nor can its use be continued without danger by those persons who desire to defraud themselves of their customary sleep, with a view to study or composition in the silent watches of the night. Pinel, in his work on Insanity, (Alienation Mentale,) gives cases in which this disease was brought into display by this intemperate use of coffee. Its exciting properties render its use unfit for those who are troubled with pal- pitation of the heart, whether it be from hypertrophy of this organ or morbid alteration of its valves. The Ita- lian physicians speak familiarly of coffee as a stimulus, on a line with wines, as far as mere excitement is con- cerned; and accordingly they prohibit its use to their patients with fever or inflammatory diseases. Coffee is an enemy to the skin, and females who drink much of this infusion cannot hope to possess or retain freshness of complexion and softness and polish of skin, especially if they are deprived of the inestimable advantages of daily exercise in the open air. The nursing mother ought to be sparing in the use of this tempting beverage. As Johnson's practice and experience are quoted in favour of tea, so are those of Voltaire in support of the liberal use of coffee. Longevity was, it is true, attained by the French author as it was by the English one; but in the nervousness and irascibility, and the weakly frame of Voltaire, we shall hardly expect proofs of the corroborating effects of coffee, any more than in the hypochondriasis, purblindness, jerks and spasms, late hours and late rising of Johnson, can we look for evidence in favour of the hygienic effects of tea. CHAPTER XIV. ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. Alcoholic and intoxicating drinks,—their sameness and effects—Al- cohol, a poison, is not altered by dilution or mixture—Illustra- tions in opium and quinine—Different classes of alcoholic drinkers—Alliance between the wine-press and the still—Wine and spirits, their common origin—All wines exported are brandied and otherwise adulterated—Claret,—Port,—Madeira,—Sherry,— Champaigne—Alcohol a product of fermentation—Wine and beer, their alcoholic resemblance—Difference in other matters—Com- position of wine, and of beer—Fermented liquors the product of elaborate art—Vinegar the natural product of the juice of the grape—Spirits—Alcohol not formed by distillation—Previous fer- mentation necessary—Alcohol procured from wine without distil- lation—Dietetic value of alcoholic liquors—Are injurious to di- gestion—Do not give strength, nor ability to resist atmospheric extremes and exposures—Consumption of alcoholic liquors in France—Drunkenness, and its excesses, and diseases, common in that country—Proofs and Illustrations—Consumption of alcoholic liquors in Great Britain—Deplorable results—Consumption in the United States—Amendment. The next class of drinks to be spoken of are the in- toxicating, so called on account of their effects on the brain and nervous system, or the alcoholic, thus named ou account of alcohol in greater or less proportion entering into the composition of all of them. Alco- hol is the intoxicating principle, found in all of them, viz. distilled liquors, wines, cider, perry, beer, &c. ALCOHOL IS POISON. 341 This simple and brief annunciation of the general sameness of composition and identity of effect, ought, one would suppose, at once to determine their hy- gienic character. If alcohol be useful at all in aid of the performance of any separate function, or of the faculties of mind and body collectively, then does it become a question as to the mode in which it is com- bined with other substances, so as to make its adminis- tration palatable. If, on the contrary, alcohol be, as uniform experience has proved it to be, a poison, whether applied locally to a nerve or any tissue, or acting generally on the system at large, then ought its use to be carefully abstained from, as we abstain from any other poison, except under rare and peculiar cir- cumstances, as in disease in which poisons administered in small doses are medicines, and produce, at times, a curative effect. But in no instance, except in that of alcohol, (and its congener, tobacco,) have these curative effects following the administration of a poison in limited and minute doses, been made a ground of argument in favour of the habitual use of such poison, as a genial excitant, soother or tonic, without reference to disease being present. Opium is often an admirable medicine to relieve pain, to procure sleep, and to banish unpleasant thoughts,— and there are cases in which its regular administration for a length of time seems to be indispensable; but yet no one argues from these effects and the occasional use of this drug, in favour of its beneficial tendency and operation for common hygienic purposes of exhilara- tion, or social ones of good fellowship, &c. For- tunately, its secondary effects are, for the most part, distressing, and are wisely interposed as an obstacle to its too frequent and too common use. But even if 29* 342 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. these secondary effects were not experienced at all by some persons, or if custom had made them less felt by others, still, neither the physician nor the moralist could justifiably recommend the habitual use of opium in every-day life. Nor would they think of ad- vising for common and daily use, certain preparations of this poison, in which the narcotic or stupefying, and subsequently distressing effects are in a measure obviated. By whatever name these preparations may be called,—tinctures, cordials, carminatives, balsams,— in which opium is present, they will all produce effects more or less characteristic of opiate operation; and hence be deleterious to those who make daily or habitual use of them. Precisely the same train of argument and illustration with that just offered in reference to opium, is strictly applicable to alcohol; with this difference, that for one case of disease in which alcohol in any form of com- bination is useful, there are a hundred cases of disease in which we derive good effects from opium. Peruvian bark, and its various preparations, have cured inter- mittent fevers, neuralgia, and other periodical diseases of great violence and malignity. Modern chemistry has shown, that its active medicinal principle or ele- ment is quinine; and that, however various the forms in which the bark may be administered, its efficacy mainly depends on a certain portion of quinine entering into them. This latter may be taken separately from the other constituents of the bark, as indeed is now the common practice, not only with safety but with signal efficacy. But although comparatively mild in its first effects and subsequent operation, and although it has been given in very large doses without injury, no one recommends its daily use in minute doses, or in large dilution, and ad- POISONS NOT CHANGED BY DILUTION. 343 ministered with cordials and aromatics, out of gratitude for its services in disease, or with a hope that its tonic effects, manifested in certain cases of disease, will be con- tinued from day to day in health, and when the person is in the discharge of his regular duties. In the case of alco- hol, the active element in intoxicating drinks, we cannot give it pure without immediate danger to the life of the person taking it. It is a virulent poison; and yet we find persons setting up a claim for its being used from day to day, in dilution, and in combination with palatable sub- stances, under a plea of its healthful, as well as plea- surable effects! Opium is still opium, however disguised and mo- dified,—quinine is still quinine, however diluted and combined by mixture with other substances. No- body pretends, that their constant use in health, and after the circumstances which required their adminis- tration have been removed, can be beneficial or proper. Nobody believes, that their dilution or mode of com- bination causes any specific change in their proper- ties, or that any modification of this kind will fit them for daily and habitual use by persons in health. It is reserved for the friends of alcohol to advance an exceptional plea in its favour, by an attempt to per- suade us, that what in its purity and strength is a vio- lent poison, becomes, by dilution and mixture, a safe and healthful beverage. The time was, still is in the opinion of many, when a dilution of alcohol, by the addition of an equal quantity of water and a slight flavouring with some essential oil, as that of barley, made it quite safe and proper. Now, however, in the opinion of an immense number of persons, this degree and fashion of dilution, being that in which distilled liquors are generally manufactured, does not prevent 344 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. alcohol from poisoning the frame and perverting all the faculties of the mind, as poisons generally do. Whisky and brandy and gin and rum drinkers and sellers are getting out of favour, and for stronger reasons than ever yet brought a class into disrepute. But they leave behind them a large and influential body, who, whilst disclaiming against any connexion with or sympathy for them, hold very much to the same dietetic ob- servances, by making use of the same intoxicating and poisonous element, only in smaller proportions and some- what differently combined. These persons abjure al- cohol in the proportion of 50 or even 45 per cent., as it comes in the shape of ardent spirits or distilled liquors, but they battle stoutly for the proportion of 25 down to 10 per cent, in the shape of wines. There is yet a third set at their heels, or the moderately alcoholic, who eome in as plain, practical farmers, or honest manu- facturers and labourers, and who quietly assure us, that they will be content with alcohol in drinks at the low rate of from 9 to li per cent., in the shape of cider and beer. All these three divisions are, however, in fact, ar- rayed in the same cause and adopt the same banner, though with different devices; and they resemble much more different divisions of the same army than opposing forces. They all procure alcohol from the same source, and by the same primary process, viz. of fermentation. The manufacturers of ardent spirits have contrived to procure it in greater abundance by distillation from fer- menting mixtures; but, in requital, they give back a por- tion to the makers of wines, in order to strengthen these latter liquors, and adapt them to the still prevailing tastes for something rather more potentially alcoholic. Between the Wine-press and the Still there is then a close and al- most inseparable connexion, and so long as the former is BRANDY FROM AND IN WINE. 345 in active operation the latter will never be idle. From wine is educed Spirits of Wine, as alcohol is often called. Of the 924 millions of gallons of wine made in France, it will be remembered, that more than a seventh or 141 millions were manufactured into brandy (p. 223); a por- tion of which is used in giving more body to the wine that is reserved for exportation. Nor is French brandy alone used for this purpose. Mr. McCulloch, in speak- ing of the Catalonian wines, tells us that the exports from Barcelona to Cuba, are 12,000 pipes of wine and 3000 pipes of brandy; to South America, 16,000 pipes of wine and 6000 pipes of brandy; to the North of Eu- rope, 2000 pipes of wine and 2000 pipes of brandy. So that for every three pipes of wine, there goes with it more than a pipe of brandy; both of them the product of the juice of the grape. The author just cited, adds: A good deal of brandy is sent to Cadiz and Cette; most part of the former finds its way into the wine vaults of Xeres; and the latter being conveyed by the canal of Languedoc to the Garonne, is used in the preparation of the wines of Bordeaux. Claret is not a simple wine or the produce of one kind of grape, or even one vintage; but is a mixture of Bordeaux and Bene Carlos; sometimes Languedoc and Bordeaux; at others, Hermitage or Alicant with Bor- deaux; and uniformly a portion of brandy is added to it, in the proportion of six percent. For more than a cen- tury the Portuguese have ceased to send pure port wine to England. Redding, from whose work (on Wines) I derive the preceding account of the mixture and adul- teration of Bordeaux wine, says of Port, in reference to its preparation for the English market: " They did not spare brandy in the operation, nor elderberries, nor burnt corn, nor any thing that would answer to colour 346 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. the wine, when it was not thought deep enough. They created at length such a wine as the world never before saw, especially when improved by subsequent adultera- tions in London, where the imitations of port wine have been found to be so facile, in consequence of the absence in most of that imported of the prime qualities of good wine, that a vast quantity more is sold than Oporto, with its company, has ever been able to export." And again, " Five-eighths of the wine brought to England is so coarse, and is such a medley of ill-flavoured hetero- geneous vine produce, bad Portuguese brandy, and other matters, that any ingenious person may increase one pipe to three, by the addition of inexcusable articles, without any fear of injury to the stomach of the con- sumer, or to the appearance of the wine happening." Mr. McCulloch, not prone to extravagance of calcula- tion or opinion, says on this subject: " A large quantity of brandy is always mixed with wine shipped from Oporto for England. Genuine unmixed port wine is very rarely met with in this country." Of Madeira wines, Redding says, "Brandy is not al- lowed to be imported into Madeira, even from Portugal; that which they require they make themselves. For what object this prohibition exists, it is difficult to tell, as the wines of Madeira always receive an admixture of brandy on exportation, the growers say, to enable them to bear the long sea voyages to which they are subjected." To the same purport, Mr. McCulloch in- forms us, that, " though naturally strong, they receive an addition of brandy when racked from the vessels in which they have been fermented, and another portion is thrown in previously to their exportation." But not only are all the exported wines brandied,but they are also, at home and in England and in this coun- MADEIRA—CLARET—CHAMPAIGNE. 347 try, adulterated after various fashions. "When Ma- deira was a fashionable wine in England, every sort of deception was practised with respect to it, and large quantities of spurious trash were disposed of for the genuine vintage of the island. This naturally brought the wine into disrepute, so that sherry has been for several years the fashionable white wine. It is diffi- cult, however, to imagine that adulteration was ever practised to a greater extent upon Madeira than is now practised upon sherry." (McCulloch.) We have seen al- ready that sherry is duly brandied by Catalonian brandy. That it is otherwise adulterated, is affirmed by the wri- ter last quoted, who, in another place remarks; " Per- haps no wine is so much adulterated as sherry." In England,as we learn from Redding, "sherry of the brown kind and of low price, when imported, is mingled with Cape wines and cheap brandy, the washings of brandy casks, sugar-candy, bitter almonds, and similar prepara- tions, while the colour, if too great for pale sherry, is taken out by the addition of a small quantity of lamb's blood, and then passed off for the best sherry, by one class of wine sellers and advertisers. The softness of good sherry is closely imitated." Large quantities of what is miscalled claret, is manu- factured in England, for making which, as well as im- proved claret of prime character, many recipes are extant. Champaigne is everywhere manufactured, to meet the existing demand in Paris, in London, or in the United States. Not one bottle in a hundred of that which is drank in England and this country, comes from Champaigne. " The ignorance of many persons of the true taste of Champaigne, has of late caused the importation of a wretched and cheap manufacture from 34S ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. the continent, which is sold for the genuine article, but still larger quantities of a fictitious wine, under the same name, have been made here (in England) of common ingredients, and passed off at public places. Balls, races, masquerades and crowded public dinners, are profitable markets for adulterated wines." I the more readily quote from Redding, as he is an amateur of wine, and not inclined to underrate its vir- tues. Henderson, whose volume is before me, bears testimony to the same effect; and I might, if necessary, adduce multiplied proofs from other sources, of the ex- tent to which the mixture of distilled spirits, and espe- cially brandy, and the adulteration by the mixture of other and deleterious substances, are carried, in prepar- ing nearly all the known, certainly the most celebrated wines for market. One inference is clear, that whoever drinks the wine which is commonly brought to table, most certainly drinks brandy with it. And there is a strong probability besides, that he also drinks, at the same time, an adulterated compound, which, in addition to the double supply of alcohol in it, contains ingre- dients injurious to the stomach and to the system gene- rally. The wine drinker in Great Britain and the United States goes beyond the grog drinker: the latter takes simply spirits and water, whereas he takes spirits and wine. By the standard of temperance, it will not be difficult to decide their respective merits; on the score of health, I would rather run the chances of the drinker of spirits and water, than of him who drinks spirits and wine. The probable longevity is in favour, as far as my observation and reading extend, of the grog drinker. But from the imitation of either, we ought all devoutly to exclaim, « Good Lord deliver us!" The assertion, once made with some confidence, that ALCOHOL FORMED ONLY BY FERMENTATION. 349 alcohol is in a peculiar state of combination in fermented liquors, and only becomes free by distillation, is entirely unfounded. The formation of alcohol is the direct, in- deed inevitable result of fermentation; a process which takes place by a combination of sugar with water and a portion of ferment or yeast, in a temperature of from 68 to 77 degrees of Fahrenheit. I have already de- scribed the phenomena manifested during panary fer- mentation, viz. the swelling up or rising of the sub- stances mixed, and the formation and evolution of carbonic acid and alcohol. Starch kept in a moist state for some time, is gradually converted into sugar, and subsequently, by fermentation, undergoes changes similar to those just mentioned. It is by a process like this last, that certain grains, such as barley, which con- sist mainly of starch, on being malted, evolve saccha- rine matter, and are then fitted for fermentation and its consequent products, alcohol and fixed air. Analogous changes take place in the juices of certain fruits, such as grapes, which have in themselves all the required materials for fermentation, viz. sugar, and fer- ment and water, when the other condition of adequately elevated temperature is complied with. But in all these cases, the alcohol did not pre-exist or form a constituent element of the substances, by the mixture and working of which it was evolved. It did not exist in the sugar, nor in the starch nor malted grain, nor in the grapes, nor in their fresh juice. So long as the skin and the cells in which the juice is contained are entire, and exclude the air, the fruit will not ferment. Nor will the expressed juice or must, as it is called, ferment, if it is carefully excluded from the air. Even when it is heated in close vessels, to the temperature of boiling water, or 212° F., it will not undergo any fermentative change, but it may 30 350 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. be preserved in this state for years, without, however, losing its property of fermenting. In the case of the fermentation oiwort or an infusion of malt, the gluten which is contained in the grain serves as a ferment to the other or saccharine portion, and water, just as leaven did to the paste in the making of bread; and the result is beer, with its proportion of alcohol and carbonic acid. Wort ferments by the addi- tion of yeast, but after its decomposition is completed the quantity of ferment or yeast is found to be increased by thirty times more than it was originally. The additional quantity comes from the gluten. Yeast from beer and that from wine, examined under the microscope, present the same form and general appearance. They are both acted on in the same manner by acids and alkalies, and possess the power of producing fermentation anew in a solution of sugar; in short, they must be regarded as identical. Wines and malt liquors, therefore, it will have been seen, resemble each other in their being, both of them, the product of sugar with water, decomposed by yeast or a fermentable principle, gluten. In all of them, alcohol and fixed air are formed. Wine is the manufactured liquor of the juice, but by no means the juice itself, of the grape. Ale and beer are the manu- factured liquors of barley, which has undergone the process of malting. But in addition to the exhilarating principle, carbonic acid, and the inebriating principle, alcohol, both common to these and to all fermented liquors,—although as regards the acid, it is allowed to escape in many wines,—there are other principles on which their distinctive flavour depends. The juice of the ripe grape consists, according to Proust, of extractive matter, sugar, gum, glutinous matter, malic acid, citric acid, and bitartrate of potassa, COMPOSITION OF WINE AND BEER. 351 (cream of tartar.) Berard, in addition, found malate of lime, and supertartrate of lime, but no citric acid,—and in place of extractive, he reports odorous matter. The chief constituents of wine, in addition to alcohol and water, are tartaric or malic acid, extractive matter, and an odorous principle, to which the name of oenanthic ether has been given. All the constituents of wines, but seldom, if ever, found in any one wine, are, according to Gmelin, (Handb. d'Chem. II. 1255,) as follows: Al- cohol, an odorous principle, (volatile oil?), blue colour- ing of the husk, (in red wine,) tannin, bitter extractive, sugar, (especially in the sweet wines,) gum, yeast, acetic acid, (from the commencement of the acetous fer- mentation,) malic acid, tartartic acid, bitartrate of potassa, bitartrate of lime, sulphates and chlorides, phosphate of lime, carbonic acid, (especially in the effer- vescing wines,) and water. To these may be added the paratartaric acid or racemic acid. (Pereira, Op. cit.) Malt liquors (ale, beer and porter,) contain a larger quantity of extractive and mucilaginous matters de- rived from the malt out of which they were made than wines. The proportion of these matters, compared with the nutritive ones in the barley, or even the malt, before it was brewed, is very small. The loss by malting and brewing, is represented to be seventy-five per cent. The average quantity of extractive matter contained in a pint or sixteen ounces of North River ale was 816 grains, or one-eleventh of the whole weight. This gave nearly nine ounces of solid matter to the gallon.* Owing to the presence of mucilaginous and extractive substances in * Bacchus—An Essay on the Nature, Causes, Effects and Cure of Intemperance, by Ralph Barnes Grinrod—edited by Dr. Lee, of New-York, 1840. A very valuable work, even apart from the temperance argument. 352 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. malt liquor, they always contain a free acid, and are greatly disposed to pass into the acetous fermentation, or that process by which vinegar is formed. The sour taste in malt liquors is corrected partly by free sugar, or that which has not been decomposed by fermentation, and partly by the bitter flavour of the hop, the presence of which diminishes the tendency to the formation of an acid. Fermented liquors have been spoken of as the result of a natural process, themselves almost as a gift of na- ture for which we ought to thank Providence. This is a fallacy. Fermentation and the evolution of alcohol are the natural results of combinations already detailed: these combinations may be formed naturally, but if so, they are in a very limited degree, and subject to so many interruptions that they would scarcely amount to any- thing. The making of beer and the making of wine are both of them a highly elaborate and even compli- cated manufacture. Among the many stages in the art of brewing, are those of grinding, mashing, hopping, boiling, cooling, cleansing, fining, attenuation, &c, in each of which the greatest care and caution are requisite on the part of the brewer, or an imperfect liquor is the inevitable result. In the manufacture of wine, there is the pressing, working, or fermentation in the vat, draw- ing off the new made wine into casks, or first racking, second racking, by being put into other casks, sulphur- ing by burnt matches or exposure to sulphurous acid in the cask, to render the glutinous matter incapable of re-exciting fermentation, clarifying and fining. After being cellared, new cares are given to rendering it fit for market, such as to fill the casks after the carbonic acid has ceased to escape. If the juice of the grape were left to its natural ALCOHOL NOT FORMED BY DISTILLATION. 353 changes, it would pass almost directly from the vinous fermentation, by which it is converted into wine, to the acetous fermentation, by which it is changed into vinegar. This last is really the natural product of the juice of the grape, and more entitled to be thus called than wine is. Alcohol is in larger proportion, but not differently combined in spirituous liquors, or spirits, as they are called by British writers, than it is in wine. It is combined with water and some peculiar essential oil, from which the flavour is more particularly derived. At one time it was believed, and the opinion is probably yet held by those who are ignorant of chemistry, that alcohol is fixed or latent, as it were, in fermented liquors, and is evolved, and becomes free alcohol, by means of the heat of distillation alone. So far from this being true, we know now, that alcohol is generated by fer- mentation, and by fermentation alone, and that it is only procured in a more concentrated state by the distillation of fermented fluids, or of substances with water in a state of fermentation. If distillation could develop or evolve alcohol, must or grape juice mixed with water, ought, when put into the still, to furnish this principle; but, in fact, the only product is a mere tasteless vapour. So soon, however, as the must is fermented and poured into the still, it yields readily alcohol in large proportion. The cake, or residue of grapes after they have been press- ed, sometimes called murk, mixed with water and then fermented, will yield alcohol by distillation: but if it were distilled before fermentation had begun, no spirits of any kind would come over. So likewise, in the case of grain, if the wash, as the mixture of ground malt and rye, barley, or oatmeal with water is called, be subjected to distillation, no spirits are produced: the mixture, or wash, must be subjected to a moderate heat, and exposed 30* 354 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. to the air by repeated stirrings, until it ferments and ac- quires a vinous smell. It is then fitted, when put into the still, to furnish spirits, or alcohol and water. The origin of alcohol, and the relative share which fermentation and distillation have each, respectively, in furnishing it, are well expressed by Dr. Ure, in his Dic- tionary of Chemistry, art. Alcohol. "As we are not able to compound alcohol from its ultimate constituents, [car- bon, oxygen and hydrogen,] we have recourse to the process of fermentation, by which its principles are first extricated from the substances in which they were com- bined, and then united into a new compound; to dis- tillation, by which this new compound, the alcohol, is separated in a state of dilution with water, and con- taminated with essential oil; and to rectification, by which it is ultimately freed from them." The last stage is the conversion of common proof spirits into alcohol, for use in the arts, the only one to which alcohol, in any shape, is, with few exceptions, applicable. Farther and conclusive proof of the sameness of the mode of combination of alcohol in wine and spirits, is found in the readiness with which it can be procured from wine without distillation. Mr. Brande first showed how this could be done. By adding sugar of lead (subacetate of lead) to the wine, the acid and extractive colouring matters were thrown down or precipitated, and then, by the farther addition to the clear liquor of dry carbonate of potassa, the alcohol rose to the surface, leaving the heavier water, with the potassa in solution, in the lower part of the glass tube in which the experiment was made. The same fact has since been established by Gay Lussac, who procured alcohol from wine by dis- tillation in vacuo, at the low temperature of 60° F. The mere removal of the pressure of the atmosphere was IDENTITY OF THE INTOXICATING PRINCIPLE. 355 sufficient, in this case, to allow of the alcohol separating and rising from the wine or rather the water, with which latter and the extractive colouring matter and volatile oil and acid, it was combined to form wine. After these and other experiments of the like conclusive nature, we are fully warranted in saying, with Dr. Turner, that, in all spirits, such as brandy or whisky, the alcohol is simply combined with water; whereas, in wine, it is in combination with mucilaginous, saccharine, and other vegetable principles. It becomes the more necessary to establish, beyond denial, the fact, not only of the identity of the intoxi- cating principle in all spirituous and fermented drinks, but of its mode of union or combination being the same in all, in order to enable us to ascertain, by a common standard, the proportionate quantity of intoxicating drinks used by the people of different countries. In the case of vegetable food, eaten in different and remote parts of the world by the people, I showed that, however various the sources of supply,—some being from grain, some from pulse, others from roots, and others, again, from the matter contained in the wood of certain palms, —there was one common principle which they all con- tained, and on which much of their nutritive properties depended. This is fecula, or starch. So, in the case of intoxicating drinks, we find, in all their varieties, by whatever name they may be designated, and in what- ever esteem held, there is one common principle, that on which their intoxicating and chiefly noxious properties depend. This is alcohol. Dietetic value of Alcoholic Liquors.—One of the claims most strongly urged in favour of alcoholic liquors as drink, is that they aid digestion both directly and by correcting disorders of this function. There is not a 356 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. particle of proof of this allegation, which, on the con- trary, is opposed to chemistry, physiology, and general observation and experience. The end and object of di- gestion is, first, the solution of the food, since nothing can be taken up by the absorbent vessels, by them to be carried into the blood, which is not in solution; and se- condly, the reduction of the different ingredients of the food, already enumerated, into the most simple material of the animal processes, namely, albumen, which is found to be contained in the fluid resulting from the digestion of the food, partly in the state of solution and partly in globules. This, with slight additions, is the clear statement of the case by Miiller. (Elements of Physiology, p. 479.) Let us see, next, how far alcohol or alcoholic liquors contribute to fulfil the indication laid down. Has it any reducing property, such as water has and weak acids have, when aided by heat? So far from this, alcohol coagulates albumen and hardens the muscular fibre, and does not dissolve casein. It is on account of its being opposed to the reduction of animal matter, either into a homogeneous pulp, such as is re- quired for its conversion into chyme, or into a homoge- neous fluid, as we see in chyle, that alcohol is employed by anatomists and naturalists to preserve animal sub- stances and objects in natural history unchanged. Digestion, or the conversion of food into the some- what homogeneous, pulpy mass, called chyme, is brought about in the stomach by water, by warmth, and by an acid, the muriatic, and sometimes by an- other, the acetic, mixed with some mucus. Alcohol is no ingredient in this mass, is no part of the secretion from the stomach, or of gastric juice with its acids and mucus. Its presence, by introduction from without, retards the change or reduction of the several articles ALCOHOL RETARDS DIGESTION. 357 of food into chyme, and consequently interferes with, by retarding, the farther change or conversion of the fluid portion of this chyme into chyle, or the materials of chyle, which soon becomes blood. The chief compo- nent parts of chyme are albumen and casein, to the solution of both of which alcohol is opposed. Farther observations made, of late years, on the gas- tric fluids, by Eberle, Schwann and Muller, all German physiologists, have almost rendered it certain, that the active animal matter in gastric digestion is a modifi- cation of mucus, termed pepsin, or the digestive prin- ciple. The activity in pepsin is increased by its so- lution in acids, and they cause a change in substances analogous to that of digestion in the stomach. The combination of pepsin and acid seems indeed to be necessary for digestion. Very different is the case with alcohol. Muller says expressly, " alcohol and the boil- ing temperature render the digestive principle inert." It may be replied to these and some preceding ob- servations, that it is pure alcohol on which the ex- periments were made; and that, in common drinks this fluid is greatly diluted. This objection, however, at the very farthest, is merely in extenuation; alcohol, as far as it reaches the particles of food in the stomach, retards digestion; and if not greatly deleterious when drunk in the shape of spirits, wine or beer, this is owing to the smaller quantity, but not to any change or modi- fication of its mischievous properties. In confirmation of these chemico-physiological views and experiments, we have direct proof, derived from the changes which have been noted in the stomach of a living person, after drinking alcoholic liquors. Many of my readers have heard of the man who re- ceived a wound, which, though it healed, left an open- 358 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. ing into his stomach, so large that a portion of the cavity of this organ could be examined by another per- son at will. Dr. Beaumont had this man in his keep- ing for a long time, and made a great many exceedingly interesting and valuable experiments on him, in illus- tration of digestion generally, as well as of the rela- tive digestibility of different artcles of food. Want of time and space prevents me from noticing many of these, which are recorded by Dr. Beaumont in his Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice. Among his observations were those respecting the effects of alcoholic drinks on the stomach and diges- tion of this man (Alexis St. Martin). He found, that they invariably interfered with the regularity and completeness of digestion; and, in reference to the morbid appearances of the mucous or lining mem- brane of the stomach, he tells us expressly: " The free use of ardent spirits, wines, beer, or any intoxicating liquor, when continued for some days, has invariably produced these morbid changes," p. 239. There are not always unpleasant feelings nor even diminished appetite at first, with these diseased states of the sto- mach; and hence, a person will deny for a while that he suffers from his alcoholic potations; but, ere long, disease manifests itself in various ways, and by various symptoms, many of which indicate disorder of parts re- mote from the stomach, although the injury done to it was the primary and the chief cause. Equally fallacious with the belief of alcoholic liquors aiding digestion, is that of their efficacy in enabling those who drink them to encounter more fatigue, and to incur greater exposures of temperature and weather generally, than they could otherwise do. The very re- verse of all this is true. The recorded experience of WINE IMPROPER IN HEALTH. 359 men in all situations and climates,—under all kinds of labour and exposure, prove that abstinence from these drinks gives increased ability to go through the labours of the farm and the workshop, to resist heat and cold, and to encounter hardships on sea and land, beyond what has ever been done under the unnatural ex- citement of alcohol, followed, as it always is, by de- pression and debility, if not by fever and other diseases. The observations of naval and military surgeons and commanders are now pretty uniformly to the same pur- port, and their testimony is adverse to the issue of rations of spirits, or of alcoholic drinks generally, to men in the army and navy. As respects the common use of wine, the subject is thus briefly yet clearly and pertinently dismissed in a few words by Dr. Pereira:—" To persons in health, the dietetical employment of wine is either useless or per- nicious." As a medicinal agent it must be directed by a physician with a knowledge of all the circumstances in the case of his patient, and of the composition, proper- ties and effects of wine, similar to that which is expected of him in the prescribing other medicines. He must not evade his heavy responsibility under the cover of poetry or jest, or in compliance with fashion or the appetite of his patient. If he have studied the effects of vinous liquors, he will have learned that they keep up, if they do not bring on, gout, rheumatism, disorders of the sto- mach, and of the kidneys and skin; and that the change from one kind of wine to another is only a change in the morbid agent. Malt liquors, though of less alcoholic strength than spirits and most wines, are capable of causing drunken- ness, and this is quite a common effect of their use in England. At first apparently more favourable to nutri- 360 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. tion than the other classes of alcoholic liquors, by the fulness and corpulency of frame which they induce, they are found to be after a while adverse to a ready and active discharge of the functions. The brain suffers, and the faculties are dull and sodden, or apoplexy strikes down the beer-bibber: the heart suffers, and there is hypertrophy and retarded and irregular circulation, and danger of sudden death from this cause; the lungs suffer, and there is congestion, pneumonia, and not seldom dropsy of the chest. Other forms of dropsy also succeed to the free use of malt liquors, which kill more speedily, and with preceding symptoms of greater degradation— reduction of man to the mere brute, than even after the habitual use of ardent spirits. Some of the English writers, while they admit and deplore these deleterious effects of drinking malt liquors, attribute them to adul- teration. They add, however, that the taste of the people generally is so vitiated by the adulterated, in fact poisonous beer and ale and porter, that even if the brewers were all honest, they would not find customers for their purer liquors. A slight retrospect of the history of beer,—barley- wine, as it was called by the Egyptians,—will show, that long anterior to modern inventions, by the in- troduction into it of cocculus indicus, or Indian berry, black extract, or this berry with opium and other ingredients, nux vomica, or St. Ignatius's bean, hen- bane, extract of poppies, copperas, capsicum, worm- wood, aloes, quassia, &c. &c, this favourite English beverage was also a highly intoxicating one. The Ger- mans in the time of Tacitus could get drunk on beer, and fight, and shed each other's blood, very much in the same fashion in which our North American Indians enact similar scenes under the delirium caused by whis- COMPARATIVE ALCOHOLIC STATISTICS. 361 key and rum. German bravery was of no avail against a foreign foe, when subdued by drink; and in this state, as when the Marsi were surprised by Germanieus, they became an easy prey to their disciplined and vigilant enemies, the Romans. The descendants of these people, the Anglo-Saxons in England, did not abate much in their convivial and intemperate habits kept up by beer: and we may sup- pose that the revelry and dissipation in Harold's camp on the night preceding the fatal battle of Hastings, was maintained by potations of the national beverage. In our climate, even more than in that of England, the habitual use of malt liquors is decidedly injurious. The free acid, though partially disguised to the taste, is detrimental to digestion, and to all the assimilating functions; it is particularly inimical to the skin and the kidneys. In conclusion of this part of my subject, I shall submit a few estimates of the consumption of alcoholic liquors in Great Britain, France, and the United States. They will surprise, I know, many of my readers, who are little prepared to find that drunkenness and all its vile and wretched concomitants, prevail to an extent in France hardly exceeded by those which are so well known to exist in Great Britain and the United States. In France, the intoxicating liquors used are wine, cider, beer and brandy. I have not an estimate for 1830, of the consumption of all these articles; that of cider and beer being of anterior date, viz. the former as given by Baron Dupin, in 1825, and the latter by a French Medical Journal for 1829. The manufacture and consumption of both of these drinks have, however, probably increased since the above dates, so that in giving the returns from the sources indicated, we keep 31 362 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. within the amount used in 1830. I have selected this year on account of the estimate of the manufacture, consumption and sale of wine, as given in page 223, being for that period. The several kinds of intoxicat- ing drink, and the quantities of each respectively drunk in France, in 1830, are as follows:— Gallons. Wine,........611,466,000 Cider,........234,121,000 *Beer,........124,000,000 f Brandy, from wine and murk, ... 15,074,000 Brandy, from cider, cherries, potatoes and grain, - 2,890,800$ Alcoholic drinks of all kinds, .... 987,551,800 * In the above estimate of the quantity of beer drunk, I have taken the mean of Baron Dupin's statement, which is about 93,000,000, for 1823, and of the French Medical Journal for 1829, which is 155,000,000 gallons. | Redding gives, from a French official document, the amount of brandy made from wine and the murk, in the several de- partments in France, which is 821,960 hectolitres. From this must be deducted the amount exported; but as I find no return for 1830, I have made an estimate deduced from the amount ex- ported in 1828, as given by McCulloch, with the remark, that it has since decreased considerably. The export, in 1828, was 403,207 hectolitres; in 1827, 273,574 hectolitres; in 1826, 194,110 hectolitres. Now if we give the exportation for 1830, at 250,000 hectolitres, we shall probably be in advance of the actual amount. Were I to take Dupin's statement as the basis, being the yearly average from 1819 to 1823, the estimate of consumption would be much higher than that which I have adopted. He does not give the quantity in brandy, but he does in pure alcohol, which is 560,988 hectolitres, from all sources, wine, cider, &c. If we sup- pose that brandy has fifty per cent, of alcohol, and the analysis of Brande makes it fifty-three, then this amount in alcohol will re- present 1,121,976 hectolitres, from which, deducting the quantity exported for 1823, viz. 310,059, and there would remain for home consumption, 811,917 hectolitres, or 21,416,000 gallons of brandy. $ Dupin. ALCOHOL DRUNK IN FRANCE. 363 M. Dupin's estimate is higher than mine in the pre- ceding statement, since he supposes the quantity of in- toxicating drinks consumed in France to be at the rate of forty-two gallons per individual, whereas, according to my estimate, the rate will not be much more than thirty gallons, taking the population at thirty-two and a half millions, in 1830. Surprise will be felt by many at the quantity of beer consumed in France. As a memorandum which may aid to remove doubts on this head, it is worth while to note, that in 1824, the excise duties on beer in that coun- try, amounted to 9,252,300 francs, or about 1,800,000 dollars. The chief manufacture, both of beer and cider, is in the northern part of France, and where also these drinks are chiefly consumed. In order to enable us to institute a comparison be- tween the habits of the French and those of other peo- ple, as respects their use of intoxicating drinks, we must reduce these to a common standard, which is done by exhibiting the quantity of alcohol in each kind. Be- ginning with wine, I shall take the rate, adding a small fraction, adopted by M. Dupin, at least that which corre- sponds with two data laid down by him, viz. the quan- tity of wine distilled, 5,217,753 hectolitres, and the pro- duct in alcohol, 459,817 hectolitres, which would be at the rate of 8.8 per cent. According to Mr. Brande, the wines of Burgundy have from eleven to sixteen per cent, of alcohol, those of Champaigne, from twelve to fourteen, Claret (average) 15.10; but on the other hand, the common country wine (vin de pays et vin ordi- naire), will hardly average more than four to five per cent. The alcohol in cider, I shall estimate at seven per cent, being somewhat below the average given by Mr. Brande, who makes the analysis of two specimens, 3£4 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. at 9.87 and 5.21 or 7.84. As respects beer, it is not so easy to establish a rate applicable to the varieties of strong and weak or small beer. But as more than four- fifths of the entire quantity of malt liquor made in France is, according to M. Dupin's statement, strong beer, I shall take five per cent, as its proportion of alcohol. Mr. Brande's analysis averaged for the four kinds of strong beer 6.30 per cent. For brandy, my estimate will be fifty per cent, of alcohol; Mr. Brande makes it fifty-three. The sum total of alcohol in the different drinks used by the French people will, there- fore, be as follows:— Gallons. Gallons of Alcohol. In 611,466,000 of wine, at 9 per cent, is - - 55,000,000 234,121,000 of cider, at 7 " ... 16,388,470 124,000,000 of beer, at 5 " ... 6,200,000 17,954,800 of brandy, at 50 " - - - 8,982,400 987,551,800, averaging 8.7 per cent. - - - 86,570,870 This will give more than 2\, or 2.66 gallons of pure alcohol, mixed up in various drinks, for every indi- vidual in France. The quantity used in the arts and manufactures is not, I believe, known; but if we were to give the surplus of the two gallons and a half, or 5,320,870 gallons, to these purposes, there would still be a fearful exhibition of the quantity of alcohol drunk in France. To gain an approximation to the amount really consumed by the persons who chiefly drink intoxicating liquors, we must deduct from the entire population one-third, being of children under twelve years of age, who are generally, we must hope, not consumers of these drinks; and of the remainder, we may suppose that one-half, or the women are in the same state. This, I know, is being more gallant to the REAL STATE OF FRENCH TEMPERANCE. 365 sex than accurate in the fact; for many of the women drink, and get drunk, and are in insane asylums on this account. But we will suppose the women exempt, and there remain about ten millions and a half of males, of all ages over ten years, who, if we take eighty-one millions two hundred and fifty thousand gal- lons as the entire amount, after deducting what is used in the arts, consume alcohol, at the rate of 7.7 gal- lons annually per man,—distributed through various kinds of drinks. After this melancholy exhibition of the statistics of alcohol for France, the traveller who has lounged along the boulevards at Paris, and travelled thence post to Italy, will exclaim with amazement,—how is it, that, notwithstanding this immense consumption of intoxi- cating drinks by the French people, they should still be so temperate? The question then directly comes up, are they temperate? What is the experience of those persons who mix with the people in their fetes,— who look into their cabarets or small wine and brandy shops,—who watch the crowds returning into Paris of a Sunday evening from outside the barriers, where they get wine cheaper than in the city,—who visit their hospitals, to note the causes of disease and of surgical injuries; and to make a record of their insane, and the causes of this disease,—who read the news- papers, and learn in them the origin of quarrels and duels between soldiers at a cabaret, and of disobedi- ence of the men to their officers? With facts derived from these various sources, except the inspection of cabarets, I made myself acquainted during a twelve- month's residence in Paris. I there found cause to modify very materially my former opinions of the tem- perance of the people of Paris, if not of France gene- 31* 366 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. rally. Farther inquiry and reading have extended my knowledge on this subject, — but in a melancholy way, for they have made me cognizant of the startling fact, that drunkenness is becoming, has in many parts of France become, as much a national vice as it was, and still, alas! greatly is, in the United States and the British empire. How indeed could it be otherwise, with the immense consumption, by the French people, of all kinds of alcoholic or intoxicating drinks. Some of the features of this moral blight have been pre- sented to the reader, on page 79 of this work, when the habits of the labouring classes in Nantz and Brest, and the farmers from the country around, were de- picted. M. Villerm6, who certainly is too much accustomed to statistical inquiries to indulge in speculation or ex- aggeration, and has too lofty a patriotism to be a de- tracter of his countrymen, says, that drunkenness is the greatest curse of the labouring classes in France. The workmen or operatives drink spirituous liquors, he tells us, at first without pleasure, and merely through imi- tation; soon to indifference succeeds an agreeable sen- sation; then an irresistible desire is felt, and a passion continually augmenting. "It is thus that, gradually, and often by a rapid descent, a man passes from habits of sobriety to habits of intemperance, from the moderate use of intoxicating drinks to their abuse. Henceforth, everything becomes an occasion for the operative to visit the tavern, (caba- ret:) he goes there when times are prosperous, because he gets high wages and has money; when he is for a while without work, because he has nothing to do; when he is happy, in order to enjoy himself; when he has domestic troubles, in order to forget them. In fine, it VILLERME AND CHEVALIER QUOTED. 367 is at the tavern that he contracts debts, that he pays them when he can, that he makes his bargains, that he contracts his friendships, &c, and that even he gives his daughter in marriage." After describing the waste, idleness, indigence, turbulence, debasement, disease, shortening of life, vices and crimes which drunkenness brings in its train, M. Villerme adds: " We may affirm, that drunkenness is truly the chief cause of the quarrels, of a great number of crimes, and of nearly all the disor- ders and irregularities which the operatives commit, or in which they take a part." (Ann. d'Hygiene, &c. T. XXII., and Eclectic Journal of Medicine, Vol. IV. p. 253-5.) Chevalier, in his treatise on "The Preven- tion of Diseases among Printers," states, as the chief means, dissuasion from the excessive use of intoxi- cating drinks, and from frequenting petty taverns and pot-houses. Among the articles of advice which he suggests should come from the master-printers to their compositors and others, is to explain to them the dangers of intemperance in drink, or in any other indulgence. Among the considerations which he presses on the atten- tion of the workmen themselves, is to live in a becoming manner, and temperately; avoiding debauches, some- times of days' duration, to be atoned for by excessive labour and insufficient food. (Ann. d'Hyg. Pub. T. XIII.; and Eelect. Journ. Med. Vol. IV. p. 71-2.) After these statements of their own writers, the French people will not, probably, feel themselves scan- dalized by the following extract from the work of Mr. Bulwer, (Monarchy of the Middle Classes, Vol. I. p. 119,) who, by the way, generally describes France in as favourable a light as possible. It is in reference to the workmen and operatives of Paris. " Hatters— drunkards; tailors—vicious and dissatisfied; nappers 368 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. and cotton spinners—so wretched that no fault should be found with them; cabinet-makers—fond of drinking, but of quiet tempers; printers and analogous trades— drinkers; house-painters—drunkards, very careless; mar- ble cutters—drinkers and hot headed; workmen in har- bours—exceedingly addicted to drinking; curriers— drunkards in the highest degree." M. Villerme, in his essay, does not restrict his obser- vation to the operatives of Paris, but mentions those of Rouen, Saint Quentin, Lille, Rheims and Rhetel, as addicted to drunkenness. M. Villerme suggests various remedies for this wide-spread evil of intoxication, among which are appeals to the rational philanthropy of the proprietors and master-manufacturers combined with the efforts of the clergyman and the magistrate. He notices, in order to correct it, the mistaken opinion, that it is easier for a person to moderate the quantity of an accustomed stimulus than to forego its use altogether. Reformed drunkards seem to agree that such is not the case: the entire withdrawal is easier to bear than the limited allowance. The position, therefore, continues the French author,of the American Temperance Societies,is founded on just grounds,— that entire abstinence from intoxi- cating liquors is the only certain remedy against in- temperance. M. Villerme, in speaking of Temperance Societies in France, does not seem to be very sanguine of their success. " I consider (he says) the religious spirit of the United States as a powerful element in the success of temperance societies, which does not exist in our population." Reference has been made to insanity in France, pro- duced by intoxicating liquors. The proofs of the fact are in the statistical reports of her own physicians.— It appears that, of 256 persons, received in the hos- INSANITY IN FRANCE FROM ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS. 369 pital at Charenton, near Paris, who were insane from physical causes, during the years 1826, 1827 and 1828, 64, or one-fourth of the whole, had become so in conse- quence of excess in the drinking of wine, (abus du vin.) Of these, there were twelve females.* In the insane asylum at Caen, M. Vastel reports nineteen patients, whose disease was brought on by intoxicating drinks, (liqueurs fortes,) of whom three were females. The whole number diseased from physical causes, was 51, and from moral causes, 109—total, 160. So that, of the insane from all causes, the proportion from drunkenness or its equivalent excesses, was as one to every eight and one-half. M. Vastel refers to the returns at Charenton, of whose inmates, he says, the proportion from drunken- ness is one-tenth of the entire number; and he also re- peats the results of M. Pinel's experience to a similar purport, viz. that out of two hundred and sixty-four cases of insanity, he noted twenty-six as the effect of the abuse of spirituous liquors. (Ann. d'Hyg. &c. T. VIII.) It may be alleged, that, as there is more drunkenness in the northern than in the southern portion of France, the inference in favour of the region of the vine ought to be favourable; but I have already stated that, although the people in the south are the producers, yet the people of the north, and especially the inhabitants of cities, are the consumers. I have already exhibited the state of the producers of wine as anything but enviable. We can now see how far that of the consumers is better, or en- titles them to be held up as an example to the people of * The reader, desirous of farther details and illustrative argu- ments on the whole question of the effects of intoxicating liquors, is referred to the Anniversary Report of the Pennsylvania Tem- perance Society, (with a copious appendix,) for 1831—prepared and read by the author of this work. 370 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. the United States, in favour of the cultivation of the vine, with a view to the manufacture of wine—and brandy, for the two go together. The alcoholic and intoxicating drinks consumed in Great Britain and Ireland are comprised under the heads of beer, cider, spirits, and wine. It has been already stated in a former chaper, p. 124, that the quantity of beer of all kinds manufactured in Great Britain and Ireland in 1830, was upwards of nine millions and a half of barrels, or 322,000,000 gallons, of which the proportion made in Ireland would be about a million of barrels. The greater part of the beer brewed in England was that designated as strong, viz. 6,570,310 bbls.—if, therefore, we estimate the proportion of alcohol in the whole 9% millions of barrels at 5 per cent, as was done in the calculations of French beer, we shall proba- bly be near the mark. The quantity of cider has been estimated at 4,725,000 gallons. That of ardent spirits, (we still speak of 1830,) was 27,708,S31 imperial gal- lons; and of wine, 6,434,445 gallons, of which 2,889,608 gallons were Portuguese, or we may say Port wine, and 2,081,423 gallons of Spanish or chiefly Sherry, Catalonia and Malaga. The quantity of Madeira was but 217,000 gallons. The proportion of alcohol in Port wine is, according to Mr. Brande, within a small fraction of 23 per cent.; in Lisbon, 18; in Madeira, 23 per cent.; Sherry, Tene- riffe, and Vidonia, rising 19. As the quantity of French wines was a little over 400,000 gallons, and of German 60,000 gallons, the former of which will average about 13 per cent., the latter about the same, or 13, I can hardly be accused of overrating the alcoholic per centage if I make it 20 for all the foreign wines imported into CONSUMPTION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 371 Great Britain. The proportion for spirits I estimate at 50 per cent. The account will then stand as follows:— Gallons. Gallons of Alcohol. Beer, 322,000,000 at 5 per cent. - - 16,100,000 Cider, 4,725,000 7 do. - - - 330,750 Wine, 6,434,445 20 do. - - - 1,286,889 Spirits, 27,708,831 50 do. - - - 13,854,415 360,868,276 at a mean of 8.7 per cent. 31,572,054 The population of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the United Kingdom, was in 1830, about 24 millions and a half, so that the consumption of alcohol distri- buted through different drinks, would be at the rate of 1.28 gallons per individual. But if, as in the case of the estimates of French alcoholic produce and consumption, we allow for use in the arts a certain quantity, and fix this as equal to the surplus fraction over 1.25 or T§„, it will leave the consumption in the United Kingdom equal to one and a quarter gallons per individual. I have not the means of ascertaining, nor do I know that there is any authentic record of the quantity of alcohol con- sumed in the demands of the arts and for scientific pur- poses in France and Great Britain. The reader can, however, readily make the necessary allowances under this head, if he should have at any time the positive data before him. The proportion of alcoholic consump- tion of drinks in France was, in 1830, to that in Great Britain and Ireland, as just two to one, person for per- son. How different this result of figures, which it is believed represent here the facts, from the prevalent notions on the relative temperance of the two countries. I have not the data before me, to ascertain the dimi- nution in the quantity of alcoholic liquors, made and drunk in the United Kingdom since 1830, but we may 372 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. readily believe that it has been, at any rate in Ire- land, considerable. Opposed to this opinion, however, is that of Mr. Farr, who says that the consumption of intoxicating liquors has increased faster than the popu- lation in the last twenty years. Of France we cannot express the same favourable opinion, as the writings of Villerm6 and others, deploring the extended evils of drunkenness, record the state of things subsequent to 1830. The two kinds of intoxicating drinks most largely manufactured and drunk in Great Britain are beer and spirits. In Ireland, spirits constitute the chief intoxi- cating beverage; the quantity of beer being small. Drunkenness, with all its precursors, concomitants and effects, is most largely induced by ardent spirits. Re- cords, of every description, show what a curse these liquors are to the country. The subject was brought before public attention in a more authentic and authori- tative shape, in a Parliamentary Report, in 1834, by a "Committee of Inquiry into Drunkenness," the chairman of which was the well-known writer and traveller, Mr. James Silk Buckingham. Under the head of the Conse- quences to Individual Character, the committee report, " Destruction of health and disease in every shape; pre- mature decrepitude in the old; stunted growth and general decay and debility in the young; loss of Jife by paroxysms, apoplexies, drownings, burnings, and ac- cidents of various kinds; delirium tremens, one of the most awful afflictions of humanity; paralysis, idiotcy, madness, and violent death, as proved by numerous medical witnesses, who have made this the subject of their long and careful investigation. " 7. Destruction of mental capacity and vigour, and extinction of aptitude for learning, as well as of indis- BAD EFFECTS OF BEER-DRINKING. 373 position for practising any useful art or industrious oc- cupation. " 8. Irritation of all the worst passions of the heart: hatred, anger, revenge, with a brutalization of disposi- tion that breaks asunder and destroys the most endearing bonds of nature and society. " 9. Extinction of all moral and religious principle; disregard of truth, indifference to education, violation of chastity, insensibility to shame, and indescribable de- gradation; as proved by clergymen, magistrates, over- seers, teachers and others, examined by your committee on all these points." (Report,—-Printed by order of the House of Commons,—p. 4.) This melancholy picture, in all its distorted features and darkest shading, is, unhappily, the precise repre- sentation of daily disasters from a similar cause in the United States. Happily, from year to year, especially since 1830, its repulsive points are becoming softened; and we may hope that in the course of another genera- tion an entirely different representation will be ex- hibited of the dietetic morals of our land. I believe that it was Mr. Buckingham's wish, to ex- tend the "Parliamentary Inquiry" into the effects of malt liquors; but as the whole subject was in a measure new to the members, and they feared either to shock popular prejudices, or to exhibit a state of things which might lead to a diminution of his Majesty's excise, Mr. B. was overruled. If the inquiry had been ex- tended, in the manner suggested, it would have brought to light, or rather put on more formal record, a series of evils to individuals and the community, resulting from the general use of malt liquors, analogous to, and in many cases rivalling, those which follow in the train of ardent spirits. Others may be less annoyed by 32 374 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. the drunkenness without clamour of the beer-bibber, but he himself suffers deeply, becomes heavy, stupid, and sullen, and approaches, in body and mind, more nearly to the swine, than does the gin and whiskey drinker, who, if he feels flattered by the comparison, may be said to exhibit more resemblance to the tiger or the mad dog. The active and observing, may we not say practical, friends of temperance in Great Britain, are so fully persuaded of the pernicious effects of the use—so soon running into the abuse—of malt liquors, that they practise, and recommend to others, entire ab- stinence from this class, as from all other kinds of in- toxicating drinks. The testimony is abundant and varied in favour of this total-abstinence practice.* The statistics of the manufacture and consumption of alcoholic drinks are too defective in the United States to admit of my giving a statement of the subject, in figures, analogous to that furnished for France, and the one for Great Britain and Ireland. Of the quantity of cider and of beer made, I have no returns, official or otherwise. A few years ago, there was a great deal of cider made in the apple regions, and of brandy distilled from it and the apples, fermented with water. That there is improvement in this last particular, we may properly infer from the returns of the amount of the products of the orchard, in Vermont for example, which, in 1840, were 1,109,387 dollars, compared with the number of distilleries, three, and the quantity dis- tilled, 3,500 gallons. If we fix our attention on the two kinds of intoxi- cating liquor which contain the most alcohol, viz. spirits * See, among other documents, the Third Report of the Neio British and Foreign Temperance Society, 1839. CONSUMPTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 375 and wine, consumed in the United States in 1S30, we are startled at the terrific quantity of the first of these liquors, viz. spirits, which, by different writers at the time, was estimated to be seventy-two millions of gal- lons. The population was then not quite thirteen millions; which would give for each individual five and a half gallons,—or of pure alcohol, two gallons and three-quarters, without taking into the account wine, beer or cider. If we deduct from our entire population one-third, as being under twelve years of age,* and either not consuming, or using it in relatively small quantities, and deduct from the remainder, one-half, as belonging to the female sex, and also non-consumers,— but this is merely conventional politeness as regards a great many of them,—and there remain about 4,350,000 who were the regular drinkers, and whose allowance of spirits, per man, must therefore have been more than 16§ (16.6) gallons, or of alcohol, eight and a quarter gallons. The wine of all kinds, consumed in the United States in 1830, may be estimated at about three millions of gal- lons, or not a quart for each person, annually. As the pro- portion of French wines is greater than in the English importations, we may rate the per centage of alcohol at eighteen, on an average for the whole. This will give, of alcohol, five hundred and forty thousand gal- lons,—and add something to the fearful amount of ardent spirits. But, while thus picturing the state of things in 1830, and the ' bad eminence' to which our country had * The estimate of the proportion in this case, as well as of the two sexes, is not meant to be rigidly accurate, indeed the first is merely approximative. 376 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. reached in the consumption of alcoholic liquors, it is but right, before dismissing the subject, to know, that a happy change is coming over us in this particular at least. The entire product of the distilleries in the United States, in 1840, as given in the American Al- manac for the present year, was 36,343,236 gallons. The imports over the exports of spirits may be estimated at 2,500,000 gallons; and of wine, at 4,000,000 gallons, —leaving, at the rates already given, rather more than a gallon and a quarter of pure alcohol per individual, for a population of seventeen millions of persons, or, a pro- portionately reduced consumption of more than one half the quantity of intoxicating drinks, chiefly of ardent spirits, in a period of ten years. The reduction in the quantity of cider consumed, has fully kept pace with that of the stronger liquor. I will not affirm the same of beer, though, on this point, I have not the requisite data at hand. To sum up for 1840, the statement will stand thus: Gallons. Home spirits, 36,343,236 Foreign spirits, 2,500,000 Wines, 4,000,000 Beer, Cider, 42,843,236 20,141,618 If we suppose the real consumers to be equal to about 5,700,000 persons, or a third of the entire population, there would have been for each person six and four- fifth gallons of spirits of all kinds, and two and four- fifth quarts of wine, together, equal to three and a half gallons of pure alcohol, being a reduction from the con- sumption of 1S30, or in a period of ten years, of more than 57 per cent. Gallons of Alcohol. at 50 per cent. 18,171,618 " " 1,250,000 18 720,000 CHAPTER XV. LONGEVITV. Desire for longevity natural and proper—Influence of the aged- Worth and genius more influential with length of years—Causes of longevity—Inherited predisposition—A good physical educa- tion—Great bodily strength not necessary—Average intellectual and moral energy—Strong passions a draw-back—Regularity and temperance — Early rising—Simplicity of diet—Inherited weak- ness increased or abated by the mode of life—Climate—Specific inquiries—The influence of sex—Females attain greater longevity than males—Fluctuations, in different ages, in the two sexes.— Age—Increased mortality in early life—Maximum of vitality— when reached—Modifications by climate—When suicide is most frequent. Race—Greater mortality in the black race. Climate and Locality—Hot climates not preventive or curative in consumption —Acclimation—Residence for two or three years does not diminish mortality in hot climates—Difference in mortality between town and country. Seasons and Temperature—Cold adverse to vitality, particularly in the young and the old—Extreme heat in cities de- structive of infant life—Suicide, when most frequent—Occupations modifying vitality—Intemperance the chief morbid agent—Pic- tures of in France and England—Military life adverse to longevity —Vaccination—Insanity—Mortality in different nations. " Age sits with decent grace upon his visage, And worthily becomes his silver locks; He wears the marks of many years well spent, Of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience." Men, when not insensate by evil passion and evil habits, with whatever cares they may be opprest, and. 32* 378 LONGEVITY. in every variety of situation and circumstance, naturally look forward to the probability of their entering into the vale of years, with matured experience and chastened feelings. Longevity is not only desired, but desirable, if sought after in the true spirit of medical philosophy, and of religious morality. The virtues of old age seem to exhibit human nature at its culmination; they at once carry with them the most eloquent precept and impressive example. Never does the triumph of moral over brute force appear more conspicuously, than in the persuasive voice of old age, arresting the hand of vio- lence, turning away from his career of conquest and of rapine, the ruthless warrior, or calming the wild passions of an infuriated crowd, wrought up to attempt an indis- criminate destruction of life and property. Alexander of Macedon, when he approached Jerusalem, in all the exaltation of victory over Darius, and fully intending to give the city up to plunder, could not refrain from prostrating himself before the Jewish high priest, and thus worshipping the Deity in the venerable person of his aged minister. Attila, that terrible scourge of the human race, was, for once, stayed in his bloody march to Rome, by the aged St. Leon, whose impressive warn- ing had more power over the barbarian king, than armed legions. On a lengthened span of years would seem to depend not only the completion of their possessor's own fame, but the glory, perhaps safety, of his country, and the establishment of a grand principle involving the happiness of future millions. Men, towards the close of a long life, would seem, in giving their experience, to be almost able to convert history into prophecy. The Roman senate, wavering on the manner they should receive the propositions of Pyrrhus, for peace and di- vided rule in Italy, were only called back to a sense of DANDOLO—LA FAVETTE. 379 their own dignity, and to the proud determination never to accept terms from an enemy, by the zealous counsel of Appius Claudius, who, though old, infirm, and blind, was roused by the emergency, and had himself carried to the senate house, where he spake as an oracle, in predicting Rome's future greatness. And, in fact, by their subsequent resistance and final success over Pyrr- hus, the Romans acquired a loftiness of sentiment, and enlargement of power, with the reputation of being in- vincible, which soon after gained them all Italy and Sicily, and finally the dominion of the world. Dandolo, " blind old Dandolo," was eighty-four years of age when he was made Doge of Venice; and yet the remaining ten years of his life were among the most eventful in the history of the republic, into whose counsels he infused a vigour and determination which would have been in vain attempted by a young man. Converting the arms of the crusaders to the benefit of his country, he eventu- ally led them on to the storming of Constantinople, and was the first to plant the standard of St. Mark on the walls of that city. Finally, to the ducal was added, by his companions in arms, the imperial crown, which he resigned for the less imposing, but more substantial honour of Duke of Romania. Who, at the time, did not see in the prolonged life of the consistent La Fayette, the history of liberty for the preceding fifty years; and who did not feel that the triumph of liberty was more complete when he, the representative of its suffering during the times of anarchy and of military conquest, was, by national acclaim, hailed as its patriarch, and the depositary of its charter. La Fayette, unable to save the monarchy and constitutional liberty in the first revolution, led, subse- quently, a life of virtuous retirement, and matured his 380 LONGEVITY. energies for that struggle, when, in the evening of his days, his services were again called for, with such honour to himself and benefit to his country. Contrast him with that great bad man, his compatriot Mirabeau. The latter had a mind of the highest order, and eloquence the most commanding and impressive; but his com- mentary on national liberty, was personal licentiousness; and hence, his promise to save his country from anarchy, and king from the scaffold, was rendered vain by a pre- mature death—the direct effect of the grossest licentious- ness, and neglect of those laws of hygiene, on which longevity so much depends. Had such men as Fox and Sheridan attached more importance than they did to the means of attaining longevity, they would have been more attentive to those maxims of temperance and worldly prudence, by which the sphere of a man's exer- tions in the cause of humanity and patriotism are so much enlarged; and they would have retained the ability, in a healthy advanced age, of being their country's pilots amid the storm, as they had been its forward watch to announce danger. The principles of the whig opposition would not then have suffered so signally as they did, by Fox, its great leader, receiving a stipend from his po- litical partisans and friends, in the shape of a subscrip- tion; an acknowledgement, in fact, of his necessities, which, together with disease, were the results of his intemperate extravagance. Poor Sheridan, with all his oratory and wit, became an outcast from society—a drunken, fallen and degraded man. Why, in the instances of Savage, Burns, and Byron, were genius and fine feeling clouded, and made at times to appear as a curse to their possessors, and a calamity to their fellow mortals? Why should the de- light which we experience before the majesty of in- CAUSES OF LONGEVITY. 381 tellect, clothed in the harmony of song, be marred in their persons? Why, but because they proudly neglected, aye, scorned, the plain precepts of temperance, and had no ambition to enter into the vale of years. Had they consented to look forward to such a termination, they would, while retaining, have augmented their energies, sublimated still further their ideas, and have passed their earthly bourne with the pure, yet brilliant light of the setting sun, and not sunk like a meteor, filling the people's mind with awe and doubt. Morality would then have had less cause to disclaim the alliance of genius; nor would small minds be so ready to believe in the base maxim, that stormy passions are the necessary accom- paniments of lofty intellect. Causes of Longevity.—How is longevity to be at- tained?—The conditions are of a somewhat diversified nature. A first and important requisite is, to be born of long-lived parents: for in this, as m almost every other corporeal predisposition or peculiarity, much is inherited. We sometimes meet with whole families, in which lon- gevity would seem to be a privilege, as in that of Parr, who lived 152 years—his father and his own children and grand-children, attained to a great age. This te- nacity, if we may so express it, of life, enables an indi- vidual to resist manyT of the causes of disease and decay, which others, less fortunately gifted, would sink under. However unable we may be to explain the fact, or assign the peculiar conformation or temperament evincive of this long-lived tendency, it is hardly more surprising than that innate vigour of intellect and power of genius, which rise superior to the operation of most of the causes which would debase and brutify ordinary minds. Some will be ready to exclaim, that as longevity is a gift in- herited from birth, it matters not to make any further 382 LONGEVITY. inquiries; the chief condition being one beyond our control. But it is with this, as with all the other gifts of mind, person, or fortune, which we inherit from our progenitors—we may squander away the richest store, and render it profitless; or by care in husbanding a small stock, render it available for a long series of years. Health and strength will be readily lost by vice and idleness—while a tendency to hereditary disease, as of gout, insanity, or consumption, will be overcome by temperance, in its extended sense. A good physical education is an important requisite for longevity. There is a greater chance of this being obtained by persons resident in the country, and early inured to a life of activity and toil: with many, the ex- posure is excessive, and premature debility and death are the consequences; but they who survive this severe training, have acquired augmented powers of resistance to the ordinary causes of bodily decay. This gives me an opportunity of remarking, that no class of persons are so uniformly obedient to some of the most important hygienic rules, as they who are commonly said to laugh at all rules—we mean labourers in the field, peasants and farmers. They are remarkable for their regularity in the hours of labour and repose, as well as of eating; they soon suffer from any notable deviation in this respect. Great corporeal strength, whether acquired in labour, or in the training for athletic and pugilistic sports, is not favourable to longevity. The muscles attain to an un- natural growth, and the organs of nutrition, too highly stimulated by much substantial aliment, are easily thrown into fatal inflammation. Hippocrates made this remark of the athletae of Greece, and it is equally applicable to the pugilists, porters, and coal heavers of STUPIDITY ADVERSE TO LONGEVITY. 383 Great Britain. Hence the circumstances under which the human body can attain to its maximum of growth and of dynamic power, are not those the most favour- able to longevity. Few, who have arrived at a great age, were ever remarkable for Herculean frame or great bodily prowess. I do not at this time remember an example of a fool, or of an idiot, ever having attained to a very ad- vanced age. Old persons, by a wearing out of their faculties, occasionally become fatuitous; but this is a consecutive, not primary state. Some activity of the functions of the brain and nerves—that is to say, of the mind and senses, is essential to that freedom of muscular motion and healthy circulation of the blood, on which length of life so much depends. It is for want of the nervous excitement, called into play by the attainments of early life and constant collision in civilized society, that the savage is seldom long lived. So soon as his limbs fail him in the chase, he has no longer any occu- pation or amusement; his faculties become torpid, and his fluids stagnate. Change of scene, travel, and diversified adventures, have often marked the life of those who have reached a great age. They who have followed agricultural pursuits, appear conspicuously on this list. The in- ference is, that living much in the open air, and regular daily exercise, are favourable to longevity. The rich, as well as the poor, have found their full account in acting up to this principle; among the former by far the greater number of long livers have been distinguished for their free exercise in the open air, either in the sports of the field or in travel. This is more particularly true of the period of their youth, on the manner of passing 384 LONGEVITY. which, greatly depends the complexion of future life and bodily health. Devotion to study and scientific pursuits, is by no means unfavourable to longevity, if those so addicted do not indulge too much the caprices of appetite, and deprive themselves of fresh air and exercise, and a due period for sleep. The annals of literature and science abound in examples of long livers. But men can rarely flatter themselves with reaching this lengthened term, who are a prey to such contending passions as ambition, jealousy, envy, hate, and, in fact, unrestrained emotions of any class. Hence we find that contentment and serenity of mind, a well regulated moral sense, and trust in Providence, are powerful aids to our attaining longevity. This has been, with few exceptions, the frame of mind of all those whose lives have been protracted beyond the usual span. A fact like this requires no commentary. It is impossible to abide by this last condition without leading a life of some regularity, and marked tem- perance. A man may be at one time at sea, at another on shore, sometimes in camp, and again enjoying rural quiet; and yet he is not necessarily deprived of the privilege of dividing his time agreeably to some method —taking his repast at regular hours, and sleep at stated intervals. There is hardly any one point on which there is such entire accordance in practice among long livers, as in early rising, which implies, also, retiring to bed at a stated early hour in the evening. Deprivation of sleep is peculiarly exhausting; no effort at renovation, by any other means, can supply its place. Feebleness of body, premature old age, and insanity, are some of the effects of protracted vigilance. Too much, or too little exer- SIMPLICITY OF DIET. 385 cise of the functions of the animal economy, is nearly equally unfavourable to the enjoyment of sleep. The former produces pain of the joints and limbs, and fever, as in soldiers after forced marches, or labourers over- worked; the latter does not adequately exhaust the ac- cumulated excitability of the locomotive and sensitive apparatus, and hence wakefulness, restlessness, and what is commonly called nervousness. Similar ex- tremes in the exercise of the internal nutritive organs are to be deprecated for the same reason,—the rest of inanition, or of protracted abstinence, is as contrary to nature as inordinate stimulation by excessive repletion and intoxicating drinks. Sleep flies, in the first state, and is heavy and apoplectic, or disturbed by frightful dreams in the second. The food of those most remarkable for their longevity, has been plain, and even coarse. Simplicity of diet is all-important. A man's health will suffer, by using promiscuously, various articles of food, any one or two of which, alone, would sustain him in all the plenitude of bodily vigour, for a long lifetime. On this point, the annals of both the rich and the poor, who have been candidates for longevity, exhibit considerable uniformity of dietetic practice. And here we may take occasion to observe, that, as every exertion exhausts vigour, and every protracted excitement is followed by lassitude, we but enfeeble our bodies, and render them more readily operated on by the causes tending to their destruction, when we force our organs, digestive, circulatory, and respiratory, and the ones in subservience to them of ab- sorption, secretion, nutrition, and the evolution of ani- mal heat, into a state of action beyond what is called for by the wants of nutrition. Gout, apoplexy, excessive obesity, and oppression of the'functions. which are the 33 3S6 LONGEVITY. product of free living, especially great eating; and in- flammations of the brain, heart, lungs, liver, stomach and kidneys, and fatal fevers, one or more of which may be brought on by the use of strong drinks, are proofs and admonitions to which no reasoning man can be insensible. It will be alleged, that there are instances of drinkers of ardent spirits and vinous liquors, even some gour- mands, who have been long livers. The fact may be so; but it would be most unphilosophical to draw an inference in favour of such bad habits. It has pleased the Creator to endow us with powers of endurance and resistance, amid the exposures to which we are led either in the performance of duty or the gratification of appe- tite. But there are limits to these powers, varying, it is true, with the individual, although still ascertainable with tolerable accuracy. Persons much in the open air, such as labourers and pedestrians, who have their due quantum of sleep, and use simple aliment, evince little sensibility, and can, on this account, take a daily dose, or more, of ardent spirit, without, as the popular phrase is, their feeling it; that is, without its intoxicating, or throwing them into a fever, as it would the secluded mechanic, leaning over his work, and irritable citizen, confined all day to his desk or counter. Distinct from their occupations and early physical education, there is also a notable dif- ference in the excitability of individuals from birth— some tolerating, without complaint, atmospherical ex- tremes of temperature, and internal stimulation, which, to others, would prove painfully perturbating. But however various the temperaments of men, and unexpected their idiosyncrasies, there is hardly an in- dividual, who has not a predisposition to be readily af- CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERANCE. 387 fected by morbid and inflammatory action of one organ, in preference to the others: and we may add, that an unavoidable effect of all stimulants, not directly alimen- tary, as well as of excessive alimentation itself, is to in- crease this predisposition, or tendency to the disease, and even actually to bring it on. On the other hand, it is a matter of familiar experience, that such tendencies have been rendered perfectly harmless by strict temperance, verging on abstemiousness. In fine, the question may be reduced to these two maxims:—first, that by dietetic rules, and those rules consisting mainly in the use of a few plain articles of food, and simple water for drink, rnen tottering on the borders of the grave, have pro- longed their lives for a series of years, in the enjoyment of good health and cheerfulness, usefully to society, and honourably to themselves:—second, that the exhaustion and infirmities of lingering disease, the habits of a vale- tudinarian, have never been completely removed, or more than barely palliated by a course of what is called generous living, and a liberal allowance of strong drinks. Temperance has not only a preservative, but a recu- perative operation. It prevents many diseases, and is the indispensable auxiliary to any remedy, or series of remedies, for the cure of diseases actually present. It is even superior, on many occasions, in its curative powers, to all other remedies, however skilfully combined by the arts of pharmacy and medicine. By the use, on the other hand, of strong drinks, and highly seasoned food, or of either singly,there is imminent danger—a perpetual invitation to evils, which would otherwise never have made their approach. Original phlegm of constitution, and the force of habit, occasionally render men able to indulge, without apparent suffering, in the use of strong drinks; especially if the countervailing agencies of simple diet, much exercise in the open air, and regular sleep, be 388 LONGEVITY. in operation at the time. But, were an argument in favour of these drinks to be urged on such a foundation, we might, with equal plausibility and logic, insist on the salutary effects of the free and general use of various liquid preparations of opium, hemlock, and henbane. These substances are at times sanative: but much and frequently used, they are known to wear out the energies of life, and to abbreviate its course. In fine, the weak may become strong, the sickly enjoy health, the imminence of death give way to the enjoyments of a long life, by the substitution of simple aqueous drinks for vinous and distilled liquors; and he who seemed to be dying at forty, has, by the reform, been hale and hearty at eighty. Climate has a notable effect on longevity. To say nothing of those regions of the world proverbially sickly, it is known, that the extremes of great and prolonged cold, near the poles, and of heat, in the equatorial re- gions, are adverse to long life. The first prevents the due development of the animal frame, and enfeebles its functions; the second excites and wastes the powers of life, and brings on premature old age and decay. We have more examples of longevity, however, in cold and temperate climates, than in hot ones. Russia, Norway, Denmark, and Great Britain, furnish the greatest num- ber of individuals who have attained to a very great age. But, even in southern climates, temperance and abstemiousness, by countervailing, in a measure, the excitement and exhaustion produced by heat, have given their votaries long life. Of these facts, we have une- quivocal proof, in the history of the Christian recluses of Asia and Africa, in the early ages of the church. After these preliminary reflections on the subject of longevity in general, which are nearly a repetition of those I offered in the Journal of Health, Vol. II., some years ago, we ought, when we inquire into its causes MODIFIED BY SEX. 389 and modifying circumstance in detail, to do so under the head, first, of those inherent in and peculiar to the individual; second, of those external and occa- sional or adventitious. Under the first will come sex, age and race, to which some may add temperament. Under the second are enumerated climate, season, lo- cality, occupation and mode of life in general. My re- marks on each of these will be brief. I. Sex. If it be a question to be determined, which of the two sexes has the greatest prospect of longevity, then, as part of the general subject, it will be asked, which of the two is the most numerous at the beginning of life. The reply is, that there are more boys born than girls, in the proportion of sixteen of the former to fifteen of the latter. The main question of greater longevity is determined in favour of the female sex. The original difference in favour of the males, on the score of numbers, and consequently chances of longevity, is done away with by greater mortality in early life, and also later in life, on account of intemperance, ex- cessive fatigue, multifarious exposures and wars. Even a cause of death peculiar to females, that of child-birth, is not so operative as from violent deaths among men. In England, in 1838,2811 women died in child-birth, while 8359 males and only 336S females died violent deaths. The mortality attributed to intemperance was of 125 males and 36 females. But there are primary causes inherent in the organi- zation of the male, which are active, even before birth, in his destruction. Thus, it has been found that the proportion of still-born males is greater than that of still-born females. On an average of twenty births, there is one child still-born. In illegitimate children, the proportion is two in twenty-four. In West Flanders, 33* 390 LONGEVITY. according to M. Quetelet, the proportion of still-born males to still-born females, was as fourteen to ten: it was the same in Berlin.* Still illustrative of the fact of dif- ferences of original organization and consequent im- pressibility in the males by agents to which both sexes are equally exposed, is the fact mentioned by Dr. Emer- son, in reference to mortality in early life in Philadelphia. " It is," he tells us, "a fact of the highest interest, that although the males at birth, for the whole period (often years), exceed the females by more than seven percent., such is the greater ratio of mortality among them dur- ing the first year of life, that at the fifth year the excess of males is only about five per cent., whilst by the tenth year, it has been so reduced that the excess is about one per cent."t The proportionate difference of mortality between the two sexes is variously estimated by different writers. The following table exhibits the deaths annually of each sex, out of 1000 of each living in each interval of age in England. Between Ages. Males. Females. 0 to 5 53.5 46.0 20 " 30 10.1 10.4 30 " 40 11.4 12.4 40 " 50 14.9 14.9 60 " 70 45.3 41.2 It will be seen from this table, that while the mor- tality of the males greatly exceeds the females in the first five years of life, there is nearly an equality estab- lished between the two sexes in the period between * British and Foreign Medical Review, Vol. 3, p. 47. f Medical Statistics, consisting of estimates relating to the po- pulation of Philadelphia.—Jlmer. Jour. Med. Sciences. Nov. 1831. CONSUMPTION BY CORSETING. 391 twenty and thirty years of age, which is lost to the dis- advantage of the females in the next ten years, or be- tween thirty and forty, and established again in next decade, or between forty and fifty. The advantage is again on the side of the females, between sixty and seventy years of age. The Swedish tables, in which the sexes are distinguished, make the mortality of males greater than that of females all through life; and this accords with several other observations. In the eigh- teen years, 1813-30, tfee mortality, according to Eng- lish returns, was greater among males than females, up to puberty and after fifty; during the period of child- bearing more females died than males. The observa- tions made in Belgium present nearly similar results.* There is one disease from which the mortality, at least in England, is greater among women than among men, and that is consumption. The causes of this dif- ference are thus set forth by Mr. Farr:—"The higher mortality of English women by consumption may be ascribed partly to the in-door life which they lead, and partly to the compression, preventing the expansion of the chest, by costume. In both ways they are deprived of free draughts of vital air, and the altered blood de- posits tuberculous matter with a fatal, unnatural facility. Thirty-one thousand and ninety English women died in one year of this incurable malady." Both of the causes of death among English women here specified by Mr. Farr act with additional and alarming power on American women, who go out much less than the English, and with whom the absurdity of fashion has more despotic sway among all classes, rich and poor, mistress and maid, white and black. The following * British and Foreign Medical Review, ut supra. 392 LONGEVITY. exhortation of Mr. Farr ought therefore to command as much attention on this side of the Atlantic as he wished it to have among his own countrywomen. " Will not this impressive fact induce persons of rank and influence to set their countrymen right in the article of dress, and lead them to abandon a practice which disfigures the body, strangles the chest, produces nervous or other disorders, and has an unquestionable tendency to im- plant an incurable hectic malady in the frame? Girls have no more need of artificial bimes and bandages than boys." But, if females are greater sufferers from phthisis, and indeed from diseases of the organs of respiration in general, they are less liable to the fatal fevers of warm climates. In the West Indies, in civil life, a woman is esteemed twice as good a liver as a man—arising pro- bably from her temperate habits and different degrees of exposure to the night air. In barracks, the same difference of liability is observed between the sexes; " but during the war," says Dr. John Hunter, " when the wives of the common soldiers were exposed with their husbands, they suffered in the same proportion." We believe that this remark is applicable to the wives of those soldiers of the Cross, the devoted missionaries in Asia and Africa. The following table is the nearest approximation to the relative liability of women in civil life, which we possess; it indicates the proportions which occurred in the epidemic at Gibraltar, in 1828, among the inhabitants:* Men,.....684 Women,.....286 Children,.....200 * Dr. R. Williams—Elements of Medicine, vol. ii. p. 456. RELATIVE MORTALITY IN THE TWO SEXES. 393 It has been observed on the continent of Europe that the mortality among women in the country during the child-bearing period is often greater than in the towns. This is attributed by some to the severity of the out-door and other labours to which they are subjected, at the very time when their health requires great care. In Geneva, M. Marc d'Espine tells us that the mortality is less in the city and greater in the country among women than among men.* M. Mallet, in his elaborate statistical inquiries into the population of Geneva,t says that at the age of twenty-one years, the equilibrium be- tween the two sexes on the score of mortality is re-estab- lished; but the probability of life at this time is greater for the female than in the male, in being as 37.81 to 35.91. At fifty years of age there remains of 100 born of each sex, 22.0675 men, and 23.1776 women; numbers which are in relation of 35.91 and 37.71; that is to say, almost identical with the figures representing the mean duration of life of the two sexes at the date or point of their equality. M. Quetelet introduces, in his work On Man and the Development of his Faculties, an elaborate table of the proportion of the deaths of either sex from the age of one month to that of 104 years. From this the following results may be deduced:—At birth the probable life is 25 years; in other words, at the age of 25 only one-half of the children born at the same time will be alive. The probable life of the fe- male is greater than that of the male; the former be- ing 27 in the country, and more than 28 in towns; the latter less than 24 in the country, and less than 21 in towns * Ann. d'Hyg. &c. t. xxiii, p. 14. \ Ann. d'Hyg. &c. t. xvii. 394 LONGEVITY. In both sexes, and in all situations, the probable life is, according to M. Quetelet's observations, (made on the population of Belgium,) longest about the age of five; being 51 for women in towns and men in the coun- try, and 48 for women in the country and men in towns. The farther we advance from this period, the shorter the probable life becomes. Thus, at the age of forty, it is 27 for men in the country and women in towns, and 25 for women in the country and men in towns. At sixty, it is from 12 to 13, and at eighty, only 4. The mean life in Belgium is 32.15 years. Considering sex and place of abode, it is as follows: — Towns. Country. Men, - - - 29.24 - 31.97 Women, - - 33.28 - 32.95 Age.—The deaths in the first month after birth are, from the various exposures of early life, higher than would be indicated by the rate of infancy. There are particular periods when the strain, as it were, upon life, is greater than at others, and this not measured always by advancing chronological series. After the first year, the ratio of mortality rapidly declines, and this decrease is shown by the enumeration of deaths for each of the four following years. The maximum of the probability of life at Geneva for the last quarter of a century was at 2 years from birth, and that of mean life or mean duration at 3 years. M. Mallet, who makes this remark, infers that the nearer the maximum of vitality approaches to an age proximate to birth, the more certain is the life of infancy. In France and Belgium, and we may add in England, the maximum vitality is at five years of age; that is to say, we have more security that a child who has attained its fifth year will live out an average MODIFIED BY AGE. 395 existence, than we had when this same child was one year, or even two, or three or four years old. " In examining the vitality at different ages, a very extensive range in the scale of intensity is perceived: man is never equally mortal during two summers of his life; and as his being revolves through its course in minutes, years, or equal intervals, the vitality at first increases, and then decreases in geometrical progression; but, as experience has shoAvn, the rate of progression changes. There are three orders of progression. The first extends from birth to the second teething, when the body becomes every year less liable to death; the second prevails from puberty over manhood, when the force of mortality slowly creeps on, and grows stronger; the third sets in on the eve of old age, and with a more rapidly accumulating energy. Dr. Price pointed out these remarkable periods; but to Mr. Edmonds the honour is due of expressing their rates of diminishing or increasing mortality in the subjoined numbers. Numerical Values, which indicate the rate of Increase or Decrease of the Force of Mortality, in a given time, assumed to be one year. Constants. Period over which Constant presides. .676 - Infancy (from birth to eight years of age). 1.030 - Manhood (from twelve to fifty-five years of age). 1.080 - Old age (from fifty-five to end of life). "By means of the three constants it is easy, when the mortality of one year is known, to deduce from it that of the next; for example, if the mean mortality at the age of twenty-five be one per cent., the mortality in the next year (twenty-six) will be nearly 1.03, which 396 LONGEVITY. multiplied by the constant of the period, gives the mor- tality for the twenty-seventh year, &c. up to fifty or sixty; where the second merges into the third period whose constant must then be employed. As the rate of mortality is ordinarily obtained for equal periods of ten years, it may be well to bear in mind that the mor- tality at the ages between twenty and fifty, increases one-third every ten years: in old age it should nearly double. " Man owes nature a debt, for which he pays com- pound interest, the constants show how the rate of in- terest varies. " Infancy, manhood and old age, are then essentially distinct periods of human life, and must not be con- founded with the arbitrary and subordinate, but useful divisions of some physiologists. The ages of growth, generation and decay, have, in fact, from the time of Aristotle, attracted the attention which their paramount importance demands; nor in pathology is any other di- vision of life so useful at the present day, either to guide the practitioner in the investigation of disease or in prognosis; yet practical writers appear no more aware than the ancients, that the number of deaths at each period of life, happens according to a predestined order."* M. Villerme, in a paper in the Annates, so often quoted, (Tome IX,) on Epidemics, in their relations to Public Hygiene, Medical Statistics and Political Economy, points out the great probability of the mor- tality from epidemic diseases, obeying the same general law of mortality according to age. Out of the same number of the sick, in very young and in old persons, * British and Foreign Medical Review, he. cit. INCREASE OF MORTALITY WITH AGE. 397 the mortality is greater in the former, the nearer they approach to birth, and in the latter, the more advanced they are in years. Thus for example, M. E. E. Duvillard, in a calcula- tion on the mortality in small-pox, before the discovery of vaccination, found that there dies among nearly all the victims to this disease, when it prevails epidemically, one person in every 3.0 who are 1 year old. 3.6 « 2 " 5.3 " 3 « 8.1 " 4 " 12.2 " 5 " 17.6 " 6 " Finally, at ten years of age, there only died one in thirty-four; and this is the epoch in life in which, when a person is seized with small-pox, there is less proba- bility of his dying, just as it is that of the absolute minimum mortality.* Age is a modifying cause in the predisposition to dis- eases of particular professions and climatic exposures. In the English Foot and Dragoon Guards, at home, the mortality between the ages of 18 and 33, is great, and is chiefly referred to consumption. In warm and sickly climates, the mortality among soldiers increases with their age, at a fearful rate. Major Tulloch, in speaking of this occurrence in the soldiers at the Mauritius, at- tributes the result to intemperance. But, as remarked by Dr. Williams, (Op. cit.) the experience of the army in the West Indies, and at every station, tropical or tem- perate, from which reports have been obtained, show * Ann. d'Hyg. &c. t. IX, p. 31-2. 34 398 LONGEVITY. that the exposure being equal, the mortality from palu- dal fevers, is increased in a direct ratio to age, so that the superiority of veteran soldiers over young recruits, in the endurance of fatigue, and those numberless hard- ships to which they are exposed in actual service, is counteracted by their increased susceptibility to the ac- tion of this [alleged] poison. As regards the age when self-destruction is most frequent, we learn that in England, at least, this is be- tween 50 and 60 years, in which period twenty per 100,000 commit suicide; and between 60 and 70 years, the number per 100,000 is 19.8, very nearly twenty. The tendency to self-murder is greater in the metro- polis, (London), and least in Wales and the contermi- nous counties. Race.—The most obvious differences distinguishing races, are those between the white and the black, and circumstances, some of them to be deplored, have placed many data in our power, to enable us to institute com- parisons of their respective vitality and chances of longevity. That the individuals and communities of the black or Negro race, whose progenitors have ever inhabited central and tropical Africa, should suffer in health and life by transplanting to northern climates, does not excite our surprise; but how account for the fact stated, on statistical basis, that the warm climates so nearly approaching to that of Africa, as the Mau- ritius and the West Indies, seem alike unsuited to the constitution of the negro? So fast is the negro race dis- appearing in the Mauritius, that in five years the deaths have exceeded the births by upwards of 6000, in a population of 60,000. In the West Indies, generally, Major Tulloch assures us, that there are causes con- tinually in operation affecting the vitality of the negro greater mortality in the black race. 399 population, which must ultimately end in its extinction. To diseases of the lungs, the negroes are particularly prone. Even in his native country the negro seems to suffer as much from these diseases, as the British troops in their own country. As illustrative of the difference in predisposition to this class of affections, it is worthy of remark, that among 71,850 native troops serving in the Madras Presidency, the deaths by every description of diseases of the lungs, did not, on an average, exceed one per thousand of the strength annually. Dr. Emerson, (Op. citat.) on the subject of the mor- tality of the black people in Philadelphia, shows a re- sult " most appalling for the African descendants. The greatest mortality among these in any single year, was in 1820, when it amounted to one death in 16.9 inha- bitants. The smallest in 1830, when the ratio was one in 27.2. The average for the whole ten years is one in 21.7, whilst that for the whites alone, during this un- usually sickly period, is one in 42.3. The lowest rate of mortality for the whites occurred in 1821, and was one in 49.1 inhabitants, the highest in 1823, when it amounted to 1 in 33.8." II. Of the extraneous or adventitious causes affecting longevity, climate is the first which was enumerated. The very annunciation of the problem is of a complex character, since climate is not"a unit, nor hardly a com- bination of any series of known and readily appreciable agencies. There are, it is true, certain general features contrasted enough to seem to justify our founding ob- servations on them. I shall, in order to lessen the am- biguity of the subject, treat under the same head, of the influences, both of— Climate and Locality.—It is not easy, in fact we want the desired information, to enable us to speak of 400 LONGEVITY. the comparative longevity in different climates. With the relative mortality even we are not sufficiently ac- quainted. One result has been decided of late years, from observations in the British troops in the Mediter- ranean, the accuracy of which has been strengthened by similar ones among civilians, viz: that pulmonary consumption, so far from being an unfrequent disease in warm and tropical climates, is really more frequent and more rapid in its course, than in colder climates. This remark applies to other diseases of the lungs. The inflammatory affections of the lungs are nearly twice as prevalent in the Mediterranean as among the same number of troops in the United Kingdom; and in the mild climate of Malta, they are also twice as fatal.* It has been found, also, that a body of selected sol- diers, subject to no severe duty, and exposed to no hardship, lose, annually, a larger proportion of their number in the Mediterranean, by consumption, than in the United Kingdom. This inference, however ad- verse to generally received opinions, is strikingly cor- roborated by the prevalence of consumption, and other pulmonary affections, among the civil inhabitants of Malta. It has been ascertained, also, as the result of careful tabular returns of the diseases and deaths among the British troops in the West Indies, that at least twice as many cases of consumption originate in that climate as at home, though catarrhal diseases, to which the origin of consumption is generally ascribed, are there com- paratively rare. The practical inferences to be deduced * Statistical Reports on the Sickness, Mortality, &c. in the Troops in the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean, and British America, &c. &c. London, 1839. CLIMATE AND LOCALITY. 401 from these facts is, that, generally speaking, a tropical climate can neither prevent the development, nor arrest the progress of pulmonary consumption; and that, con- sequently, the practice of sending thither patients, either threatened with, or presenting actual symptoms of con sumption, is decidedly bad. Of the loss and abbreviation of life, by fevers, in hot climates, almost every reader is aware: and the fact needs hardly to be enlarged on here. The evil is most felt, however, by strangers to the climate, such as Eu- ropeans or North Americans going to the East and West Indies. The proportionate mortality among young soldiers in the West Indies is as great as among the aged and decrepid at home. The duration of human life, even in the natives of marshy coun- tries, or those in which remittent and intermittent fevers prevail, is much abridged, compared with that of the inhabitants of a higher country and more healthy soil. But still more is the invader affected. " The in- vasions of Holland, of the Burmese and of the African empires, has, in each instance, been so disastrous to the troops, that the whole force must have perished from this class of disease in a few months, but for the suc- cess of their arms in the one instance, or their being withdrawn from the pestilent atmosphere in the other." This observation, and it might be greatly extended, con- firms the accuracy of the opinion advanced in the first chapter of this work, on the connection between health and morality,—and the falling back on barbarism, and its concomitant inroads on health and life by war. It is a popular and generally received belief, that residence in a sickly climate diminishes the danger from disease, by what is called acclimation or acclimatiza- 34* 402 LONGEVITY. tion. But the result of inquiries, in the "Statistical Report on the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding among Troops in the West Indies," shows that this belief is founded on erroneous data. Thus it appears, that while the annual mortality among those resident one year was only 77, and of those resident two years 87 per 1000, the mortality of those who had been longer in Jamaica averaged 93 per 1000. In the Wind- ward and Leeward command,—in the average of all the statements, the last years appear to have been more fatal than the first.* As regards difference of locality, to which we must add—and herein consists the real difference—denseness of population, it is ascertained beyond doubt, that towns are most unhealthy; that large and populous cities are the graves of the human race, and could not maintain their population without the incessant sup- plies which are furnished by the inhabitants of the rural districts, flocking thither with the hopes of making fortunes; and that the country is the only situation in which the human race can preserve health and attain a moderate degree of longevity. If we required ad- ditional proof of the accuracy of this view, it would be found in the observations of Mr. Farr, deduced from the comparative examination of the diseases in both situations on a large and extended scale. He com- pares the cities, whose population is 3,553,161, with the counties, which number 3,500,750. The deaths in the first, or Urban division, were 47,953; in the second, or Rural, 29,693. This was in 1837-8. The three following diseases, which are chiefly of adults between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five, show * Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ. Vol. I. 1838, p. 457-8. GREATER MORTALITY IN CITIES. 403 that unhealthy places augment the fatality of diseases in different degrees: Counties. Cities. Increase per cent, in cities. Deaths by Consumption, 5,857 8,125 39 Child-birth, 217 372 71 " Typhus, 1564 3,456 221 A view of the deaths for the city districts and the country districts, for 183S-9, leads to similar results. The population in the two were, of the former, 3,726,221; of the latter, or country, 3,539,908; and the deaths under the first head, 101,019, and under the second, 70,410. The mean duration of life in the two kinds of locality, would differ nearly in the proportion of 37 years and 50 years. Mr. Farr does not believe that cities are necessarily so unfavourable to human life: he thinks there are ad- ventitious, but yet powerful causes operative, which might, with suitable care and energetic effort, be pre- vented. After recommending a prohibition of the bu- rial of the dead among dwellings crowded with the living,—the exclusion of unwholesome manufactories and slaughter-houses from densely-peopled districts, and the improvement and extension of sewers, he observes on this last point: " If a survey were made of the dis- tricts of the metropolis, and the levels, the sewers, the drains, and the nuisances known to be pernicious were accurately laid down upon a map, it would agree very remarkably with the table of relative mortality; and the construction of such a map would complete the view of the evil in all its details, and form the basis of a well-planned remedy." In every city, the sewerage and drainage may be considered to be among the more 404 LONGEVITY. important elements, perhaps the most important element of health and longevity.* The mortality of cities and towns in Belgium is, to the mortality of the country population, nearly as four to three:— Population. Mean number of deaths. Deaths in 1000. Cities and towns, 998,118 270,26 27.1 Country, 3,066,091 652,65 21.3 The mortality in all Sweden, compared with that in Stockholm, presents results equally unfavourable to residence in cities:— Deaths. Deaths. ~ , , . C Males, lin27 .11C, , C Males, 14in33A Stockholm -? „ ,' . .,, AllSweden -J „ ' * „„ £ Females, 1 in 21 £ Females, 1 in 36 Mr. Edmonds has, the writer from whom I now quote (Brit, and For. Med. Rev.) thinks, ingeniously proved, that the mortality of children in London has progressively diminished for the last century; but no practitioner, who has had much experience among the poor, will be surprised to find that still twice as many children perish in London as in the country. They are chiefly young persons from the country, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, when emi- gration into cities is greatest, that furnish the Paris hos- pitals with cases of typhus fever: out of 133 patients observed by Louis, only 4 were born in Paris. 26 out of 63 patients, who had been in Paris less than ten months, died; while of 56 who had lived there longer, only 16 were lost. I well remember the invariable question asked by L. Lerminier, at the Charite Hospital, * Brit, and For. Med. Rev., Vol. XI., p. 430. SEASONS—TEMPERATURE. 405 when, on his morning round, he saw for the first time a young person with typhoid fever: "How long have you been living in Paris?" A city is a foreign climate to a countryman. Seasons.—Under this head we must study tempera- ture, as affecting the probability of longevity. It is now a well ascertained fact, indeed a law, which, by the bye, people generally and parents especially seem determined to disregard, that cold exerts a most per- nicious effect upon animal life, but in a peculiar degree on the young and those of a tender age. MM. Villerme and Edwards formally directed public attention to the great mortality among children in cold seasons; and in- dicate some special and adventitious aggravations, which might be, as I understand they were in some places, ob- viated by the proper authorities, viz: the carrying chil- dren, sometimes to a distance, from their home to be christened, during the winter season, in churches which were damp and cold. Dr. Lombard, of Geneva, con- firms the accurary of the opinions of the writers just mentioned, on the main points, while he offers some amendments on others of a secondary moment. Cold is uniformly unfriendly to the young of all animals. How cruel, with a knowledge of these things, must the conduct of so many parents appear, whose culpable vanity causes them to expose the breast and arms of their children without covering, in cold and inclement weather. To a similar cause must we often look for fatally developing tuberculous disease in adult females. In persons of advanced life, the same feature of the cause of mortality is evident; winter being the season which is most fatal to that class. Confirmatory of these views are the results of M. Quetelet's inquiries, based on 406 LONGEVITY. statistical returns, for a series of years, for Belgium. They are as follows: The following table exhibits at a glance the influence of seasons on mortality: Months. Deaths. Proportion. 1815 to 1826. Towns. Country. Towns. Country. January, 59,892 116,129 1.158 1.212 February, 56,267 114,758 1.088 1.198 March, 54,277 114,244 1.050 1.192 April, 51,818 107,264 1.002 1.120 May, 48,911 93,714 0.946 0.978 June, 46,607 84,464 0.901 0.882 July, 45,212 77,555 0.874 0.809 August, 47,032 78,802 0.910 0.822 September, 50,191 85,131 0.971 0.888 October, 51,649 89,514 0.999 0.934 November, 52,908 89,585 1.024 0.935 December, 55,631 98,705 1.076 1.030 Average, 51,700 95,822 1.000 1.000 From this it appears that the fewest deaths take place at that period of the year when men have least to fear from the inclemency of the weather. This period coin- cides also with that during which most conceptions occur. It is clear that civilization can do much to modify these results. M. Quetelet has furnished a very interesting table of the comparative mortality of different ages in each month, which we transfer to our pages. HIGH HEAT A CAUSE OF MORTALITY. 407 Table showing the influence of age and season on mortality: Age. Jan.] Feb. War. Apr. May 0.93 June 0.83 July 0.78 Aug. 0.79 Sep. Oct. Nov. 0.93 Dec. 1.07 0 to 1 mo. 1.391.28,1.21 1.02 0.8610.91 1 to 3 1.22 1.18il.l5 0.95 0.89 0.82 0.83 0.94 0.83 0.92 0.97 1.13 3 to 6 1.2i! 1.0611.020.90 0.95 0.95 0.90 1.06 0.99 0.94 0.86 1.02 6 to 12 1.28|l.21-1.27 1.18 1.06 0.84 0.76 0.87 0.81 0.82 0.861.03 12 to 18 1.101.11 1.24:1.30 1.25 1.03 0.88 0.81 0.74 0.77 0.78! 0.9 8 18 to 24 1.23 1.18 1.21 1.18 1.03 0.84 0.80 0.76 0.75 0.81 1.011.18 2 to 3 years, 1.22 1.13 1.30 1.27 1.12 0.94 0.82 0.73 0.76 0.78 0.91 i 1.01 3 to 5 1.23 1.16 1.26 1.29 1.13 0.94 0.78 0.74 0.73 0.79 0.89 1.05 5 to 8 1.29 1.17 1.32J1.24 1.20 0.96 0.78 0.74 0.76 0.75 0.85 1.02 8 to 12 1.08 1.0611.27 1.34 1.21 0.99 0.88 0.82 0.81 0.76 0.80 0.96 12 to 16 0.95 0.95 I.l4|l.l4 1.19 1.04 0.97 0.95 0.96 0.81 0.86 1.04 16 to 20 0.93 0.941.07 1.18 1.15 1.03 1.00 0.99 0.89 0.87 0.95 1.01 20 to 25 0.97 1.001.09 1.02 1.09 0.96 0.90 0.92 0.96 0.95 1.03 1.11 25 to 30 1.05 1.041.111.06 1.02 1.02 0.91 0.96 0.95 0.93 0.97 0.97 30 to 40 1.11 1.13 1.11 1.04 0.99 0.92 0.85 0.94 0.99 0.95 0.94 1.03 40 to 50 1.17 1.151.13 1.05 0.99 0.86 0.86|0.94 0.93 0.87 0.95 1.11 50 to 65 1.30 1.22 1.1111.02 0.93 0.85 0.77 0 85 0.89 0.90 1.00 1.15 65 to 75 1.43 1.52 1.18 0.99 0.91 0.77 0.7110.80 0.88 0.86 0.98 1.17 75 to 90 1.47 1.39 1.16 1.01 0.87 0.77 0.67i0.75 0.84 0.84 1.00 1.21 90 and above, 1.58 1.48 1.25 0.96 1.08 0.84 1.00 0.75 0.88 0.64 (0.66 0.76 0.74 1.03 1.29 1.09 Average, 1.26 1.20 1.17 0.80 0.84 0.8G 0.86 0.94 Sometimes the very reverse of diminished tempera- ture or high heat will increase the mortality, but then, as an almost necessary accompaniment, there must be deficient ventilation or a close and almost stationary atmosphere. In our cities, and even towns of moderate size, in the United States, this combination exists, and is efficient for the production of a disease of great violence and considerable mortality, viz. summer complaint of children or cholera infantum. This is particularly severe and frequent in children who have been recently weaned, and who are in their first dentition. Dr. Emerson presents the subject, as far as relates to Philadelpha, in the following table, for a period of five years; the months being equalized, and exhibited in 40S LONGEVITY. the order of their mortality, with their respective pro- portions. 1. Under 1 year. July, 836 Between 1 and 2 249 Between 2 and 3 117 Between 5 and 20 120 Total*. 1322 2. August, 546 317 120 165 1148 3. September, 377 221 140 185 923 4. June, 510 148 84 105 847 5. February, 382 109 123 131 745 6. October, 324 127 117 153 721 7. March, 322 119 122 138 701 8. April, 342 107 125 122 696 9. December, 269 90 114 135 608 10. November, 267 90 114 132 603 11. January, 281 81 102 109 573 12. May, 250 98 107 107 562 4706 1756 1385 1602 9449 It hence appears, that by far the greatest mortality occurring in childhood takes place in June, July and August, months distinguished from all others by their high temperature, and that heat is the great enemy of early life in our city. It is interesting to observe that the destructive influence of this agent has lost much of its power after the first year of life, and that after the second year it is scarcely perceptible, there being but little variation in the columns representing the monthly mortality after this period. There is another state, or combination of states, of earth and air, designated with more brevity than accu- racy by the term malarious, which prevails in so many parts of the United States, and modifies not a little,— we ought rather to say, offers a contrast with, the de- ductions obtained in northern Europe, where, either the fevers of imputed marsh origin never prevail, or the degree of cultivation and civilization has carried them SUICIDES IN PARTICULAR SEASONS. 409 beyond it. We, here, can still retain that part at least of Celsus's opinion, of the healthy and unhealthy sea- sons, in which he designates autumn as longSpericulo- sissimus, or by far the most sickly. In England, the deaths registered in London, in the winter quarter of 1S38, amounted to 15,611; in spring, to 13,109; in summer, to 11,397; and in autumn, to 1,581. Great importance has been attributed to climate and season as physical causes of suicide, in the sense at least in which they were supposed to act, but without adequate reason. Mr. Winslow* points out the fact, that in Holland, the climate of which is much more gloomy than that of England, there are fewer suicides than in the latter country; whilst in France, more fa- vourably circumstanced on the score of a friendly sky, there are more instances of this catastrophe. The ave- rage number of suicides in England, shows the months of April and June to have the preference; and Novem- ber, the almost privileged month—with its fogs and its gloom—for a man to hang himself, exhibited the fewest. The proportion of suicides in November is, to those in April, as 3 to 8±. At Paris, the larger number of sui- cides occur in spring and summer. " When the ther- mometer of Fahrenheit ranges from 80° to 90°, suicide is most prevalent." An inference that might be drawn from this fact,—that self-murder must be common in hot climates, would be decidedly erroneous. On the con- tested point; which people, the English or the French, is most addicted to suicide, the author says:—«It has clearly been exhibited, that where there is one suicide in London there are twelve in Paris." We do not find, * Anatomy of Suicide. 35 410 LONGEVITY. however, in Mr. Winslow's volume, the data which justify this assertion. Occupations and professions.—Within a few years past, numerous and valuable results from statistical in- quiries have been presented respecting the proportionate longevity of persons engaged in different kinds of labour, trades and professions. I must regret that my limits will not allow of the introduction of many tabular state- ments on this head. I shall, however, indicate some of the chief points worthy of notice. All persons, whose employments require them to be long confined in a closely ventilated apartment, suffer in health, and if they persevere in this kind of exposure, their lives will be considerably abridged. The evil is increased by a constrained or bent posture and the in- halation of particles of matter escaping from the materials of their work. Under this description of persons will be included a large number of those engaged in manu- factories and the work shop, in which floating particles of wool and cotton or impalpable dust and powder con- tinually escaping, are continually taken into the lungs of the operatives and artisans or labourers, as the case may be. Those working in metals or in fusing, welding, and alloys, and in the manufacture of certain metallic preparations, are also greatly exposed to suffer in various ways. To these deleterious causes are too commonly added a protracted period of work, without interval ol rest or benefit of fresh air, and often without adequate food. A class who are still greater sufferers, victims, from the combined operation of these various agencies, are those of tender age, mere children, who work in the factories for a diurnal period far beyond their strength. And, as if these were not enough for all human endu- rance, intemperance is brought in to complete the ac- INTEMPERANCE THE BANE OF OPERATIVES. 411 cumulation of misery and aggravate ten-fold all the disasters following in the train of such a state of things. "The grand bane," says Thackrah,* "of civilized life, is intemperance. Greater in towns than in the country, it dreadfully aggravates the evils of our em- ployments; and it produces evils of its own ten-fold more urgent, more rapid, and more deadly. Not a class of artisans, and scarcely one of professional men is to be found, in which intemperance may not be discovered. Sometimes it is grossly apparent,—often partially con- cealed; in the first case, as it were, taking the constitu- tion by storm; in the latter, proceeding by sap; in both, utterly destroying health, personal comfort, and domestic happiness." As illustrative of the effect of malt liquors in prompting those who use them to stronger potations, I give Mr. Thackrah's language in continuation of the above extract. "The most striking effects are to be seen among the artisans. The man takes, during the hours of labour, more drink than he requires, and this generally the compound sold under the name of ale. Instead of spending the evening with his family, he joins frequently some friends to take a pint at the public house. To ale, a glass of spirit must afterwards be added. At length he is frequently drunk at night; and in the progress of the case, we find him occasionally so unfit for work the next morning from disordered stomach, that he must have some spirit before he can crawl from his house. One glass leads to a second, and the man becomes in- toxicated even in the morning,—is obliged to give up the idea of going to work,—and then his habits and feelings lead him to spend the day, not in freeing his * The Effects of the principal Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civic states and habits of living, on health and longevity. 412 LONGEVITY. system from the effects of his debauch, not in abstinence, fresh air, and repose, but in aggravating the evils from which he suffers. He spends the day in the public house! To-day is a repetition of yesterday, and to- morrow will probably be spent in sickness and in bed." Are the above enumerated evils of confinement and hard labour, deficient food and yet inordinate stimulus, confined to England? Alas! no. The French have simi- lar experience in their manufactories in Alsace, and in the northern departments. M. Villermey* in his descrip- tion of the number and necessities, indigence and vices, of the workmen at Lille, cites a deplorable fact which speaks volumes in illustration of the habits of these people. When the women are thus corrupt, we know in what an abandoned state the men must be. It is a custom at Lille to give to children whom it is desired to put to sleep a dose of theraca called 'sleeper,' (dor- mant.) M. Villerm6 ascertained, by inquiring at the apothecaries who sell these sleepers, that the wives of the operatives buy them, especially on Sundays, Mon- days, and holidays, when they propose to remain a long time at the tavern, (cabaret,) and to leave their children at home. Now, we would ask whether in our own once drunken and still too intemperate land, there was ever or is such systematic depravation of all maternal feeling, such lamentable vice, the direct product of drunkenness, among women in the United States, as this fact reveals of a portion of those of France. The vice of drunkenness is, as M. Villerme assures us, of ancient date in this part of France. M. de Boulanvil- liers, intendant-general, wrote, more than a century and * Tableau de l'etat physique et moral des ouvres employes dans les manufactures de coton de laine et de soie. Paris, 1840. ADVERSE INFLUENCE OF MANUFACTURES. 413 a half ago, respecting the people of the province of which the department of the North at this time constitutes a part—"They are punctual at mass and sermon, but without neglecting the tavern, which is their ruling passion." Let us not in the overfulness of Protestant zeal exclaim against this inconsistency among Catho- lics of olden time, until we can say that within the memory of men now living there was not a counterpart to this picture in the conduct of many a pious Presby- terian and Methodist, not to say Episcopalian, whose punctuality on attendance at church was only equal to, it could not surpass, his punctuality of visits to the liquor bottle, and the animation of whose devotions was often a suspicious compound of honest zeal and the excitement of alcohol. Ought any Christian of any church to throw himself open to this imputation? Can the unbroken records of any church be adduced to prove that the im- putation is unfounded? To show how the moral system, when pursued con- jointly by the employers and the employed, operates on the health and prosperity of all, we have only to con- trast the foregoing pictures of French and English manufactures, and I have withheld many of their worst because coarsest and most revolting features, with those of American manufactures; taking the "Lowell girls" as not too high or an exceptional standard on the occasion. Military life, even in peace, is everywhere adverse to longevity. I shall not cite any farther proof of this fact than by introducing the following short article, which is fully to the point. " A very interesting discussion took place recently in the Chamber of Deputies on the question that the annual levy of 80,000 conscripts for the year 1839 be authorised. Col. Paixhans, from documents to which he referred, 35* 414 LONGEVITY. refuted the statement in the report of the Committee to which the measure had in its usual course been sub- mitted, that the military profession was in time of peace favourable to the preservation of the health of the men, (those engaged in it). On the contrary, he showed that the annual mortality among young men of 20 years of age engaged in civil pursuits was only 12 in 1000; and among those of 27 years of age, similarly occupied, 14 in 1000. Now, the mortality in the ranks of the army was much more excessive. Among the non-commis- sioned officers it was 11 in 1000; among the senior sol- diers (those of from 26 to 27 years of age) the deaths were 20 in 1000 per annum. Among those who were only five years in the service (they commence at 20 years) the mortality was 30 in 1000; among those who were four years in the army it was 45 in 1000; among those of three years it was 52 in 1000; among those of two years it was 65 in 1000; and among the young sol- diers, those in the first years of service, the mortality was 75 per 1000. He added, that the annual mortality among the veterans in the Hotel des Invalides was 50 in 1000; among the troops in the colonies 70, and among those in Algiers 80 in 1000." Of the conditions in life and modes of living, marriage seems to be favourable to longevity. Dr. Casper, in corroboration of the opinion of Hufeland andDepartieux, has exhibited, in a series of tables, the gain to life which marriage has, for both sexes, over celibacy. (See Ann. d'Hygiene, &c, t. XIV.) The greater probability of married men over single ones between thirty and forty- five passing this latter term, taking 100 of each for com- parison, is 36.8. As life advances, the chances are still greater; as it would seem that for eleven bachelors who live beyond seventy years, we find twenty-seven mar- FATALITY FROM DRY NURSING. 415 ried men who go beyond, taking equal numbers at anterior and early dates for comparison. In the female sex, the gain on the score of longevity is not so great as in the case of men; but it is still quite apparent. Of 100 women who pass seventy years, the number of unmarried is 23.6, and of married women, 28.7. Among the chief causes which, after birth, tend to cut short life, are deficient food, want of common air and exercise, and the consumption of alcoholic liquors, and particularly of ardent spirits. Under the head of deficient food, is the privation to the infant of its mother's or a good nurse's milk, and its being reared by artifical means. The trials of this nature, especially in public or charitable institutions, have been most disastrous. In the month of February, 1822, twelve infants were confided to women destined to feed them by the bottle or the spoon. In the very first week after their arrival, all died except one, who, being three months old, was better able to bear the trial. At Parthenay, out of 153 foundlings, in a period of five years, there died of these, from the age of one day to a year, 54, which is 35 per cent. At X----, out of 244 children, there died, in the course of a single year, 197, which is 80 per cent. The difference in the mortality in this case arose from the mode of feeding the children. At X----, no child was nursed at the breast—all were raised by hand. In other respects, the care and atten- tion paid at the two places was the same. The greatest mortality was within the month, and of this the greatest was in the summer months. In July and August, the deaths were 36 out of 48 children, (75 per cent.) In January, February and March, 18 out of 71, (25 per cent.) At Rheirns, the mortality among the foundlings 416 LONGEVITY. raised by hand, was, in 10 years, ending 1835, 586, in the first year of life, out of 916 admitted in the hospital, or at the rate of 639 in a thousand. At Paris, it was 503 in a thousand, in the same period or the first year of life. (Ann. d'Hyg. t. XIX.) The mortality among the foundlings generally, in France, was represented by M. Benoisten de Chateau- neuf, in 1824, to be three-fifths, in 60 per cent, in the first year after birth. In private life, and in separate houses, we do not meet with such a terrific proportion of deaths in children fed by hand, as the above returns exhibit; but still, even with the greatest care and skill, the risk is too great to be incurred, if a wet nurse can possibly be procured for the child. In many parts of Europe, the population is diminished by a deficiency, and in very many cases, positive priva- tion of food for common sustenance. The Register General's Report of the mortality, &c, for England, contains a number of cases of this kind. Stinted allow- ance, however, and feeble health, are not insurmountable obstacles to occasional instances of longevity: nor is drunkenness itself always a preventive of this result. There is in some persons a tenacity of life which com- mon causes are relatively powerless in affecting. But let us beware how we take these exceptions, these exempts from the common lot, survivors in the forlorn hope, after being exposed to a murderous fire from the breach, as examples for our guidance. Even in sickly countries, where the average duration of life is very low indeed, we meet every now and then with instances of longevity; and it is a curious fact, that in certain places in which careful records have been kept for a long time as in Geneva, for example, the instances of great or re- INFLUENCE OF VACCINATION. 417 markable longevity are fewer, in proportion, as the mean life of the people at large increases. Physicians and medical statists are not well agreed respecting the real influence which vaccination has exerted on mortality, and the consequent chances of longevity. Two extreme views have been taken of this subject. The opposers of vaccination, at least its detrac- tors, and those who underrate its value, after stating that although smallpox has fewer victims, yet that measles, scarlet fever, hooping cough, croup and cerebral diseases carry off more children than formerly, draw the illogical inference that vaccination aggravates the violence of these diseases, if it does not actually originate them. These persons forget that a child, vaccinated soon after birth, and prevented by this means from perishing by small-pox, still remains liable to all the attacks of other diseases—and hence, that, in fact, vaccination, by in- creasing the entire number of children, places a large number to be attacked by other diseases, and as the num- ber is larger, the deaths, at the usual rate, will be greater. Others fall into an opposite error, and claim out of the entire number of children vaccinated, all those who would have otherwise perished by smallpox, as so many lives saved for future usefulness in the arts, sciences, and productive labour of a country. They overlook the fact entirely, on which their opponents put a wrong and exaggerated construction, that vaccination, although it saves life from the attack of smallpox, is not a guar- anty against the diseases of childhood, but that the vaccinated, as well as those who have not been, or of those who may have survived an attack of smallpox, are equally liable to these diseases. "When we read, or hear it said," says Mr. Say, " that vaccination, by pre- serving the life of a hundred thousand persons, has 418 LONGEVITY. added a hundred thousand souls to our population, we may smile at the error, and yet, nevertheless, applaud the discovery [vaccination] itself." The question is every now and then asked, indeed it is one which sometimes comes before a court of law, what effect has insanity on the mean duration of life, or how far does it tend to prevent, if at all, longevity? Mr. Farr, whose zeal in the cultivation of medical statis- tics is so well known, and whose name has been so often introduced in connection with this subject in the present chapter, has lately instituted inquiries and made some estimates, calculated with a view of answering the ques- tion. I have no room for his observations on different lunatic asylums in England, but shall give the chief results. He says: "We have no means of ascertaining the mortality of lunatics at large; but the mortality of lunatics in asylums is much higher than the mortality of the general population, and the excess cannot be ascribed entirely, although it may partially, to the con- finement, the unwholesomeness, or the usages of mad- houses. The mean age of lunatics in asylums is about 35-40. The average age of the patients admitted at Bethlem, (1830-34,) was 36 years (36-2); and the mean age of 213, admitted at Hanwell, by Dr. Conolly, was 36i. The mortality at the age 30-40 is 1-2, and at 40-50 is 1-5 per cent, in England and Wales. In cities, the mortality, at a corresponding age, is not more than 2 per cent, annually. Now the annual mortality at Bethlem, where dangerous cases are carefully excluded, was 9 per cent., in 1827-39. At Gloucester, one of the county asylums, at which the treatment is most success- ful, the diet is generous and nutritious, and the patients live, as much as possible, in the open air,—the annual mortality is 7 per cent." NUMEROUS BIRTHS WITH GREAT MORTALITY. 419 The relative mortality of different nations has been variously estimated. The following, of some of the principal ones, may be regarded as tolerably accurate approximations to the real fact, if not its direct expo- nents. The absolute mortality of the Russians, was, within the last twenty years 1 in 27; the Prussians 1 in 36-2; the French 1 in 39-7; the Dutch 1 in 38; the Bel- gians 1 in 43-1; the English 1 in 43-7; the Sicilians 1 in 32; the Greeks 1 in 30. We have no estimate of the mortality of the people of the United States. In Phila- delphia, the annual mortality is 1 in 42-3; in Boston, 1 in 45; in New York, 1 in 37-83. As confirmatory of the remark made a few pages back, that neither the average duration of life, nor the rate of mortality, presents an idea of the individual cases of longevity, and that these may be found where the mean is low, we may instance Russia. In that country, there are a considerable number of old persons, but yet the mortality in early life is excessive. Thus, in the diocese of Nisni Novgorod, it appears that of 1000 bap- tized, 661 perished before their fifteenth year. It is evident, therefore, that a large number of births in a country does not give proof of a numerous adult popula- tion, nor of the chances of longevity among them being greater than where the proportion of births is much less. Mr. Rickman, on this subject, among many observations of the same nature, tells us:—In the North-Riding of the county of York, one-half are not dead until the age of thirty-eight years, whereas, in the West-Riding of the same county, one-half are dead at 18 years of age. An incredible disparity in adjoining districts, were it not known that the population of the North-Riding increases slowly, that of the West-Riding rapidly. It may as well be added, in elucidation of the problem in this case, 420 LONGEVITY. that the West Riding of York, in which the probability of life is so little for newly born children, is one of the most manufacturing districts in England, while the North Riding, in which children have a better chance of life than in the rest of England, is agricultural, and one of the most thinly inhabited. Elsewhere, Mr. Rukman remarks: " Such, indeed on infant life, is the effect of crowded residence in the immediate vicinity of the several factories, that in Lancashire 36 per cent, of male infants, 31 per cent, of female infants, die before they are ten years old. A rapid increase of population infers the birth and existence of a large proportion of infants, and therefore a large proportion of short lived persons, thereby accelerating, pro rota, the time or age at which one-half of the population, collectively, are dead." THE END. NLM020916182