736 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
It was a child’s German grammar. I began to read it on lying 
down ; but I never got through a single page at a time. Sleep 
came along, and never gave the grammar a chance. Try it, 
and you will find it a dead, certain cure.” Thomas de Quincey, 
the famous literateur, who wrote Confessions of an English Opium 
Eater, (and who got to take nearly a large wineglassful of landanum 
in all, as representing 320 grains of opium,) used at one time to 
** call every day for a glass of laudanum-negus, warm, and without 
sugar,” just as another man might call ordinarily for a hot Scotch. 
As to the old much-vexed question whether or not alcohol is a 
food, when taken in wine, malt liquor, or spirit, the most. recent 
conclusion by unprejudiced authorities is that beyond certain 
narrow limits the poisonous action of such alcohol more than 
counter-balances its food value. Thus pronounces the Lancet 
in a current issue (October 22nd, 1904): ‘* Alcohol has been 
proved to be a food in the sense that. when used in small quanti- 
ties the energy given off during its oxidation may be employed 
for some of the body’s needs ; but if at the same time it inter- 
feres with the healthy activities of that most important organ, 
the stomach, its food value will be overbalanced by its toxic effect. 
Similarly sea-water may be used in the boiler of a steam-engine, 
and the steam from its evaporation will transmit the energy of 
the fuel to the revolving wheels, but its corrosive action on the 
steel forbids its employment except in emergencies.” 
Certain non-alcoholic unfermented Nektar wines are now in 
the market, as made at Worms, on the Rhine. Their basic fruit 
juices are pasteurized, whilst no preservatives whatever are used 
in the manufacture. These wholesome wines contain from 
fifteen to twenty-five per cent of grape sugar, together with 
malic, tartaric, and racemic acids; also fixed salts of potash, 
soda, lime, magnesia, and iron. They help to obviate constipation 
of the bowels, being moreover antiseptic intestinally, also some- 
what diuretic. 
* Sound claret’ (says the Lancet, October, 1904) “ invariably 
contains the least proportion of acid of all wines. In health the 
individual would undoubtedly be better for drinking a pleasant 
light claret, rather than a glass of ardent spirit and water. Good 
sound claret need not contain more alcohol than does ale, or 
stout, while it is free from the extractive matters of the malt 
liquor.” Nevertheless, after all said and done, English cider, 
the “* Wine of the West Countree,” is for ourselves the best and 
