1 6 THE DARWIN FAMILY. 



largely was universal, but my father maintained that far more 

 evil was thus caused than good done ; and he advised me if 

 ever I was myself ill not to allow any doctor to take more 

 than an extremely small quantity of blood. Long before 

 typhoid fever was recognised as distinct, my father told me 

 that two utterly distinct kinds of illness were confounded 

 under the name of typhus fever. He was vehement against 

 drinking, and was convinced of both the direct and inherited 

 evil effects of alcohol when habitually taken even in moderate 

 quantity in a very large majority of cases. But he admitted 

 and advanced instances of certain persons who could drink 

 largely during their whole lives without apparently suffering 

 any evil effects, and he believed that he could often beforehand 

 tell who would thus not suffer. He himself never drank a 

 drop of any alcoholic fluid. This remark reminds me of a 

 case showing how a witness under the most favourable cir- 

 cumstances may be utterly mistaken. A gentleman-farmer 

 was strongly urged by my father not to drink, and was en- 

 couraged by being told . that he himself never touched any 

 spirituous liquor. Whereupon the gentleman said, ' Come, 

 come, Doctor, this won't do though it is very kind of you 

 to say so for my sake for I know that you take a very 

 large glass of hot gin and water every evening after your 

 dinner.' * So my father asked him how he knew this. The 

 man answered, * My cook was your kitchen-maid for two or 

 three years, and she saw the butler every day prepare and 

 take to you the gin and water.' The explanation was that my 

 father had the odd habit of drinking hot water in a very tall 

 and large glass after his dinner ; and the butler used first to put 

 some cold water in the glass, which the girl mistook for gin, and 

 then filled it up with boiling water from the kitchen boiler. 



" My father used to tell me many little things which he had 

 found useful in his medical practice. Thus ladies often 



* This belief still survives, and 1884 by an old inhabitant of 

 was mentioned to my brother in Shrewsbury. F. D. 



