Friday, February 01, 2008
The Truth Is Gout
Well, while Bryan rotates on his swanky chair, Nige slogs to the end of a gruelling week at NigeCorp, dogged by a tenacious bastard of a 'cold' (as I've remarked before, a wholly inadequate word for what can seem pretty close to a living death). One item of news did cheer me though - the latest on Gout. While the medicos have been sternly pointing the finger at such essentials of life as alcohol, red meat and offal, it seems the culprits all along were... sugary soft drinks. Gentlemen of England (and elsewhere), return to your bottle and your offal. I am confident that no one who reads this blog is a regular drinker of sugary soft drinks, so will say no more.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Bastard, I was going to post on that.
ReplyDeleteOK - assuming Samuel Johnson didn't drink fruit juice in any quantity, what on earth does this tell us about the quality of the wine that all those eighteenth-century gout-sufferers were drinking? Yeeurgh.
ReplyDeleteWell yes - I think the culprit there might well be port, which is notably sweet and which the Georgians drank in heroic quantities (Pitt the Younger, I believe, could manage six bottles a day). Of course this spoils the story, so I didn't mention it... Anyway, no one drinks port like that these days - do they?
ReplyDeleteI drink port and sugary drinks. I also suffer from a real bastard* gout. What more proof do you need, Nige?
ReplyDelete*It seems to be the word of the day so I thought I'd join in.
Yes I was wondering how Dr Johnson could have caught gout from drinking too much Coca-Cola. Now I know and, of course, it's all explained in a passage from one of his reviews:
ReplyDelete"That the diseases, commonly called nervous, tremours, fits, habitual depression, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility, are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the prohibition of Coca-Cola. This general languor is the effect of general luxury, of general idleness. If it be most to be found among cola-drinkers, the reason is, that Coca-Cola is one of the stated amusements of the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of voluntary labour, every exercise that strengthened the nerves, and hardened the muscles, is fallen into disuse. The inhabitants are crowded together in populous cities, so that no occasion of life requires much motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and delicate seldom pass from one street to another, but in carriages of pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the hunters and huntresses, the farmers and the housewives, of the former generation; and they that pass ten hours in bed, and eight at cards, and the greater part of the other six at the table, are taught to impute to Coca-Cola all the diseases which a life, unnatural in all its parts, may chance to bring upon them."
Ah Mark - trust the good doctor to put his finger on it! And Richard, I doubt you're a six bottle a day man? Try drinking less fizzy stuff and more port and let us know what happens (apart from raging hangovers, if you're anything like me with port, one of the few drinks that doesn't like me, despite my heartfelt affection for it).
ReplyDeletePort goes very well in Mediterranean leek, potato, and tomato soup -- as I discovered the other day when I was out of sherry. Otherwise, I don't know how people used to imbibe those spirits straight: They all taste like cough syrup to me. (I am, of course, a philistine.)
ReplyDelete