The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial grown on the sunny hillside, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years, the full manhood of strength.
There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that, and the residue is “volatile principle,” for which all the dictionaries of science have no explanation.
“Volatile principle”—there it is, that is the secret. That is the life of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile principle—that alchemic force—except contained in genuine old ale.
Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
By degrees Alere’s hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.
You have “liver,” you have “dyspepsia,” you have “kidneys,” you have “abdominal glands,” and the doctor tells you you must take bitters, i.e., quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines—American and French patent physic is very popular now—and find the same things precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have not got.
Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
“Throw physic to the dogs,” get a cask of the true Goliath, and “drenk un down to the therd hoop.”
Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork at the bacon and Iden’s splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began to hum old German songs.
But you may ask, how do you know, you’re not a doctor, you’re a mere story-spinner, you’re no authority? I reply that I am in a position to know much more than a doctor.
How can that be?
Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what they will do; he imagines, but the Patient knows.
XXXI
Some noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more good than any man living.
I am still very ill.
The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock, and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. “I hope I don’t intrude,” said he, in American accents. “I was obliged to come and speak to you—you look bad. I hate to hear anybody cough.” He put an emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal haate, hissing it out with unmeasured ferocity. “I haate to hear anybody cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure it, if you don’t mind.”
“By all means—very interesting,” I replied.
“I was bad at home, in the States,” said he. “I was on my back four years with a cough. I couldn’t do anything—couldn’t help myself; four years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That’s a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds.”
“Very little,” I said, looking him over; he was tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
“I tried everything the doctors recommended—it was no use; they had to give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?”
“Can’t think—should much like to know.”
“Crude petroleum,” said the American. “That was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it comes from the
