The herald., 1898-01-16
THE USE OF WINE

M. Henri de Parville has recently as
sumed editorial control of La Nature
| (Paris) and initiated his labors therein
| by dissertation upon wine drinking.
1t is a voice half in protest and half in
| favor of the wine drinking habit and is
| significant in that it comes from rep
resentative man of wine drinking race.
Whether the use of wine as beverage
is wholesome or not the opinions of wise
men widely differ. Even the learned
faculty of medicine entertain diverse
views upon the subject. When doctors
disagree, says the old saw, disciples
then are free.
There was time when this vexatious
subject had to be touched very gingerly.
Its discussion was almost certain to SCI
moralists and Observation-Disclosures by the
ears. Happily for the peace of society,
that time is past, and common sense,
more or less fortified by scientific OBJ
servation and experiment, allows of the
calm discussion of the tippling habit,
as question of hygiene or economics,
rather than that of the moral depravity
of our friends and neighbors. NJ. de
Parvilles comment upon the hygienic
feature of the question is interesting.
Says he:
People who drink eat little. Alcohol
sustains them, say the drinkers. 1t is
a fact that in those who use fermented
drinks to a great extent the process of
digestion is slower. When we drink
water digestin is llastened. The stom-
ach takes good care to inform us of this
fact: we are hungry three or four hours
after eating. Persons who reason
badly conclude from this, naturally,
that wine is nourishing, and that fresh
water is not The illusion Is complete.
1t is something as if we should say
that stove, furnace or fireplace works
better when the combustion is slow,
and lasts a long time. 1t certainly
lasts longer, but it does not give out
much heat; it would only take little to
put out the fire. = The man
whose digestion proceeds slowly under
the influence of alcohol is already sick
man.. He is in great need of water,
remedy better than drugs.
But M. de Parville is no total abstain
er, not he. After citing the superior vir-
tues of the pure lymph, natures own
beverage, as a sustainer of life and
strength, he, with the charming incon-
sistence of a savant, asks:
Does this mean that We must give up
wine and alcohol absolutely? This
would. doubtless, be a mistake in the
opposite direction. Alcohol rarely,
but sometimes, can, in special circum-
stances, render service by giving great
activity to the circulation.
Who is it, in his journeyings over life's
dusty highways and byways, has not
experienced those Sometimes and
special circumstances in which in
dulgence in "a nip" has given great ac-
tivity to the circulation?" But, contin-
ues the observant Frenchman, we must
be discreet in the use of wine even as a
medicine.
There are acid wines: there are al
most neutral wines; wines rich in iron
wines rich in tannin wines contain
ing essences; wines that must be forbid
den to nervous people, to rheumatics,
to gouty persons and to the stout, and
wines that can be specially prescribed
for the weak, the debilitated, the neu-
rasthenic, etc.
In fact, he contends that one should
get a physician to select the wine suited
to ones special case. But, then, we of
California may bear in mind that M. de
Parville was talking about French
wines, the ingredients of which mystic
compounds mo fellow can find out"
Our California wines are the pure juice
of the grape, the evil of which lies not in
use but in abuse. In conclusion M. de
Parville wisely says:
Beware of the little glass, especially
when you are obliged to live in what we
pompously call apartments when
you take little exercise and breathe
only the contaminated air of great
city. Hippocrates says: water. air,