not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
or any other liquid.

Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &c., which are
nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
kind.

Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
molasses and water, &c., in favor of which so much is said, are
objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
digested.

But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
spirits?--substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly--but also, in some
of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.

I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
with animal food, and with stimulating drinks--punch, coffee, tea,
&c.--and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.

Very few children rel