Study and stimulants, or, The use of intoxicants and narcotics in relation to intellectual life, as illustrated by personal communications on the subject, from men of letters and of science / edited by A. Arthur Reade.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Study and stimulants, or, The use of intoxicants and narcotics in relation to intellectual life, as illustrated by personal communications on the subject, from men of letters and of science / edited by A. Arthur Reade. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    myself dragging through the last few miles, and quite able to appreciate the common habit of halting at a roadside “ pub.” or wine-shop, for a drink on the way. No such inclination came upon me when my only beverage was water, or water plus a cup of coffee for breakfast only (no afternoon tea). Then I came in fresh, usually finishing at the best pace of the day, enjoying the brisk exercise in cool evening air. Physical work of this kind admits of accurate measurement, and I was careful to equalise the average of these experimental comparative fortnights. The result is a firm conviction that the only beverage for obtaining the maximum work out of any piece of human machinery is water, as pure as possible ; that all other beverages (including even tea and coffee), ginger-beer, and all such concoctions as the so-called “temperance drinks,” are prejudicial to anybody not under medical treatment. To a sound-bodied man there is no danger in drinking any quantity of cold water in the hottest weather, provided it is swallowed slowly. I have drunk as much as a dozen quarts in the course of a stiff mountain climb when perspiring pro- fusely, and never suffered the slightest inconvenience, but, on the contrary, have found that the perspiration promoted by frequent and copious libations at the