NATURE AND DESTINATION OF FOOD. 389 



410. That it is "Water which constitutes the natural drink of Man, and that 

 no other liquid can supply its place, is apparent from what has been already said 

 of its uses in the system ( 74, 75); and it is only necessary here to remark, that 

 the purity of the water habitually ingested is a point of extreme importance. 

 A very minute impregnation with lead, for example, is quite sufficient to deve- 

 lop all the symptoms of chronic lead-poisoning, if the use of such water be 

 sufficiently prolonged. In the case formerly referred to ( 89), the amount of 

 lead was only about 1 grain per gallon; and in a case subsequently published, 

 in which also the symptoms of lead-poisoning were unequivocally developed, the 

 amount was no more than l-9th of a grain. 1 So again, an excess of the saline 

 ingredients which appear to be innocuous in small quantities, may produce a 

 marked disorder of the digestive organs, and (through them) of the system gene- 

 rally. 3 Moreover, as in the case of food, the presence of a very small amount 

 of putrescent matter is quite sufficient to produce the most pernicious results, 

 when that matter is habitually introduced into the system ; and these results, on 

 the one hand, manifest themselves in the production of certain disorders which 

 appear distinctly traceable to the direct action of the poison so introduced ; whilst, 

 on the other, they become apparent in the extraordinary augmentation of the 

 liability to attacks of such zymotic diseases as may at the time be prevalent. 3 



411. The various beverages employed by Man for the most part consist of 

 Water holding solid matters of different kinds in solution ; and it is not requisite, 

 therefore, to bestow any special attention upon them. But the use of Alcohol, 

 in combination with water and with organic and saline compounds, in the 

 various forms 'of " fermented liquors," deserves particular notice, on account of 

 the numerous fallacies which are in vogue respecting it. In the first place it may 

 be safely affirmed, that Alcohol cannot answer any one of those important pur- 

 poses for which the use of Water is required in the system; and that, on the 

 other hand, it tends to antagonize many of those purposes, by its power of pre- 

 cipitating most of the organic compounds, whose solution in water is essential 

 to their appropriation by the living body. Secondly, the ingestion of Alcoholic 

 liquors cannot supply anything which is essential to the due nutrition of the 

 system ; since we find not only individuals, but whole nations, maintaining the 

 highest vigor and activity, both of body and mind, without ever employing them 

 as an article of diet. Thirdly, there is no reason to believe that Alcohol, in 

 any of its forms, can become directly subservient to the Nutrition of the tissues; 

 for it may be certainly affirmed that, in common with non-azotized substances 

 in general, it is incapable of transformation into Albuminous compounds; and 

 there is no sufficient evidence that even Fatty matters can be generated in the 



1 See "Medical Gazette," Sept. 20, 1850, p. 518. 



2 Of this a very instructive case, which occurred at Wolverton, has been published by 

 Mr. Corfe in the " Pharmaceutical Journal," July, 1848. So large a number of individuals 

 were there attacked, after the use of water from a certain well for some months, with dis- 

 orders bearing a strong general resemblance to each other, though differing in their subor- 

 dinate features, and the intensity of these disorders bore such a constant ratio to the amount 

 of the saline waters habitually employed, that no reasonable doubt could exist with respect 

 to its causative agency. Yet the total quantity of saline matter was only about 40 grains 

 per gallon, or but little more than one-sixth of that which is contained in the Marienbad 

 water, the spa to which it presented the greatest resemblance in the combination of its 

 components ; and as the symptoms which were prevalent at Wolverton bore a very close 

 correspondence with those which are known to result from the imprudent use of the 

 Marienbad water, it appears that here too the same effects are produced by the long- 

 continued employment of the weaker beverage, as by a much smaller number of doses of 

 the stronger one. 



3 For ample evidence to this effect, see Dr. Pereira's "Treatise on Food and Diet," pp. 

 89-91 ; and the " Report of the General Board of Health on the Epidemic Cholera of 1848 

 and 1849," pp. 59-63, "Appendix A," p. 14, and "Appendix B," pp. 91-95. 



