Nugae canorae medicae : lays / by the Poet laureate of the New Town Dispensary.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nugae canorae medicae : lays / by the Poet laureate of the New Town Dispensary. 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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    Teetotallers dabble in coffee and tea, And think themselves wise all the while ; But if Liebig be right, these '11 not do for me, For he says that they turn to bile.^ No ! a taste of the alcohol's nearer the thing For a man of poetic vocation; For your bard couldn't laugh, and still less could he sing. Without elements of respiration.^ Thus, man's but a big spirit-lamp, as we see; And lamps all require you to cram 'em With plenty of spirit of good density, In order to aUre, flammam. Then keep up the alcohol stimulus all; Thus alone you '11 preserve your condition; Or you '11 find yourselves soon in what Bennett would call A state of abnormal nutrition.^ tility ; all those parts of the body which were capable of entering into the state of motion have served to protect the remainder of the frame from the destructive influence of the atmosjjhere. Towards the end, the particles of the brain begin to undergo the process of oxidation, and delirium, mania, and death close the scene; that is to say, all re- sistance to the oxidizing power of the atmospheric oxygen ceases, and the chemical process of eremacausis or decay commences, etc.—Liehig, op. cit., p. 27. 1 Without entering minutely into the medicinal action of cafifeine, it will surely appear a most striking fact, even if we were to deny its in- fluence on the process of secretion, that this substance, with the addi- tion of oxygen and water, can yield taurine, the nitrogenized compound peculiar to bile.—Liehif/, op. cit., p. 180. ^ Among the elements of respiration in our food are wine, beer, spirits.—Liebig, op. cit., p. 96. 3 Treatise on Inflammation as a process of Abnormal Nutrition, by John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Edinburgh, F.R.S.E.—Edinburgh, 1844.