may therefore be rather looked upon in the light of liqueurs. For ordinary daily consumption, wines of lighter character and less alcoholicity, such as Bordeaux, hock, and the less alcoholic wines of Spain, are to be preferred.

The fallacy of drinking those containing nearly 40 per cent. of proof spirit is evident when we consider that the highest amount of alcohol which can be formed in wine only amounts to some 26 or 28 per cent. Ardent spirits are not usually taken without dilution with water to a much greater extent, and in an ordinary glass of whisky or brandy and water there is not more than 15 per cent. of proof spirit.

Many people have been for years in the habit of drinking sherry and port containing the per-centage of alcohol above mentioned, who would have strongly objected to drink spirit and water, from the mistaken idea that they were taking in the wine a weaker fluid than the spirit and water would have been.

The great value of the sparkling wines, apart from their pleasant and exhilarating qualities, chiefly consists in the small per-centage of alcohol which these wines contain, but, from the presence of the carbonic acid with which the wine is charged, the spirit is rendered much more speedily diffusible, so as to produce a greater stimulating effect

than the taking of far larger quantities of any alcoholic fluid would be without the presence of this gas. It is for this reason, coupled with the ease with which it is retained in the stomach in many diseases in which sickness forms a prominent feature, that its value is now so generally recognised by physicians in their treatment.

In selecting wines for consumption with meals, it may be broadly taken that white wines are more easily digestible by most persons than the red. The presence of an excess of tannin produces an astringent action which has a tendency to impede digestion of other food in the stomach; but from the same cause the red wines generally considered suitable for dessert are in fact so, the earlier stages of digestion being then completed. It must not, however, be supposed that all white wines are suitable for dinner wines, those which contain the smallest amount of saccharine matters being better adapted for this purpose than wines of a sweeter character. This is the reason why many people are unable to drink certain champagnes with their dinners, on account of the heavy liqueuring which these wines frequently undergo.

At no period, so much as at present, has it been necessary to exercise caution in the selection of wines for dietetic purposes, and although, perhaps, there never was so much good wine to be pur

chased at so low a price, yet, certainly, there never was so large an amount of worthless, sophisticated, and unwholesome trash absolutely glutting the market.

If the difference between a high-class wine, the excellence of which has been at all times recognised, and the vile imitations with which it has been attempted to simulate these, can be always traced by their immediate effects; so in a much wider ratio we can perceive the cumulative effect upon health induced by the consumption of unsound wine, as compared with the benefit derivable from wines of wholesome character even at the same price.*

* Characteristic samples of the different wines were furnished for analysis by Messrs. Burn and Turner, the Pure Wine Company, Messrs. Rutherford and Co., Messrs. J. L. Denman and Co., Messrs. Stapleton and Co., and others.

CHAPTER IX.

SPIRITS.

ISTILLED spirits occupy a very different

DIS

place in the dietetic scale from that of fermented beverages. Beer, as we have seen, is produced by the addition of a special ferment, which has nothing whatever to do with the natural fermentation which would occur in the aqueous extract of malt. Wine, on the other hand, requires no added ferment beyond that which it naturally contains to produce a certain amount of alcoholic strength, which will conduce to its own preservation, and to the development of those finer flavours common to all sound fermented beverages which have been kept until they are fully matured.

Spirits are those portions of any fermented saccharine fluid selected, which, being volatile, are carried over by the steam and afterwards condensed, and form what is called the distillate. It is altogether a mistake to imagine that the ordinary

spirits of commerce are represented by their equivalent of pure alcohol. We are much astonished to find in the ordinary analysis of beer, wine, brandy, whisky, gin, and rum, and indeed of any other spirits subjected to the usual examination, that it is considered sufficient to state that they contain a certain amount of alcohol in proportion to the water, and to give the amount of the solid ingredients, either in solution or suspension.

Such an analysis conveys an incorrect notion of the true constituents, for we have to take into account the number of other fluids, the influence of which must inevitably modify, to a greater or less degree, all the effects producible, either by fermented beverages or spirituous liquids in which they are contained.

We have to notice, particularly, the aldehydes, which distil at very low temperatures, not exceeding 87° Fahrenheit; the ethers, which, together with the aldehydes, contain all the finer and more volatile flavours, as well as the more subtle of the aromas peculiar to the products of fermentation; and the whole range of entirely volatile substances which accompany both these compounds, the boiling point of which does not exceed 100° Fahrenheit. With very little of the ordinary effects of alcohol, all these are so extremely diffusible, that the stimulus they create of themselves