صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Much has been said by some concerning the quantity of gum or mucilage which malt contains beyond barley, and which is said to be held in the beer in a state of solution. But unfortunately for this theory, the testimony of Dr. Paris, a zealous advocate for the use of beer, completely overturns it. His words are, "Hops constitute the most valuable ingredient in malt liquors. Independent of the flavor and tonic virtue which they communicate, they precipitate, by means of their astringent principle, the vegetable mucilage, and thus remove from the beer the active principle of fermentation." The gum or mucilage, therefore, instead of being held in solution and admitted to the stomach as an article of nutrition, according to the high authority of Dr. Paris, is "precipitated" to the bottom of the cask, and in most instances thrown away. God placed in the barley in its natural state gum to the amount of four per cent. ; officious man changes this arrangement of Providence, and, by malting, increases the gum from 4 to 15 per cent., and then in his prodigality "precipitates" nearly the whole of this mucilage, and afterwards in most cases washes it down the common sewer.

It is also sometimes stated that the quantity of starch in malt is greater than in barley. This is granted; but still it has been shown that the drinker of beer is not benefited by this circumstance; for, in the first place, what is gained in starch is lost in hordein, which is an exceedingly nutritive element of barley. In the grain you have starch 32, hordein 55, total 87. In malt, starch 56, hordein 12, total 68. So that the barley has, after all, an advantage over the malt to the amount of 19 per cent. Then, in the second place, supposing that malting actually increased the nutritive properties of the barley, yet he who drinks beer will not be benefited by the change; for it is admitted by all, that starch is one of the most insoluble of bodies, and therefore is not dissolved in the wort, but is partly left in the grains, and partly precipitated to the bottom of the cask, and eventually thrown away along with the gum or mucilage which the hops precipitated.

According to Sir Humphry Davy, barley contains ninety-two per cent. nourishment; but, according to the best analysis, beer does contain six per cent., a plain proof that there is but little

starch, glutten, gum, or mucilage in the malt liquor for which the poor man pays so dearly, and to manufacture which, good wholesome grain has been wasted to the amount of eighty six per cent. And what is worse, all this prodigality is practised for the purpose of producing a spirit which all scientific chimists and medical men have branded as an acrid poison. We utter our bitterest execrations against the wretch who adulterates bread; yet in the manufacture of beer, wholesome grain is to a fearful extent wasted, and what is allowed to remain is either mixed with a poison, or converted into a most deleterious spirit. The public fountain is poisoned, for by means of brewing, water, one of the choicest gifts of God, is rendered intoxicating and pernicious to men's health and morals; and then a thousand allurements are adopted for the purpose of inducing all ranks among us to come and drink this destructive beverage.

I have not in my possession an analysis which will show the quantity of mucilage, gluten, sugar, &c. contained in apples, pears, dates, or grapes, in their original state, or in the juice of these fruits previous to fermentation, but there is no doubt that, in the manufacture of fermented liquors from these fruits, there is as great a waste and destruction of their nutritive properties, as that which takes place in the process of malting and brewing.

The Americans have found that cows, sheep, or pigs, can be fatted on apples at a cheaper rate than on any other material, and that it is far more profitable to convert these fruits into animal food than to grind them, and ferment the juice into cider. One gentleman, whose orchard used to produce cider to the value of 300 dollars per year, on adopting the principle of total abstinence, resolved to employ his apples in fatting pigs, and his profits doubled; for, instead of three hundred dollars which his cider used to be worth, his pork produced six hundred. The following demonstration of the nutritive qualities of apples has appeared in most of the public prints, and may be fully relied on.

"On Thursday, Dec. 27, 1837, the members of the Ebley Mechanics' Institute dined at the Ebley Coffee House, in the Borough of Stroud, in the County of Gloster, and partook of a pig which had been fed upon apples. The owner, Thomas Neale, a mem

ber of the Stroud Total Abstinence Society, had read in a Temperance publication that, in America, pigs had been fatted on apples, and resolved to try the experiment, and commenced on the 10th of October; the pig was then so poor, that every rib could be counted. For the first fortnight, he gave it nothing but apples and grains, and it improved amazingly; after that period, he substituted bean-meal for the grains, and the increase of flesh was still greater. On the 10th of October, when the experiment began, the pig was computed, by the best judges, to weigh about fourscore pounds; and eight weeks after, when it was killed, it was upwards of nine score, so that it increased in flesh at the rate of more than 10lbs. per week. During the period of fatting, it consumed four sacks of apples and two bushels and a half of bean-meal. The apples and the meal cost 17. 6s., and for this sum nearly five score of pork was obtained. The apples were boiled; but as they needed no washing, and were cooked as soon as the water boiled, much less fuel and labor was required than would have been necessary in dressing potatoes. The flesh when roasted was of the finest flavor, and all who partook of it declared that they never had tasted its equal."

This experiment proves most unequivocally the highly nutritive properties of apples, and consequently the waste of God's bounties of which those are guilty who convert them into cider. What if Thomas Neale had ground the apples and made them into cider, and given it to the pig for wash, instead of the animal becoming fat, it would have decreased to a perfect skeleton. And why delude the laborer by giving him cider for food, or for wages s? The quantity of nourishment in a pint of cider is not worth mentioning; the alcohol it contains is poisonous, and the water might be obtained in a much purer state from the pump or the spring. At the dinner mentioned above, the writer of this Essay was present. Indeed the report which appeared in the public newspapers was furnished by his pen. Thomas Neale was for many years one of my hearers.

We have seen from the declarations of Scripture, that grapes in the East were considered an article of food. In Palestine and Assyria, the people were in the habit of "eating the fruit of the

vine." Raisins or dried grapes are often spoken of as articles of food. Highly nutritious food is not needed in very hot countries, and human life could be sustained by figs, grapes, or dates; but who would think of feeding a man on modern port or sherry?

The following quotation from Johnson's "Letters to Brother John, on Life, Health, and Disease," will place this matter in a strong light. The author asks, "Are stimulants-by which I mean ardent spirits, wines, and strong ales-are stimulants necessary ? Are they pernicious? Or, are they neither one nor the other? I assert that they are, in every instance, as articles of diet, pernicious; and as medicines wholly unnecessary; since we possess drugs that will answer the same intentions, in, at least, an equal degree. But it is only as articles of diet that we have here to consider them.

[ocr errors]

Wines, spirit, and ale, are all alike, as it regards the fact of their being stimulants; they only differ somewhat in kind and degree. I shall speak for the present only of wine, for the sake of convenience. But whatever I shall say of wine, is to be considered as equally true of the others; and if what I have taught you in my preceding letters be true, what I shall now say of stimulants must be true also.

"If wine be productive of good, what is the nature and kind of the good it produces? Does it nourish the body? We know that it does not; for the life of any animal cannot be supported by it. Besides, if you have understood what I have said of the nature, manner, and mechanism of nutrition, you will see at once from the very mode in which the body is nourished, that whatever is capable of nourishing, must be susceptible of conversion into the solid matter of the body itself. But fluids taken into the stomach are not capable of being transmuted into solids, but pass off by the kidneys, as every body knows.

"If, indeed, the fluid drink contains solid matters suspended in it, then these solid matters can be assimilated to the solid body, and so are capable of nourishing it; as in the instance of broths, barley-water, &c. &c. ; but the fluids in which these solid particles are suspended, must pass out of the body by the kidneys.

"If then it be said that, although wine is incapable of nourishing the body wholly and by itself alone, it may yet contain some

nourishment, it is clear that this nourishment must depend upon whatever solid particles are suspended in it. Now if you evaporate a glass of wine on a shallow plate, whatever solid matter it contains, will be left dry upon the plate; and this will be found to be about as much as may be laid upon the extreme point of a penknife blade; and a portionby no means all, but a portion of this solid matter, I will readily concede, is capable of nourishing the body-a portion which is equal to one-third of the flour contained in a single grain of wheat.

"But still, I am entitled to ask, what good you propose to yourself by drinking wine? Because if you really drink it for the sake of the nutriment it affords you, then, I say, why not eat a grain of wheat, instead of drinking a glass of wine; from which grain of wheat you would derive just thrice as much nourishment as you would from a glass of wine? Why go this expensive, and as it were roundabout way, in order to obtain so minute a portion of nutritious matter, which you might so much more readily obtain by other means?

[ocr errors]

Wine, therefore, possesses no power to nourish the body; or at least in so minute a degree as to make it, as an article of nourishment, wholly unworthy of notice.

66

Well, then, does it strengthen the body ?-Let us see. I have proved to you, in my former letters, that health and strength depend upon a high degree of contractility; and have proved, also, that a high degree of contractility can only exist when the body is rapidly and well nourished. Whatever, therefore, is capable of strengthening the body, must do so by increasing the contractility of its fibre; and whatever is capable of heightening contractility, must do so by a rigorous and rapid nutrition of the body. But we have seen that wine possesses scarcely any nutritious virtues at all. How then can it strengthen the body? It cannot-It is manifestly, demonstratively, and glaringly impossible. But to nourish and strengthen it, are the only two good things which any kind of diet is capable of contributing to the body. I have just proved that wine possesses no power to effect either of them; it follows, therefore, as a direct necessity, that it is productive of no good at all.

« السابقةمتابعة »