At the same dinner I observed the following noteworthy fact.  The doctor, who, when in the mood, was a most agreeable companion, drank nothing but iced champagne; and therefore in the earlier part of the dinner, whilst others were engaged in eating, he kept talking loudly and telling stories.  But at dessert, on the contrary, and when the general conversation began to be lively, he became serious, silent, and sometimes low-spirited.

From this observation, confirmed by many others, I have deduced the following theorem:—­“Champagne, though at first exhilarating, ultimately produces stupefying effects;” a result, moreover, which is a well-known characteristic of the carbonic acid which it contains.

Whilst I have the university doctors under my grasp, I must, before I die, reproach them with the extreme severity which they use towards their patients.  As soon as one has the misfortune to fall into their hands, he must undergo a whole litany of prohibitions, and give up everything that he is accustomed to think agreeable.  I rise up to oppose such interdictions, as being for the most part useless.  I say useless, because the patient never longs for what is hurtful.  A doctor of judgment will never lose sight of the instinctive tendency of our inclinations, or forget that if painful sensations are naturally fraught with danger, those which are pleasant have a healthy tendency.  We have seen a drop of wine, a cup of coffee, or a thimbleful of liqueur, call up a smile to the most Hippocratic face.

Those severe prescribers must, moreover, know very well that their prescriptions remain almost always without result.  The patient tries to evade the duty of taking them; those about him easily find a good excuse for humoring him, and thus his death is neither hastened nor retarded.  In 1815 the medical allowance of a sick Russian would have made a drayman drunk, and that of an Englishman was enough for a Limousin.  Nor was any diminution possible, for there were military inspectors constantly going round our hospitals to examine the supply and the consumption.

I am the more confident in announcing my opinion because it is based upon numerous facts, and the most successful practitioners have used a system closely resembling it.

Canon Rollet, who died some fifty years ago, was a hard drinker, according to the custom of those days.  He fell ill, and the doctor’s first words were a prohibition of wine in any form.  On his very next visit, however, our physician found beside the bed of his patient the corpus delicti itself, to wit, a table covered with a snow-white cloth, a crystal cup, a handsome-looking bottle, and a napkin to wipe the lips.  At this sight he flew into a violent passion and spoke of leaving the house, when the wretched canon cried to him in tones of lamentation, “Ah, doctor, remember that in forbidding me to drink, you have not forbidden me the pleasure of looking at the bottle!”