1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

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THE FLOWING BOWL

The ancients cooled their coppers, for the most part, with ale, either small or large. And I am led to the belief that cider, or some prepara tion of apples, was also used as a pick-me-up, if " melancholy vapours "—a complaint for which Gervase Markham specially recommended cider as a specific—meant the same thing as alcoholic remorse. Search as I may I can find no recipe, no prescription, in old books for " hot coppers." Can it be that the ancients, who as previously pointed out, were not teetotallers, deceived themselves in protesting before men that they had no sin ? Here is an old recipe headed : " If youwould not be drunke, take the powder of Betany and Coleworts mix't together ; and eat it every morning fasting, as much as will lie on a sixpence, and it will preserve a man from drunkennesse." But this is an alleged preventive of the act, and not a chaser of sorrow from the brow of the unwise partaker. " To quicken a man's wits," writes the same Mr. Markham, "spirit and memory, let him take Langdebeefe"—can this mean langue de hceuf?—"which is gathered in June or July, and beating it ina cleane mortar; Let him drinke the juyce thereof with warme water, and he shall finde the benefit." Probably the most useful part of this prescrip tion was the warm water; still it can hardly be regarded as a restorative. " jlaalnst Drunkennesse. o