The use of strong wines and beers has a tendency to produce the disease called gout, and more especially so when taken in conjunction with highly nitrogenous foods.

With regard to light wines and beers, I do not know that I can do better than read to you what Dr. Parkes says on the subject. Dr. Parkes was a man fully acquainted with this, and indeed with all subjects connected with hygiene, and himself practised total abstinence.

"The facts now stated make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the dietetic value of alcohol has been much overrated. It does not appear to me possible at present to condemn alcohol altogether as an article of diet in health; or to prove that it is invariably hurtful, as some have attempted to do. It produces effects which are often useful in disease and sometimes desirable in health, but in health it is certainly not a necessity, and many persons are much better without it. As now used by mankind, it is infinitely more powerful for evil than for good; and though it can hardly be imagined that its dietetic use will cease in our time, yet a clearer view of its effects must surely lead to a lessening of the excessive use which now prevails. As a matter of public health, it is most important that the medical profession should throw its great influence into the scale of moderation; should explain the limit of the useful power, and show how easily the line is passed which carries us from the region of safety into danger, when alcohol is taken as a common article of food."

Coffee and tea contain one and the same essential principle, which goes by the names of theine or caffeine, according as it is prepared from tea or from coffee.

It is a very extraordinary thing that in several parts of the world the natives should have taken parts of different plants to produce beverages, and that the leaves of the tea in China, the berry of the coffee in Arabia, the leaves of the Paraguay tea plant, and some others, should all contain the same essential principle. This fact alone shows us that the principle contained in all these substances must be of some importance and of some use, although it may not be, and certainly is not, a very important element in actual nutrition.

This principle itself is a poisonous substance, but when taken in the moderate quantities in which it is usually taken, it acts as a stimulant to the nervous system without the exciting and depressing effects which follow the drinking of alcoholic stimulants.

It is of especial advantage as a stimulant to the nervous system after fatigue, whether mental or bodily, and it is this particular property of it that makes it especially valuable.

The theine very readily dissolves in boiling water, -and so it is necessary to prepare tea with water that is boiling. It is not, however, advantageous to let the hot water stand with the tea-leaves too long, because if it does it extracts tannin and colouring matter, and other things, from the tea One caution, and that is, that tea causes a very large amount of indigestion. It does not, however, cause a tenth part of that which alcohol causes, especially among the poor classes of the community. This arises, to a large extent, from its being drunk too hot. Our stomachs were not made to hold boiling water, and if people will drink hot water they may be sure that they will suffer from indigestion. Strong tea and coffee should not be drunk with meals, because of their astringent qualities, or, at any rate, only as flavouring materials to milk; and the practice of drinking a small quantity of coffee, with plenty of milk, for breakfast, is a very good one.

Coffee is often mixed with chicory, but if you wish to drink coffee alone, you can buy the berries and grind them yourself. In France they buy the berries and roast them themselves; but in England you can buy roasted berries, and by grinding the berries yourself you get a much better coffee, as some of the essential oils evaporate after the coffee has been ground for any time.

If you buy ground coffee you can tell whether it contains chicory by putting it in a tumbler of water, when the coffee will float for some time, but the chicory sinks almost directly, and discolours the water much more than coffee does.

Cocoa contains a large quantity of fat, and also a considerable proportion of nitrogenous substance; it is therefore much more nutritious as an article of food than coffee or tea. Its essential principle is closely allied to that found in tea and coffee.