MODERATE DRINKING.

West Coast Times, Issue 2835, 4 May 1878, Page 3

MODERATE DRINKING.

We doubt whether it is right to say that moderate drinking is the parent of excessive drinking. But what is moderate drinking? We can best get a notion of it by saying what it is not. Drinking early in the day is not consistent wi:h moderate drinking. The man who begins the day with a "coda and brandy" has very little respect ior bis constitution, and if he does not alter his

habits they will alter his health. Odd glasses of beer and glasses of spirits in a forenoon do not come within the range of moderate drinking. They will show themselves in some rotundity of feature or figure, or alteration of color, some dyspepsia, or lithiasis, or rheumatism. That is not moderate drinking which adds 15 or 20 beats to the pulse, or which flushes the face. Finally, all' casual drinking is bad, presumably, and not moderate drinking. The system will not receive food merely as a matter of conviviality at all sorts of odd hours. Still less will it receive with impunity drink in this way. Drinking which disturbs bleep, either by making it heavy or by driving it away, is not moderate. For want of thought on these points, many people who would be shocked to be considered immoderate charge their blood and tissues with drink so continuously that the system, though never saturated with, is never free from alcohol, Moderate drinking is that which consists with a clean tongue, a good appetite, a slow pulse, a cool skin, a clear head, a steady hand, good working power, and light refreshing sleep. It is associated with meal?, and is entirely subordinated to more convenient and less objectionable forms of food. That such drinking produces drunkenness has yet to be proved, as it has yet to be proved to be essential to health. — Lancet.