24 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
will turn into vinegar after a time, but some brews undergo this 
degenerative change much more quickly than others, from having 
been run into dirty vats. In most of the popular London 
breweries the brewers calculate that the beer which is made 
will be consumed so quickly that the presence of a little more 
or less vinegar does not signify, and they brew daily in their 
vast vats still reeking so strongly of acetic acid that you 
cannot open your eyes when holding the face over these vats. 
And yet some of these reckless brewers occupy a most respectable 
position in society, go to church, and never ask forgiveness 
for the sickness, poverty, and misery they may have caused 
by their wilful negligence in this regard. There is no more 
fertile cause of gout, rheumatism, diseased heart, dropsy, and 
the premature death of the robust working man, than this beer, 
just on the turn, and ready to become thick vinegar in the 
stomach.” 
The famous Philip Dormer Stanhope (Lord Chesterfield), 
in one of his noted “letters ” to his son Philip Stanhope (1874), 
says: “I hear ‘from Duval, the jeweller, who has arrived, and 
was with me three or four days ago, that you are pretty fat for 
one of your age; this you should attend to in a proper way, 
for if while very young you should grow fat it would be trouble- 
some, unwholesome, and ungraceful. You should therefore, 
when you have time, take very strong exercise, and in your diet 
avoid’ fattening things. All malt liquors fatten, or at least 
bloat, and I hope you do not deal much in them. I look upon 
wine and water to be in every respect much wholesomer.” 
“ Bat what is Coffee but a noxious berry 
Born to keep used-up Londoners awake ? 
What is Falernian, what are Port and Sherry, 
But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache ? 
Nay, Stout itself (though good with oysters —very !) 
Is not a thing your reading man should take 
He that would shine, and petrify his tutor 
Should drink draught Allsop in its native pewter.” 
Though, as a quaint saying puts the matter pithily, “‘ He who 
drinks beer thinks beer.” 
As concerning wines of various vintages, the leading character 
of a wine must be referred to the alcohol which it contains, and 
upon which its stimulating, or intoxicating powers chiefly depend. 
In the stronger ports, and sherries there is present from 16 
i __ to 25 per cent of alcohol ; in hocks and clarets from 7 per cent 
