The family physician and guide to health : a system of domestic medicine, including a treatise on midwifery and the diseases peculiar to women / by E.B. Hammack.

  • Hammack, E. B. (Elijah B.)
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The family physician and guide to health : a system of domestic medicine, including a treatise on midwifery and the diseases peculiar to women / by E.B. Hammack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    DRINKS. WATER, TEA, COFFEE, AND ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. Every drop of fluid taken into the stomach is conveyed into the blood, and before it is expelled from the system it traverses every part of the body. WATEK Is as essential to life as air, heat or light; it enters into almost every substance which constitutes the food of man, and is, indeed, the proper solvent of all solid, nutritious substances. The only fluid which is suitable for an ordinary drink, and which is the best suited for the nourishment of the system, for the dilution of solid food, and for the main- tenance of a proper degree of fluidity in the blood, is water. Indeed, water is the only agent that can satisfy thirst, or which the natural taste of man prefers. Tastes for alcoholic drinks, tea and coffee are vitiated tastes acquired—they are artificial; yet, under certain circumstances, it is found advisable to combine with the drinks farinaceous, mucilaginous, acidulous, or aromatic substances, as in cases of sickness, convalescence, debil- ity, during excessive heat, and in instances where water alone disagrees. The purer the water the better it is for health. Many fatal epidemics have been commenced by the use of im-