ave
seen a drop of wine, a cup of coffee, or a thimbleful of liqueur, call
up a smile to the most Hippocratic face.

Those severe prescribers must, moreover, know very well that their
prescriptions remain almost always without result. The patient tries to
evade the duty of taking them; those about him easily find a good excuse
for humoring him, and thus his death is neither hastened nor retarded.
In 1815 the medical allowance of a sick Russian would have made a
drayman drunk, and that of an Englishman was enough for a Limousin. Nor
was any diminution possible, for there were military inspectors
constantly going round our hospitals to examine the supply and the
consumption.

I am the more confident in announcing my opinion because it is based
upon numerous facts, and the most successful practitioners have used a
system closely resembling it.

Canon Rollet, who died some fifty years ago, was a hard drinker,
according to the custom of those days. He fell ill, and the doctor's
first words were a prohibition of wine in any form. On his very next
visit, however, our physician found beside the bed of his patient the
_corpus delicti_ itself, to wit, a table covered with a snow-white
cloth, a crystal cup, a handsome-looking bottle, and a napkin to wipe
the lips. At this sight he flew into a violent passion and spoke of
leaving the house, when the wretched canon cried to him in tones of
lamentation, "Ah, doctor, remember that in forbidding me to drink, you
have not forbidden me the pleasure of looking at the bottle!"

The physician who treated Montlusin of Pont de Veyle was still more
severe, for not only did he forbid the use of wine to his patient, but
also prescribed large doses of water. Shortly after the doctor's
departure, Madame Montlusin, anxious to give full effect to the medical
orders and assist in the recovery of her husband's health, offered him a
large glass of the finest and clearest water. The patient took it with
docility, and began to drink it with resignation; but stopping short at
the first mouthful, he handed back the glass to his wife. "Take it, my
dear," said he, "and keep it for another time; I have always heard it
said that we should not trifle with remedies."

In the domain of gastronomy the men of letters are near neighbors to the
doctors. A hundred years ago literary men were all hard drinkers. They
followed the fashion, and the memoirs of the period are quite edifying
on that subject. At the pre