Cookery. 467 
something, and he said what he could, as learnedly and with as 
much appearance of scientific theory as he could ; but it is very 
worthless. Darwin knew somewhat about the practical part of 
eating, and Dr. Sydenham and Dr. Brown (whom I knew in the 
decline of his life) had discovered from their own feelings, that 
wine was bad for gout and stone, and that the best beverage was 
brandy and water. But they were no judges of wine. The com- 
mon port of an English tavern, is cyder, brandy, elder berries and 
sloe juice. 
But what can, what ought a physician to know profoundly on 
this subject ? Not to speak of some of my living friends to whom 
the remark will not exactly apply, I should be glad to be inform- 
ed, what right Dr. Rush, for instance, were he alive, could have 
to decide on good cookery and good wine ? whose hours never his 
own, could not be encroached upon by the crapulous sensation of 
too much indulgence ! Sober, moderate, abstemious by profes- 
sion, was he equal to give advice on this subject ? Those who 
have been accustomed to good living and indulgence — who occa- 
sionally have sojourned amid scanty fare — who have adverted with 
the attention of a philosopher to the effects on the stomach and the 
nerves, of good and of bad liquor— who have themselves now and 
then suffered from occasional excess— and who having lived much 
in society, have experienced the varieties that plentiful and elegant 
tables afford— are the only persons qualified to judge. I would 
rather apply for knowledge of what is wholesome or unwholesome, 
and what dishes and what wines may be safely indulged in, to the 
bench of bishops and the bench of judges, to the beneficed clergy 
and the bar of England, than to the w^hole host of physicians that 
the island can muster. I do not like playing with edged tools 
so near at hand, and therefore I say nothing about the clergy, the 
bench or the bar of this country. 
As to physicians, the clergy of old seem to have been of my 
opinion, that in cases of intemperance, these gentlemen are not 
always best qualified to prescribe. 
The first case of the gout on record, is related as follows. 
« And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased 
in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great : yet in Ids dis- 
« ease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. So Asi.. 
slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his 
reign,” See. 
The son of Sirach also, has some queer remarks among his 
praises of Physicians ; thus ; « ©f medicines doth the apothecary 
