REVIEW.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 435, 24 December 1861, Page 3

REVIEW.

FOOD AND ITS DIGESTION.

On Food and its Digestion. Being an Introduction to Dietetics. By William Brinton, M.D., Pliysioian to St. Thomas's Hospital. London: 1861.

It is obvious that a work embracing so many topics can only receive a general notice at our hands. Each chapter would furnish an article. Let us glance at what is said about tea and coffee, and alcoholic drinks. That tea and coffee are capable of replacing a certain quantity of food, as well as of rapidly restoring exhausted energies, no one doubts. Yet, as Dr. Brinton says, to decide the exact nutritive value of tea and coffee is a task beyond existing knowledge. That they are useful no less than pleasant is certain; but in what precise way they are useful, physiology is unable to answer .—

* They economise and partiafly n place assimilable food, rendering the appetite somewhat teas keen, and so enabling hunger to be appeased by a smaller or less nourishing alimentary ration. And they further seem to diminish the constitutional, as well as the digestive, requirements of tiie system : not only allaying hunger, but. permitting nutrition Jo be maintained at what is its normal level under a systematically more scanty or monotonous allowance of food.' '

It lias been thought that the experiment instituted with a view to solve this problem have proved the action of tea and coffee to be that of diminishing the bodily waste. Such a conclusion very well fits with the facts; but H happens to be in direct contradiction with the physiological axiom (based on the law of the conservation of finrce-xthat nothing can come out of nothing, and no force can can be cheated) that vital activities are strictly dependant on waste of tissue. If, therefore, tea and coffee diminish bodily waste, they must (unless our philosophy hairs) diminish the vital activities. If they increase the activities they must increase the waste. Dr. Brinton is struck by this contradiction; and he ia led by it to throw greater emphasis on the experiments which seem to disprove the results previously obtained. He thinks the German experimenters have overlooked some important conditions;'and that (he more accurate investigations of Dr. Smith confirm his own researches as to the greater waste produced by tea and coffee On this point, however, the reader must consult Dr. Brinton's volume for himself.

'{'lie chapter on Alcoholic Drinks is pecuniary valuable, not only frpin the in format ion it cpntains, and its important physiological discussion, but from -the wise and temperate attitude preserved on the question of Teetotulism. Dr. Brinton vividly describes theuses and thedangers of alcohol. He candidly admits all the chief positions of teetotallers— that even a moderate daily ingest ion of alcohol diuuujdlit'i the capacity of the body tor witting

extreme's of temperature—that men are cooW in hot climates, and warmer in cold cHaia'.es, nn-frr total abstinence—that exertion in all its more active form*, whether the activity find vont in short but excessive muscular effort, or in a more sustained but less violent action, is lessened by alcohol, careful observation having shown that even a moderate dose of beer or wine, in most canes, diminishes at once the maximum weight which a person could lift—that mental effort is likewise reduced by it. But with these facts full in view, he pronounces decidedly against teetotalisin. 'The practice of physic sufficiently teaches us that there are many persons whose health is bettered and life protracted by the discreet use of alcohol.' While he admits that teetotalism is quite compatible with health under some conditions, he emphatically declares that, if we take the customary life of those constituting the masses of our towns, we shall find reason to doubt. It is singular, he remarks, how few healthy teetotalers are to be met with in our ordinary inhabitants of cities:—

' Glancing hack over the many years during which this question has been forced upon the author by his professional duties, he may estimate that he has sedulously examined not less than from 50,000 to 70,000 persona, including many thousands in perfect health. Wishing, and even expecting, to find it otherwise, he is obliged to confess that he has hitherto met with but very few perfectly healthy middle-aged persons successfully pursuing any arduous metropolitan calling under teetotal habits. On the other hand, he has known many total abstainers whose apparently sound constitutions have given way .with unusual and frightful rapidity when attacked by'casual disease; and many more who, with the strongest lesoluiion and inclination to abstaiu from alcohol, have been obliged to resume its moderate use, from reasons no less valid and imperious than those which, 1800 years ago, induced an inspired Saint to prescribe it for .a Teetotal Bishop.'

This is valuable testimony from an unimpeachable source. Indeed the whole force of the teetotal doctrine lies in its fastening on the effects of abuse,' and in its preposterous assumption (contradicted every day by tho experience of millions) that moderate indulgence must inevitably lead to exr cess—though one does not see why the moderate stimulus of beer or wine should inevitably lead to excess, when the moderate stimulus of tea aud coffee is never suspected of such a vicious tendency, or why we should constantly be told that if we begin by drinking a pint of beer a day, we nuist^ fatally increase that pint to quart, that quart to a gallon, that gallon to a cask a da^, when it is palpable that we do not increase our quantity, but grow old upon our pint. This, like so mmy other arguments of the teetotallers, gives us but a moderate opinion of the effect of total abstinence on the intellectual faculties.

It may greatly interest our readers to know that Dr. Brinton confirms the popular opinion in France respecting the superiority of Bordeaux over Burgundy wines, not only as being less beady, but more wholesome, because they contain larger quantities of tannin, of salts, and of iron. In respect of iron, the difference is about 15 to 1 in. favoorf Bordeaux; and as a tonic this must be very important — Saturday Review.