Note (return) — HARROW SCHOOL.

Wines, and, indeed, all fermented liquors have an antiseptic quality. They act in direct opposition to putrefaction, and in proportion to the quantity of alcohol which they contain, so will be their value and beneficial tendency. Now the circulating fluids of our system have a continual tendency to putrefaction; and the food we take, both animal and vegetable, tends to produce this effect; if, therefore, something of an antiseptic nature, or of a nature in direct opposition to this principle be not received, the fluids would ultimately become a mass of corruption, with the extinction of life. If we meet with an individual whose habits are abstemious, as regards the drinking of wines or fermented liquors, we generally discover him to have a great predilection for that valuable commodity salt, which article being in its nature antiseptic, answers the same purpose as wine. Therefore, the labouring man, whose narrow circumstances prohibit him from the advantage of a daily use of wine, by taking with his food a sufficient quantity of salt, and his apportioned quantity of malt liquor, retains his vigour and strength of body equally with those whose more ample means render them capable of acquiring the necessary quantity of wine daily. Doctor Barry mentions an experiment made on a soldier, who was hired to live entirely for some days on wild fowl,3 with water only to drink; he received in the beginning his reward and diet with great cheerfulness, but this was soon succeeded by nausea, thirst, and disposition to putrid dysentery, which was with some difficulty prevented from making further progress, by the physician who made the experiment. Again, he remarks, "I knew a person who, by the advice of his physician abstained for some years entirely from salt, drank chiefly water, and used freely an animal diet, and by that means acquired a violent scurvy; he was, after some time, relieved by a strict regimen of diet and medicine, and as he afterwards used salt and vegetables with animal food, and drank wine more freely, never had a return of the disorder." It is therefore evident, that a moderate use of wine tends to promote health, and keeps off the numerous train of disorders, to which the constitution of man is subject, thereby lessening the evils incidental to human nature. We can then exclaim with Virgil of wine,