Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

civilization begets intemperance is a popular fallacy, un- supported by any reasonable proof. The Africans drank palm wines and fermented fruit juices, and the American Indians fermented maple and sugar-cane years before seeing the noble Caucasian. Semi-civilized people, like the Chinese, were once given to intemperance, if we are to believe Confucius, who has written, ' Be not given to ex- cess in the use of wine ;' while his well beloved disciple, Mencius, deplores the vice of drunkenness, classing it among the five defects of filial piety. In those days reiki, made from red and white rice, previously fermented, was the favorite tipple, though the Chinese likewise used beans, sugar, and potatoes in making alcoholic liquors." " The Chinese are really a temperate race,'' observed Athothis, admiringly; " for that great reformer, Buddha, whose doctrines spread far and wide through the Celestial Empire, was a thorn in the side of Set, inasmuch as he prescribed total abstinence ; and modern China feels to- day the full benefits of this learned philosopher's teach- ings." "Bah !" cried Paulus Androcydes, in a voice of com- mingled contempt and pity. " China is a barbarous country, filled up with a cat-rat-opium-eating population ; and surely you must agree with me that poppy juice is more dangerous than grape juice. And speaking of ancient tipplers reminds me that the Brahmans and other religious East Indian sects fed their very deities on strong drink—that sacred soma, composed of ferns, fer- mented with malt and milk. Then, later they possessed another intoxicant—sura. The former was supposed to contain the divine essence of Indra, to whom these pa- gans sang their Yedic hymns, such as ' Come hither, 0 ! Indra, to our sacrifice ! Drink of the soma, 0 ! soma