The whole of the previous part of this book has been devoted to the
contriving of the several meals usual in a work-a-day household and under
ordinary circumstances. But exceptions will occur in the "best regulated
families," and although much may be done to prevent illness by pure,
nourishing, well-cooked food, one must be prepared for emergencies as they
come.
Of course, most of our friends will be only too ready to pounce upon us when
illness comes into the house, with their "I told you so" comments. In the
first place it will be owing to their low diet and want of proper
nourishment that father has got influenza, or Tommy mumps or
measles--beef-fed persons _never_ have these affections--(which shows
what an enormous proportion of vegetarians there must be)--and in the second
place, now that there is illness, you _must_ fall back on beef-tea,
port-wine, and other "generous diet," to get up and sustain the patient's
strength. However callous or deaf you might be to the supplication for the
flesh-pots from those in health, you cannot, must not shut your heart to the
call of the weak or suffering.
And woe betide us if we are heretic, and the patient does not recover so
quickly as we could wish (if he does, we shall be suspected of having
surreptitiously called the orthodox nostrums to our aid, but that by the
way), so that it behoves us to give the critical and censorious as little
room for their strictures as possible.
Now, what are we to get for that erewhile _sine qua non_ of the sick
room,
Beef Tea?
Well, before we come to the non-flesh substitutes, which are more similar in
some ways to the ordinary beef-tea, we will consider what is given in the
earlier stages when the stomach rejects nearly all nourishment.