What happens if you eat only meat? Lack of this vitamin in the diet causes scurvy, symptoms of which include tooth loss, bleeding gums and even personality changes.

Treatise on Modern Aphrodisiacs

Any excess that affects the mucous membrane shortens life.

7th axiom

§ I. Statement of the question

Consumption of five substances discovered in the last two centuries and entered into our everyday life, in last years has grown so much that it threatens to change the face of modern societies beyond recognition. These five substances are:

1. Vodka or alcohol, the basis of all liqueurs that appeared in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV and were invented to warm his chilly old age.

2. Sugar. This substance only recently appeared on the table masses, since French industry learned to produce it in large quantities and sell it at the price it commanded until it became rare and rose in price. This price will, of course, decrease further, despite the efforts of the tax administration, which is just waiting to tax it.

3. Tea, known for fifty years.

4. Coffee. Although it was discovered by the Arabs long ago, this aphrodisiac has become widespread in Europe since the mid-eighteenth century.

5. Tobacco, the use of which by burning became general and excessive only since peace reigned in France.

First of all, let us consider the question from the most elevated point of view.

A person spends some part of his strength on satisfying one or another of his needs; hence comes the sensation which we call pleasure; it varies and depends on temperament and climate. Our organs are the managers of our pleasures. Almost all organs have a dual purpose: they receive substances, introduce them into our body, and then return them, in whole or in part, in one form or another, to the common storehouse, the earth or atmosphere - the arsenal where all creatures draw their neo-creative powers . All the chemistry lies in these few words human life. Scientists will not go further than this formula. You will not find a single feeling, no matter what area it belongs to (and by feeling one should understand its entire mechanism) that does not obey this rule. Any excess is based on pleasure, which a person wants to receive again and again, regardless of the immutable law established by nature. The less strength a person expends, the more he gravitates towards excesses, for thought irresistibly draws him towards them.

I. For a person to live in society means to waste himself more quickly or less quickly.

It follows that the further a society has advanced along the path of civilization and the calmer its life, the more it indulges in excesses. For other people peaceful life harmful. Perhaps this is what inspired Napoleon with the idea that “war is a natural state.”

In order to absorb, absorb, decompose into parts, assimilate, and then return or recreate some substance - operations that are the mechanism of every pleasure without exception - a person directs his power or part of it to the organ or organs that control the favorite pleasure .

Nature requires that all organs take an equal part in human life, while society exacerbates people’s thirst for this or that pleasure, and the satisfaction of this thirst leads to the concentration in one or another organ of a large part, and often even all the strength; These bursts of strength occur to the detriment of all other organs and deprive them of exactly as much as the delicacy organs consume. Hence illness and, ultimately, a shortening of life. This theory is scary in its authenticity, like all theories based on facts, and not put forward a priori. Constant mental activity causes increased work of the brain, the force is concentrated there, stretches its delicate shell, enriches its pulp: but it devastates the lower floor so much that a brilliant person is beset by a disease, decently called in medicine frigidity. On the contrary, if you spend your life at the feet of sofas on which endlessly charming women recline, if you fall in love bravely, you will become stupid, like a Franciscan monk. The mind loses the ability to rise to the higher spheres of knowledge. True strength lies between these two excesses. Leading both an intellectual and a loving life, a man of genius dies, just as Raphael and Lord Byron died. A chaste man dies from excess work, just as a sensualist dies from dissipation; but this kind of death is extremely rare. Abuse of tobacco, coffee, opium and vodka cause serious disorders and lead to early death. An organ that is constantly irritated, endlessly stuffed, hypertrophies: it grows to abnormal sizes, suffers and destroys the organism, which ultimately cannot stand it and dies.

According to current laws, everyone is their own master. But if the citizens who have the right to be elected, as well as the proletarians who read these lines, believe that they do harm to themselves when they smoke like a tugboat or drink like Alexander, then, strangely enough, they are mistaken; their behavior destroys their offspring and leads to degeneration, which leads to the devastation of the country. One generation has no right to harm another.

II. Nutrition is procreation.

Order this axiom to be carved in gold letters in your dining rooms. It is strange that Brillat-Savarin, having demanded from science an increase in the number of senses due to the sense of procreation, forgot to note the connection that exists between what a person produces and substances that can change the conditions of his life. With what pleasure I would read the following axiom from him:

III. Those who eat fish give birth to girls, those who eat meat give birth to boys, those who eat bread give birth to thinkers.

Look how different the colors and essays of the great people of our time and the great people of bygone eras are, and yet great people are exponents of their generation and the morals of their time! How many times do we meet? various kinds ruined talents, broken by the first failure! Our fathers are the culprits of the current grinding.

Here are the results of the experiment carried out in London; Two people who deserve deep respect vouched for the reliability of the information: one of them is a scientist, the other is a politician; this experience is relevant to the questions that interest us.

With the permission of the British government, the three sentenced to death penalty a choice was offered: either to be hanged according to the custom of this country, or to continue to live, eating exclusively tea, coffee or chocolate, and under no circumstances take any other food, of whatever nature it may be, or drink any other liquid . These weirdos agreed. Perhaps every convict would have acted this way. Since the products were different and, consequently, gave different chances of salvation, the criminals cast lots.

A man who ate only chocolate died after eight months.

A man who lived on coffee alone lived for two years.

A man who ate only tea lived for three whole years.

I suspect that the East India Company had this experiment to their advantage.

A man who ate chocolate rotted alive, eaten by worms. Its members died off one by one, like members of the Spanish royal family.

A man who ate only coffee was burned alive, as if he had been incinerated by the fire of Gomorrah. Lime could be made from his remains. Such a proposal was made, but was rejected as contrary to the immortality of the soul.

A man who ate only tea lost weight and became almost transparent; he melted away like a candle: his body became translucent; a philanthropist might put a lamp behind him and read The Times. The British considered a more daring experiment inappropriate.

I can't help but notice what a philanthropic act it is to use a condemned man for scientific experiments instead of simply cutting off his head. Anatomical theaters already supply animal fat for the production of candles; Should you stop halfway? Let those condemned to death be given over to be torn to pieces not by executioners, but by scientists.

An experiment was carried out with sugar in France.

In many mechanical things aimed at bringing pleasure to man, the inhabitants of the East are much higher than the Europeans: their contemplation, akin to the habit of toads, who sit for a long time without moving, opening their golden eyes, like two suns, to nature, allowed them to see in reality what what we learn through scientific analysis. The harmful basis of coffee is tannin, a harmful substance that has not yet been sufficiently studied by chemists. When the lining of the stomach is exposed to tannin, or when the tanning properties of coffee have dulled its sensitivity due to frequent use, it ceases to contract sharply, and this is precisely what workers strive for. Hence, if the lover does not give up coffee, serious disruptions occur. There lives a man in London whose excessive drinking of coffee has caused him to become as gnarled as gouty old man. In Paris I knew an engraver who took five years to recover from the condition to which his addiction to coffee had reduced him. Finally, recently one artist - his name was Shenavar - simply burned to death. He entered the cafe like a worker enters a tavern - every now and then. Coffee lovers act in the same way as all people overcome by any passion; they go further and further and, like Nicolet, rise higher and higher, even to the point of abuse. By crushing the coffee beans, you spray them into strangely shaped molecules; the aroma is released, but the tannin remains in them. That is why Italians, Venetians, Greeks and Turks can, without any danger to themselves, continually drink coffee, which the French contemptuously call coffee. This is the kind of coffee Voltaire drank.

So, remember the following. Coffee consists of two substances: the first is an extractive substance that easily dissolves in cold or hot water, it is a conductor of aroma; the second is a tannin, which is less soluble in water and is slowly and difficult to separate from the areola surrounding the molecule. Hence the following axiom:

V. Leaving coffee in contact with boiling water, especially for a long time, is heresy; cooking it in water with coffee grounds means tanning your stomach and other organs.

II. If we talk about coffee prepared with the help of an immortal coffee pot in the way of de Bellois, and not du Bellois (the one to whose thoughts we owe this ecumenical method, he was a cousin of the cardinal and, like him, came from the ancient noble family Marquis de Bellois), then the coffee has more strength when poured cold water than when it is brewed with boiling water. This is the second way to enhance its impact.

When you grind coffee, it releases both aroma and tannin, which sweetens the palate and stimulates a nerve plexus that affects thousands of brain cells.

Thus, there are two stages: crushed Turkish coffee and ground coffee.

III. The strength of the coffee depends on how much coffee is poured into the top vessel, how much it is ground, and how much water is poured, which is the third method of preparing coffee.

Thus, over a more or less long period of time - one, at most two weeks - you can achieve excitement with one, then two cups of crushed coffee brewed with boiling water, gradually increasing its strength.

For another week, you pour cold water on your coffee, grind the coffee, grind the powder and reduce the amount of water, thereby again achieving the same dose of mental energy.

When you have ground the powder as finely as possible and poured in the least amount of water, you increase the dose by drinking two cups, then other violent heads reach three cups. This helps you last a few more days.

Finally, I discovered a terrible and cruel method, which I can only recommend to extremely powerful people, with black, coarse hair, ocher-red skin, strong arms, and legs as strong as the balustrade posts on Place Louis XV. We are talking about drinking ground coffee and ground cold anhydride (a chemical term meaning the complete or almost complete absence of water) on an empty stomach. Coffee enters your stomach, which, as you know from Brillat-Savarin, is a velvety sac on the inside, covered with papillae and tubercles; your stomach is empty, and it attacks these tender sweet walls, taking the place of food, hungry for their juices; he draws out the juices, he conjures them, like a soothsayer conjures her god, he does not spare these wonderful walls, like a carter who mercilessly whips frisky horses; the nerve plexuses become inflamed, they burn, and sparks fly from them to the very brain. From this moment everything begins to move: thoughts form up like battalions of Napoleonic army before battle, and here the battle actually takes place. Memories, unfurling their banners, rush to attack; the light cavalry of comparisons gallops; the artillery of logic rushes to the rescue with its guns and charging caps; witticisms fly like arrows; figurative expressions appear; the paper is speckled with ink, for the vigil begins and ends with streams of black slurry, like a battle with black gunpowder.

I recommended a drink prepared in this way to one of my friends, who wanted at all costs to finish the promised work by the next morning; he decided that he had been poisoned, fell ill and did not get out of bed, like a newlywed. He was tall, with sparse blond hair; the walls of his stomach were paper thin. I was not observant enough.

The state into which coffee prepared according to the recipe described above and drunk on an empty stomach brings you is a nervous excitement akin to the nervous excitement in a fit of rage: words go to your head, gestures express painful impatience; a person wants everything to go as planned; he is quick-tempered over trifles; he becomes fickle, like the poets who are so scolded by shopkeepers; he attributes to others the clear mind that he himself has. A smart person should not appear in public and should not let anyone near him. I discovered this strange state of mind when several times I brought myself into excitement, which, due to the lack of work, poured out on those around me. The friends I came to visit in the village saw me as grumpy and stubborn, an inveterate debater. The next day I admitted that I was wrong. We began to look for the reason for my behavior. My friends were great scientists, so we quickly understood what was going on. Coffee imperiously demanded extraction.

These observations are not only true and not subject to any changes, except those associated with various idiosyncrasies, they are consistent with the experiences of numerous practitioners, among whom is the famous Rossini, one of the people who most deeply studied the laws of taste, a hero worthy of Brillat-Savarin .

Tea also contains tannin, but it has narcotic properties; it has no effect on the brain, but only affects the nerve plexus and intestines, which absorb drugs faster and better. To this day, the method of preparing tea does not cause controversy. I don't know to what extent the effects of tea depend on how much water tea drinkers pour into their stomachs. If the experience of the English is to be believed, it gives English morality, pale misses, English hypocrisy and English slander; it is reliably known that it causes no less moral harm to a woman than physical harm. Where women drink tea, love is fundamentally corrupt; these women are pale, sickly, talkative, boring, and love to lecture others. Strong tea in large quantities irritates some powerful organisms and plunges them into deep melancholy; it awakens dreams, but not as vivid as opium, for these visions visit you in a smoky and intoxicated environment. Your thoughts are pliable, like blonde ladies. Your condition is not the sound sleep that distinguishes healthy, tired organisms, but some kind of vague drowsiness, something like morning oblivion. Excessive coffee consumption, like excessive tea consumption, causes the skin to become dry and hot. Coffee often leaves you sweating and extremely thirsty. Those who abuse it have very scanty and thick saliva.

§ IV. About tobacco

It was not for nothing that I left tobacco for last; firstly, this excess appeared last, and besides, it prevails over the rest.

Nature has set limits to our pleasures. God forbid that I define the fighting qualities of love here and offend the feelings of the respectable public; but it is irrefutably proven that the glory of Hercules was brought by his twelfth labor, which today, when women suffer much more from the smoke of cigars than from the fire of love, is considered legendary. Everyone gets tired of sweets very quickly, even children. Abuse of strong drinks allows you to live no more than two years; Abuse of coffee leads to diseases that force you to say goodbye to it. As for smoking, it seems to a person that he can smoke indefinitely. But he is mistaken. A chain smoker, Brousseau had Herculean strength; if he had not worked so much and smoked so much, he would have lived to be a hundred years old: he died recently, and given his cyclopean build, we can say that he died in the prime of his years. Finally, one dandy, who sinned by worshiping tobacco like a god, got an infection in his throat, and since it was completely impossible to remove it, he died.

It is amazing that Brillat-Savarin, who called his book “The Physiology of Taste” and perfectly showed the role that the nasal and oral cavities play in delighting our taste, forgot to include a chapter on tobacco.

Tobacco was consumed by the nose for a long time before it was consumed by the mouth; it affects the paired organs that Brillat-Savarin miraculously noted in our country: the palate, the adjacent areas and the nasal cavity. At the time when the famous professor wrote his book, tobacco had indeed not yet conquered all layers of French society, as it does today. For a century it was consumed not so much in the form of smoke as in the form of powder, and today the cigar poisons society. No one ever suspected how sweet it was to be a chimney.

At first, smoking tobacco causes severe dizziness; in most neophytes it causes profuse salivation, as well as nausea and vomiting. Despite this behavior of an indignant nature, the tobacco fan does not give up, he tries to get used to it. Hard training sometimes lasts several months. The Smoker eventually wins Mithridates' victory and experiences heavenly bliss. What else can you call the effects of tobacco? The poor man does not doubt for a second what to choose: bread or smoke; a young man who does not have a single sou in his pocket, wanders the boulevards all day long and forces his mistress to work day and night, also chooses a cigar without hesitation; the Corsican bandit whom you meet on inaccessible rocks or on a distant sandbank is ready to rid you of your enemy for a pound of tobacco. People in power admit that cigars console them in their greatest misfortunes. A dandy would never part with a cigar, even for the sake of his beloved woman, just as a convict would prefer to stay in the galleys if they gave him plenty of tobacco there! What power does this pleasure have over us, for which the king of kings would give half of his possessions and which, above all, consoles the unfortunate? I denied this pleasure and put forward the following axiom:

VI. Smoking a cigar means smoking fire.

I owe the key to this treasure to George Sand. But I only allow Indian hookah or Persian nargile. Truly in material enjoyment oriental people are much higher than us.

The Indian hookah, like the Persian nargile, is a very elegant device; it pleases the eye with bizarre and exciting forms that give the one who uses it a kind of aristocratic superiority in the eyes of the astonished bourgeois. This is a pot-bellied vessel, like a Japanese jug, with a clay glass on top; tobacco and patchouli are burned in a clay glass - substances whose smoke you inhale, for you can smoke many botanical products, some more attractive than others. The smoke passes through thin leather tubes several cubits long, embroidered with silk and silver threads; their mouthpieces are immersed in a vessel, at the bottom of which fragrant water is poured, into which a tube descends from more high pipe. You inhale smoke that passes through the water and reaches you through the fact that nature abhors a vacuum. Passing through this water, the smoke leaves in it all its stench, becomes refreshed, becomes fragrant, without losing the basic qualities that the charring of the plant produces, it enters thin spirals of leather tubes and comes to your palate, like a young maiden on the bed of her husband, clean, fragrant, sparkling white, desirable. This smoke delights your taste organs, it nourishes them and rises to the brain, like melodious, incense-scented prayers to the deity. You are lying on the sofa with nothing to do, but you are busy, you are thinking tirelessly, you are drunk without wine, without disgust, without the sweet belch that champagne gives, without the nervous fatigue that coffee causes. Your brain acquires new abilities, you no longer feel the bony and heavy vault of your skull, you are soaring in a world of fantasy, you are chasing your fluttering visions, like a child running with a net through a green meadow after dragonflies, you see them in the most seductive guise, and you want to implement them immediately. The brightest hopes no longer seem unrealistic to you, they have taken on flesh and are jumping like a flock of Taglioni, and with what grace! You know this, smokers! This spectacle beautifies nature, everything life difficulties retreat, life is easy, reason is clear, everything appears to us in a rosy light, but - a strange thing - theater curtain falls as soon as the hookah, cigar or pipe goes out. At what cost did you achieve this heavenly pleasure? Let's see. What we will see applies equally to the short-term effects of vodka and coffee.

The smoker stops salivating. And if it doesn’t stop, then it changes completely, turning into a thicker mass. Finally, if he never spits out saliva, then he thereby clogs the vessels, clogs or destroys the taste buds, drain pipes, ingenious tubercles, the delightful mechanism of which belongs to the area studied by Raspail with the help of a microscope, and the descriptions of which, in my opinion, are completely , the necessary, I look forward to.

The path of the various mucous secretions, the wonderful pulp located between the blood and the nerves, is one of the most ingenious human circulations, invented by the great watchmaker, to whom we owe the inventive joke called Mankind. An intermediary between blood and its main product, on which the future of the human race is based, these mucous secretions are so important for inner harmony our body, that strong experiences cause us an acute need for them in order to withstand the blow to some unknown center. Finally, they are so necessary in life that all those who became very angry can remember how their throat suddenly dried out, their saliva thickened, and how it then slowly returned to its normal state. This phenomenon struck me so much that I wanted to test it in the area of the most terrible impressions. I had already secured an invitation to dinner in the company of people whom decency makes outcasts: the chief of the detective police and the executioner of the Royal Court of Paris, however, both of them are citizens, voters and have the same rights as all other Frenchmen.

The famous chief of the detective police told me that all the criminals who passed through his hands, without exception, required from a week to a month for them to regain normal salivation. This happened later among the murderers. The master of cases had never seen a criminal spit before execution, since the moment when he came to prepare him for execution.

Let me cite an incident that the ship's commander himself told me where it happened, and which is further evidence.

There was a theft on one of the royal frigates before the revolution. Since the frigate was on the high seas, everyone understood that the criminal was on board. Despite the most stringent search, despite the fact that everyone on the ship lives as one family and knows everything about each other, neither the officers nor the sailors could find the thief. The whole team was looking for him. When the captain and his assistants despaired of finding the criminal, the first mate said: “Tomorrow morning I will tell you who the thief is.”

Everyone was very surprised. The next morning, the senior mate lined up the entire crew on deck and announced that he would look for the criminal. He ordered everyone to put their hand up and poured a little flour into everyone’s palm. Then he ordered the sailors to moisten the flour with saliva and roll it into a ball. One sailor could not do this: he had no saliva in his mouth.

“Here is a criminal,” said the senior mate to the captain.

And he was not mistaken.

These observations and facts show the importance attached to the nature of Slime; its excess is secreted through the taste organs; mucus mainly consists of gastric juice, this deft chemist, which our laboratories cannot keep up with. Doctors will tell you that the most serious, longest, most severe from the first day of illness are those associated with inflammation of the mucous membrane. Finally, rhinitis, colloquially called the runny nose, deprives us of our most precious abilities for several days, although it is just a mild irritation of the mucous membranes of the nose and brain.

In any case, the smoker impedes this circulation by destroying its drainage pipe, weakening the activity of the papillae or forcing them to absorb the juices that close the opening. Therefore, while a smoker smokes, he is always in a dope. Smoking peoples, such as the Dutch, who were the first in Europe to take up smoking, are for the most part lethargic and apathetic, and the population of Holland is growing slowly. Fish, pickles and very strong Touraine wine, wine from Vouvray, which the Dutch consume in excess, combat the influence of tobacco; but Holland will always belong to the first conqueror; it holds on only thanks to the envy of other states, which will never allow France to take it into its hands. Finally, smoking or chewing tobacco has local consequences that are also worth mentioning. The enamel on the teeth is gradually destroyed, the gums swell, and pus begins to ooze from them, which mixes with food and poisons saliva.

Turks who do not know moderation in tobacco consumption, weakening its effects by leaching, lose their virility early. Since there are few Turks rich enough to own the famous seraglios where they can waste their youth, it remains to be assumed that the main causes of the loss of fertility, when a thirty-year-old Turk is the same as a fifty-year-old European, are tobacco, opium and coffee - these three similar stimulants. The climate does not play a special role here: these latitudes are not so far from us. In addition, the ability to procreate is a criterion vitality and is closely related to the state of mucous secretions.

In this regard, I know one secret experience that I want to make public in the interests of science and the state. One very sweet lady loved her husband only when he was at a respectful distance from her - an extremely rare case and deserves special mention - but did not know how to keep him away from her without violating the authority of the Code. Her husband was an old sailor who smoked like a steamship... She began to observe his love impulses and noticed that on those days when, due to some circumstances, her husband smoked fewer cigars than usual, he was, as the prudes say, , more loving. She continued her observations and discovered that breaks in love were directly related to tobacco consumption. Fifty cigars or cigarettes (he reached that amount) brought her peace of mind, all the more desirable since the sailor belonged to the ruined family of knights of the old regime. Delighted with her own discovery, she allowed him to chew tobacco, a habit he had once sacrificed for her sake. After three years of chewing tobacco, smoking a pipe, cigars and cigarettes combined, she became one of the happiest women in the kingdom. She had a husband, but no marital responsibilities.

“The habit of chewing tobacco gives us power over the crew,” one ship captain, distinguished by his extraordinary powers of observation, told me.

§ V. Conclusions

The authorities are unlikely to agree with these considerations regarding stimulants, which they also imposed on us; but my views are well founded, and I dare say that the Germans owe much of their peace of mind to the pipe: it frees a person from excess energy. The tax service is by nature stupid and harmful to society, it is ready to plunge the country into the abyss of imbecility for the pleasure of transferring crowns from one hand to another, as Indian jugglers do.

Nowadays all classes show a tendency towards drunkenness; moralists and statesmen should fight it, because drunkenness, in whatever form it appears, slows down the development of society. Vodka and tobacco are a serious threat modern society. Looking at the London palaces where they drink gin, you begin to appreciate the society of sobriety.

Brillat-Savarin, one of the first to notice the influence of what goes into a person's mouth on human destinies, could defend the benefits of statistics and try to give it its rightful place, placing it at the basis of the activities of great minds. Statistics should become the budget of things; they can shed light on the serious questions that modern excesses raise regarding the future of nations.

Wine, that stimulant common among the lower classes, contains harmful substances; but it at least takes some time, depending on the physique, to completely destroy a person; cases when it has its destructive effect instantly are extremely rare.

As for sugar, France was long deprived of it, and I know that the lung diseases which affected the generation born between 1800 and 1815 with a frequency that surprised medical statisticians can be attributed to this deprivation, while its excessive use causes skin diseases.

Undoubtedly, alcohol, which is the basis of the wines and drinks that most French people abuse, coffee, which greatly contributes to the awakening of patrician feelings, sugar, which contains phosphorescent substances and phlogiston and which is consumed in excessive quantities, must change the conditions of procreation, now that science has proven that a fish diet affects offspring.

Authorities are perhaps more immoral than chance, more vicious, and bring more harm to society than Roulette. Vodka is harmful, and its sale must be monitored. Nations are big children, and politics should take maternal care of them. The nutrition of the people as a whole is a huge and most neglected part of politics; I would even dare to say that it is in its infancy.

These five types of excess lead to similar results: thirst, sweat, scarcity of mucous secretions and, consequently, loss of the ability to procreate. Let this axiom enter into human science:

VII. Any excess that affects the mucous membrane shortens life.

Man has a totality of vital force, which is divided equally between the circulation of blood, mucus and nervous substance; when one substance absorbs another, the person is one third dead. Finally, to summarize, let us formulate an axiom:

VIII. When France sends her five hundred thousand army to the Pyrenees, she has no one to send to the Rhine. It's the same with a person.

Any excess that affects the mucous membrane shortens life.

7th axiom

§ I. Statement of the question

The consumption of five substances, discovered in the last two centuries and included in our everyday life, has grown so much in recent years that it threatens to change the face of modern societies beyond recognition. These five substances are:

1. Vodka or alcohol, the basis of all liqueurs that appeared in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV and were invented to warm his chilly old age.

2. Sugar. This substance has only recently Sugar... only recently...- In “The Physiology of Taste” (Reflection VI, § 48) the date of the discovery of a method for extracting sugar not only from sugar cane, but also from those plants that grow in temperate climates, in particular from beets, is indicated - around 1740. The rapid development of this production in France occurred at the beginning of the 19th century in connection with the continental blockade that Napoleon declared on England in 1806 and which made it difficult for sugar to enter Europe from the English colonies. appeared on the table of the masses because French industry learned to produce it in large quantities and sell it at the price it commanded until it became rare and rose in price. This price will, of course, decrease further, despite the efforts of the tax administration, which is just waiting to tax it.

3. Tea, known for fifty years Tea, known for fifty years...- If tea has been popular in England since the 17th century, then in France it came into fashion only on the eve of the revolution of 1789-1794..

4. Coffee. Although it was discovered by the Arabs long ago, this aphrodisiac has become widespread in Europe since the mid-eighteenth century.

5. Tobacco, the use of which by burning became general and excessive only since peace reigned in France.

First of all, let us consider the question from the most elevated point of view.

A person spends some part of his strength on satisfying one or another of his needs; hence comes the sensation which we call pleasure; it varies and depends on temperament and climate. Our organs are the managers of our pleasures. Almost all organs have a dual purpose: they receive substances, introduce them into our body, and then return them, in whole or in part, in one form or another, to the common storehouse, the earth or atmosphere - the arsenal where all creatures draw their neo-creative powers . These few words contain the entire chemistry of human life. Scientists will not go further than this formula. You will not find a single feeling, no matter what area it belongs to (and by feeling one should understand its entire mechanism) that does not obey this rule. Any excess is based on pleasure, which a person wants to receive again and again, regardless of the immutable law established by nature. The less strength a person expends, the more he gravitates towards excesses, for thought irresistibly draws him towards them.

I. For a person to live in society means to waste himself more quickly or less quickly.

It follows that the further a society has advanced along the path of civilization and the calmer its life, the more it indulges in excesses. For some people, a peaceful life is detrimental. Perhaps this is what inspired Napoleon to think that “war is a natural state” War is a natural state.- This statement by Napoleon was included in the collection “Maxims and Thoughts of Napoleon,” compiled by Balzac and published in 1838..

Nature requires that all organs take an equal part in human life, while society exacerbates people’s thirst for this or that pleasure, and the satisfaction of this thirst leads to the concentration in one or another organ of a large part, and often even all the strength; These bursts of strength occur to the detriment of all other organs and deprive them of exactly as much as the delicacy organs consume. Hence illness and, ultimately, a shortening of life. This theory is scary in its authenticity, like all theories based on facts, and not put forward a priori. Constant mental activity causes increased activity of the brain, the force is concentrated there, stretches its delicate shell, enriches its pulp: but it devastates the lower floor so much that a brilliant person is beset by a disease, decently called in medicine frigidity Frigidity... - Forensic medicine of the 19th century used this term to designate male impotence.. On the contrary, if you spend your life at the feet of sofas on which endlessly charming women recline, if you fall in love bravely, you will become stupid, like a Franciscan monk ...dumb as a Franciscan monk.- Freethinking poets XVIII centuries, in their obscene verses, the Franciscans were portrayed as debauchees and drunkards.. The mind loses the ability to rise to the higher spheres of knowledge. True strength lies between these two excesses. Leading both an intellectual and a loving life, a man of genius dies, just as Raphael and Lord Byron died. ...how Raphael and Lord Byron died.- Raphael died at 37, Byron at 36; Both were driven to the grave by fever, which turned out to be fatal due to exhaustion of the body and unwillingness to take care of oneself.. A chaste man dies from excess work, just as a sensualist dies from dissipation; but this kind of death is extremely rare. Abuse of tobacco, coffee, opium and vodka causes serious disorders and leads to early death. An organ that is constantly irritated, endlessly stuffed, hypertrophies: it grows to abnormal sizes, suffers and destroys the organism, which ultimately cannot stand it and dies.

According to current laws, everyone is their own master. But if citizens who have the right to be elected, as well as proletarians ...having the right to be elected, just like the proletarians...- Under the July Monarchy, people who received at least 500 francs of annual income had the right to be elected. who read these lines believe that they are doing harm only to themselves when they smoke like a tugboat or drink like Alexander ...drink like Alexander...- This refers to feasting and drinking - the favorite entertainment of Alexander the Great at the end of his life., then, oddly enough, they are mistaken; their behavior destroys their offspring and leads to degeneration, which leads to the devastation of the country. One generation has no right to harm another.

II. Nutrition is procreation.

Order this axiom to be carved in gold letters in your dining rooms. It is strange that Brillat-Savarin, having demanded from science an increase in the number of senses due to the sense of procreation ...feelings of procreation...- In Meditation I, Brillat-Savarin claims that there are six senses in the world, adding to the five known (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste) the feeling of procreation, or physical love, which attracts one sex to the other with the aim of continuing in offspring., forgot to note the connection that exists between what a person produces and substances that can change the conditions of his life. With what pleasure I would read the following axiom from him:

III. Those who eat fish give birth to girls, those who eat meat give birth to boys, those who eat bread give birth to thinkers.

The fate of a people depends on its food and diet. Grain crops created nations of artists. Vodka destroyed the Indian tribes. I call Russia an autocracy powered by alcohol. Who knows if the abuse of chocolate was one of the reasons for the decline of the Spanish nation, which in the era when chocolate was discovered could have become as strong as the Roman Empire ...could become as strong as the Roman Empire.- This refers to the middle of the 16th century, when the Spanish king Charles V was at the same time the emperor of the “Holy Roman Empire of the German nation”; however, by the beginning of the 17th century, when, according to Brillat-Savarin (Meditation VI, § 10), chocolate took root in Spain and Spanish ladies began to crave it, Spain had already lost its primacy in Europe, and, of course, chocolate was not to blame.. Tobacco has already dealt with the Turks, the Dutch and is threatening Germany. Not one of our statesmen, who are usually more occupied with themselves than with public affairs, except to count their ambitious plans, their mistresses and their capital as such, knows where France is going, consuming tobacco immoderately, using sugar, potatoes instead of wheat, vodka, etc.

Look how different the colors and essays of the great people of our time and the great people of bygone eras are, and yet great people are exponents of their generation and the morals of their time! How many different kinds of wasted talents we meet, broken by the first failure! Our fathers are the culprits of the current grinding.

With the permission of the English government, three people sentenced to death were given a choice: either to be hanged according to the custom of this country, or to continue to live, eating exclusively tea, coffee or chocolate, and under no circumstances take any other food, no matter what nature it was. neither was, nor drink any other liquid. These weirdos agreed. Perhaps every convict would have acted this way. Since the products were different and, consequently, gave different chances of salvation, the criminals cast lots.

A man who ate only chocolate died after eight months.

A man who lived on coffee alone lived for two years.

A man who ate only tea lived for three whole years.

I suspect that the East India Company had this experiment to their advantage.

A man who ate chocolate rotted alive, eaten by worms. Its members died off one by one, like members of the Spanish royal family.

An experiment was carried out with sugar in France.

Mr Magendie Magendie Francois (1783-1855) - physiologist, since 1830 the chief physician of the Paris City Hospital, also mentioned in the Treatise on Gait. Balzac refers to the experience that Magendie described in his Note on the Nutrient Properties of Substances Without Nitrogen (1817); the scientist concluded that “eating exclusively sugar is not enough to maintain vitality in a dog.” fed the dogs only sugar; the results of his experiments were made public, as well as the terrible death that poor animals - man’s friends - died; they also share his vices (dogs are gambling); but the results of these experiments do not prove anything about people.

§ II About vodka

Grapes were the first to discover the laws of fermentation - a new action that, under the influence of atmospheric conditions, occurs between its components and after distillation forms a chemical compound containing alcohol; Since then, chemistry has found it in many botanical products. Wine, a product obtained directly from grapes, is the oldest aphrodisiac: by merit and honor, we put it in first place. However, alcohol kills the most people these days. Everyone used to be afraid of cholera. Vodka is an equally formidable scourge.

What reveler has not seen around the great Parisian market between two o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the morning a motley human carpet - these are the regulars of distillers, whose wretched little shops are far from the palaces built in London for consumers who give themselves up for consumption, but where the same thing happens. This is exactly the carpet. The rags and faces merge with each other, and it is no longer clear where the rags end and the flesh begins, where is the cap and where is the nose; often the face is dirtier than the torn underwear that sticks out from under the outer dress; This is what these nondescript, sunken-eyed, frail, graying, bluish-pale monsters, distorted by vodka, look like. These people produce pathetic degenerates who either die or turn into terrible ragamuffins - Parisian street children. The counters of wine shops give rise to puny creatures that make up the working people. Parisian girls are ruined by alcohol abuse.

I would be an unworthy observer if I did not pay due attention to the results of intoxication. I had to study the pleasures that seduce the people and which, let's face it, seduced Sheridan, then Byron and tutti quanti Here: all sorts of others (Italian).. It was not an easy matter.

As a man, drinking water and, perhaps, hardened by the habit of many years of coffee, I rushed to attack the wine, but it has not the slightest effect on me, no matter how much I drink, depending on the capacity of my stomach. I am a dear dinner companion. Knowing this peculiarity of mine, one of my friends wanted to destroy my integrity. I've never smoked. He hoped to gain victory thanks to these first gifts brought to the altar diis ignotis Unknown gods (lat.). - Paraphrased quote from the “Acts of the Apostles” (17, 23), where the Apostle Paul says: “As I passed and examined your shrines, I also found an altar on which was written: “to an unknown God.” This, which you ignorantly revere, I preach to you.”. So, in 1822, one day when a performance was being given at the Italian Opera, my friend challenged me in the hope of making me forget about the music of Rossini and the voices of Cinti, Levasseur, Bordogna and Pasta and lay me down on the sofa that had attracted his attention even during dessert and on which he eventually lay down himself. Seventeen empty bottles witnessed his defeat. He made me smoke two cigars ...in 1822... my friend... forced me to smoke two cigars...- Judging by Balzac’s letter to Ganskaya from the end of March 1833, this friend was Eugene Sue, but in this case the given anecdote should be dated not to 1822, but to 1832, a date that is much more likely due to the mention of kind words spoken to Balzac by the composer Rossini (in 1822 he was not in Paris, and if he had been there, he would hardly have been showered with pleasantries in front of the unknown Balzac). The entire following scene of intoxication in the Italian opera was written before the Treatise on Aphrodisiacs; it was included in Balzac’s essay “Journey from Paris to the Island of Java” (1832), but there only excessive consumption of wine was named as the cause of intoxication. In his letter to Ganskaya and in his treatise, on the contrary, Balzac names cigars as the source of trouble., and as I walked down the stairs I felt the effects of tobacco. It seemed to me as if the steps were bending under my feet, but I stayed fairly straight and reached the carriage safely; Serious and not in the mood for conversation, I went to the theater. In the carriage I felt like I was in hell, I opened the window, and then the fresh air finally “hit me in the head” - this is the expression of drunkards. Everything was swimming before my eyes. Stair steps opera house they sagged even more under my feet than the steps of the house where I was visiting; but without any incident I climbed onto the balcony and took my place. I could not guarantee that I was in Paris among a dazzling society, whose toilets and faces I could not yet distinguish. My soul was drunk. What I heard from the overture to the opera "La Gazza" “The Thieving Magpie” (it.)., were fantastic sounds that poured from the heavens, reaching the ears of a woman in ecstasy of prayer. Musical phrases came to me through glittering clouds, devoid of the defects inherent in the creations of mortals, and full of divine perfection, captured by an inspired artist. The orchestra seemed to me to be a large instrument where some kind of work was being done, but I could not grasp either the rhythm or the mechanism of it, vaguely distinguishing the cuffs of the basses, the swings of the bows, the golden curves of the trombones, the clarinets, the vents of the trumpets, but not distinguishing the people at all. Only one or two powdered, motionless heads and two pouting, grimacing faces disturbed me. I was dozing.

“This gentleman gives off the spirit of wine,” said the lady quietly, who often touched my cheek with her hat and whose cheek I, without noticing, also often touched.

I admit, I was hurt.

“No, madam,” I objected, “this is the spirit of music.” I walked out, holding myself pointedly straight, with the cold calm of a man who is not appreciated, and therefore he moves away, instilling in his ill-wishers the fear that they are poisoning an unrecognized genius. In order to prove to this lady that I am not in the habit of drinking and the smell emanating from me is nothing more than an annoying misunderstanding, completely alien to my morals, I intended to go to the box of Madame Duchess de... (let's keep her name secret), whose lovely, I saw her head buried in feathers and lace from afar and was so surprised by her incredible headdress that I wanted to check whether this entire structure was really on her head or whether it was some kind of illusion of the eye, which had received a special gift for several hours to see everything in a bizarre light , irresistibly attracted me to her.

“When I’m there,” I thought, “near an elegant noble lady and her cutesy and feignedly virtuous friend, no one would even think of suspecting me of being drunk; seeing me in the company of such worthy ladies, everyone will take me for an important person.” But I was still wandering through the endless corridors of the Italian Opera in search of that damned box when the performance ended and the crowd, pouring towards the exit, pressed me against the wall. This evening was undoubtedly one of the most poetic of my life. I have never seen so many feathers, so much lace, so much beautiful women, so many windows through which the curious and admirers look into the box. I have never displayed so much energy, never shown so much character, I would even say stubbornness, if not for the respect with which one must treat oneself. The Fortitude of the Dutch King William Dutch King William- William I (1772-1843) - King of Holland in 1815-1840, who unsuccessfully tried by military means to prevent the separation of Belgium from his kingdom. In the autumn of 1830, Belgium declared itself independent and defended its independence thanks to the support of European countries, first of all - France; in 1832, Holland again tried to retake Belgium by force, but the French army prevented this. William I resigned himself to the inevitable and recognized the independence of Belgium only in 1839, when the Treatise on Modern Aphrodisiacs was written. in the Belgian question cannot be compared with the tenacity that I showed, rising on tiptoe and maintaining a friendly smile on my face. However, at times I was overcome by fits of rage, and at other moments tears appeared in my eyes. This weakness makes me inferior to the Dutch king. Moreover, I was tormented by terrible suspicions when I imagined what this lady might think of me if she did not see me in the company of the Duchess and her friend; but I was consoled by the thought of contempt for the entire human race. However, I was wrong. That evening a glorious company gathered at the Italian Opera. Everyone was very attentive to me and carefully made way for me. Finally, one very beautiful lady, leaving, took my arm. I owed this honor to Rossini, who said several flattering words to me, which I do not remember, but which were probably remarkably witty: he is as excellent a conversationalist as he is a musician. In my opinion, this lady was a duchess, and perhaps even a housekeeper. My recollection is very vague, and I think that it was more likely the attendant than the duchess. However, she had feathers and lace. Again feathers and again lace! In short, I found myself in my carriage; Among other things, this was facilitated by the fact that my coachman was in the same depressing state as me, and fell asleep alone in the square in front of the theater. It was pouring rain, but I don’t remember even a drop falling on me. For the first time in my life I tasted one of the sharpest, most fantastic pleasures, I knew the indescribable delight, the unearthly pleasure that you experience from driving around Paris at half past eleven at night, rushing among street lamps, seeing how myriads of shops, lights, signs, faces, groups of people, women under umbrellas, brightly lit intersections, dark squares flash by, noticing through the streams of rain a thousand things that it seems that he saw somewhere during the day, but in fact did not never seen. And again feathers, and again lace! Even in pastry shops!

That day I understood well the beauty of intoxication. Intoxication casts a veil over real life, drowns out the consciousness of hardships and sorrows, allows you to relieve the burden of thoughts. It became clear to me why it attracted great geniuses and why people indulge in drunkenness. Instead of stimulating the brain, wine stupefies it. Far from causing a flow of force from the stomach to the head, wine, after the first bottle drunk, dulls the sense of taste, the channels become saturated, the taste is suppressed, and the drunkard can no longer distinguish the quality of the drinks served. Alcohol entered the body and partially passed into the blood. So, remember the following axiom:

IV. Intoxication is short-term poisoning.

Constantly returning to this poison, the drunkard eventually changes the nature of his blood, he slows down its flow, destroying it essential elements or spoiling them, and they become so disordered that most drunkards lose the ability to procreate, or their spoiled blood leads to the fact that they give birth to children suffering from dropsy of the brain. Do not forget that the next day after the orgy, and often already at the end of it, the drunkard is tormented by mortal thirst. This thirst, quite obviously arising from the exhaustion of the gastric juices and salivary glands, may serve as proof of the validity of our conclusions.

§ III. About coffee

Regarding this substance, the information reported by Brillat-Savarin is far from complete. ...the information reported by Brillat-Savarin is far from complete.- In “Physiology of Taste” about coffee we're talking about in § 9 of Meditations VI; Brillat-Savarin emphasizes the stimulating effect this drink has on the brain, warns parents about how harmful it is to let children drink coffee, tells an anecdote about how once, after drinking two cups of strong coffee, he could not sleep the whole night, and explains the effect of coffee the perfection of the literary works of Voltaire and Buffon.. I can add something to what he says about coffee, for I drink this drink very often and can observe its effects on a wide scale. Coffee is internal heat. Many people believe that coffee sharpens the mind, but everyone has seen that boring people become even more boring after drinking it. Finally, although grocery stores are open in Paris until midnight, some authors do not become wittier for this.

As Brillat-Savarin quite rightly noted, coffee speeds up blood flow and makes spiritual forces flow; excitement speeds up the digestion of food, drives away sleep and allows you to maintain mental activity longer. I will allow myself to make changes to this article by Brillat-Savarin based on personal experience and the observations of several great minds.

Coffee acts on the diaphragm and on the muscles of the stomach, and from there its effect spreads to the brain itself, and so imperceptibly that it eludes any analysis; nevertheless, it can be assumed that the nervous fluid is a conductor of electricity, which this substance releases, finding it in us and putting it into action. His power over us is neither permanent nor absolute. Rossini tested for himself the effects of coffee, which I already knew from my own experience.

“Coffee,” he told me, “is enough for fifteen to twenty days, fortunately, this is exactly as long as it takes to compose an opera.”

This is true. But it is possible to extend the time during which a person enjoys the beneficial effects of coffee. This skill is so necessary for many people that you should not neglect to describe the way to achieve the desired result.

All of you wonderful people, candles starting to burn from the head, come and listen to the gospel of vigils and mental work!

I. Coffee ground in Turkish tastes better than coffee ground in a mill Coffee ground in Turkish tastes better than coffee ground in a mill.- Brillat-Savarin insisted on the same thing..

In many mechanical things aimed at bringing pleasure to man, the inhabitants of the East are much higher than the Europeans: their contemplation, akin to the habit of toads, who sit for a long time without moving, opening their golden eyes, like two suns, to nature, allowed them to see in reality what what we know through scientific analysis. The harmful basis of coffee is tannin, a harmful substance that has not yet been sufficiently studied by chemists. When the lining of the stomach is exposed to tannin, or when the tanning properties of coffee have dulled its sensitivity due to frequent use, it ceases to contract sharply, and this is precisely what workers strive for. Hence, if the lover does not give up coffee, serious disruptions occur. There lives a man in London whose excessive drinking of coffee has caused him to become as gnarled as gouty old man. In Paris I knew an engraver who took five years to recover from the condition to which his addiction to coffee had reduced him. Finally, recently one artist - his name was Shenavar Chenavar Aimé (1798-1838) - French artist.- simply burned alive. He entered the cafe like a worker enters a tavern - every now and then. Coffee lovers act in the same way as all people overcome by any passion; they go further and further and, like Nicolet's Nicolet Jean Baptiste (1710-1796) - rope dancer who performed at fairs; his ability to jump “higher and higher” became a proverb., rise higher and higher, to the point of abuse. By crushing the coffee beans, you spray them into strangely shaped molecules; the aroma is released, but the tannin remains in them. That is why Italians, Venetians, Greeks and Turks can, without any danger to themselves, continually drink coffee, which the French contemptuously call coffee. This is the kind of coffee Voltaire drank.

So, remember the following. Coffee consists of two substances: the first is an extractive substance, easily soluble in cold or hot water, it is a conductor of aroma; the second is a tannin, which is less soluble in water and is slowly and difficult to separate from the areola surrounding the molecule. Hence the following axiom:

V. Leaving coffee in contact with boiling water, especially for a long time, is heresy; cooking it in water with coffee grounds means tanning your stomach and other organs.

II. If we talk about coffee prepared using an immortal coffee pot using the de Bellois method, not du Bellois ...de Bellois, not du Bellois...- Brillat-Savarin talks about the Dubellois method of making coffee; the inventor of the method, Abbé du Bellois, was a cousin of Cardinal Jean Baptiste de Bellois (1709-1808), Archbishop of Paris in 1802-1808, while Balzac was on friendly terms with the scion of this family, the Count and then Marquis Auguste Benjamin Guillaume de Bellois (1812 -1871). The very method of preparing coffee according to de Bellois, as Brillat-Savarin explains, is as follows: coffee is poured into a porcelain or silver vessel with small holes and poured with boiling water; This decoction is heated to a boil, filtered and a tasty and clean drink is obtained.(the one to whose reflections we owe this ecumenical method was a cousin of the cardinal and, like him, descended from the ancient noble family of the Marquis de Bellois), then coffee has more strength when it is poured with cold water than when it is brewed with boiling water. This is the second way to enhance its impact.

When you grind coffee, it releases both aroma and tannin, which sweetens the palate and stimulates a nerve plexus that affects thousands of brain cells.

Thus, there are two stages: crushed Turkish coffee and ground coffee.

III. The strength of the coffee depends on how much coffee is poured into the top vessel, how much it is ground, and how much water is poured, which is the third method of preparing coffee.

For another week, you pour cold water on your coffee, grind the coffee, grind the powder and reduce the amount of water, thereby again achieving the same dose of mental energy.

Finally, I discovered a terrible and cruel method, which I can only recommend to extremely powerful people, with black, coarse hair, ocher-red skin, strong arms, and legs as strong as the balustrade posts on Place Louis XV. We are talking about drinking ground coffee and ground cold anhydride (a chemical term meaning the complete or almost complete absence of water) on an empty stomach. Coffee goes to your stomach, which, as you know from Brillat-Savarin ...as you know from Brillat-Savarin...- In “The Physiology of Taste” several pages are devoted to the work of the stomach in Meditation XVI; Balzac, however, retells his predecessor very freely., is a velvety sac on the inside, covered with papillae and tubercles; your stomach is empty, and it attacks these tender sweet walls, taking the place of food, hungry for their juices; he draws out the juices, he conjures them, like a soothsayer conjures her god, he does not spare these wonderful walls, like a carter who mercilessly whips frisky horses; the nerve plexuses become inflamed, they burn, and sparks fly from them to the very brain. From this moment everything begins to move: thoughts form up like battalions of Napoleonic army before battle, and here the battle actually takes place. Memories, unfurling their banners, rush to attack; the light cavalry of comparisons gallops; the artillery of logic rushes to the rescue with its guns and charging caps; witticisms fly like arrows; figurative expressions appear; the paper is speckled with ink, for the vigil begins and ends with streams of black slurry, like a battle with black gunpowder.

I recommended a drink prepared in this way to one of my friends, who wanted at all costs to finish the promised work by the next morning; he decided that he had been poisoned, fell ill and did not get out of bed, like a newlywed. He was tall, with thin blond hair; the walls of his stomach were paper thin. I was not observant enough.

OBSERVATION. In some weak natures, coffee causes blood flow to the brain; It's safe, but instead of feeling energized, these people want to sleep, so they say coffee makes them sleepy. These people may have quick feet and a strong stomach, but they are not equipped for mental pursuits. Two young travelers, Messrs. Combes and Tamizier Two young travelers, Messrs. Combes and Tamizier released in 1835-1838. five-volume “Journey to Abyssinia”, where, pointing out the connection between excessive coffee drinking and impotence, they noted: “The Sultan’s wife, who, seeing how the stallion was being singled, argued that the same result could have been achieved by giving him coffee instead of water, without a doubt , was based on my own sad experience.”, saw that the Abyssinians were mostly powerless: both travelers without hesitation attributed this unfortunate phenomenon to the excessive consumption of extremely strong coffee. If this book gets into England, then the English government has a request: to solve this serious issue with the first convicted person who comes across, unless it is a woman or an old man.

§ IV. About tobacco

It was not for nothing that I left tobacco for last; firstly, this excess appeared last, and besides, it prevails over the rest.

Nature has set limits to our pleasures. God forbid that I define the fighting qualities of love here and offend the feelings of the respectable public; but it is irrefutably proven that Hercules brought glory to his twelfth labor ...the twelfth labor...- Apparently, we are talking about the “apocryphal” in relation to the canonical set of the thirteenth labor of Hercules, who managed to deflower fifty nymphs in one night; This miracle was mentioned in a letter to Balzac dated May 28, 1835 by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian orientalist who advised Balzac during his work on “Shagreen Skin.”, which today, when women suffer much more from cigar smoke than from the fire of love, is considered legendary. Everyone gets tired of sweets very quickly, even children. Abuse of strong drinks allows you to live no more than two years; Abuse of coffee leads to diseases that force you to say goodbye to it. As for smoking, it seems to a person that he can smoke indefinitely. But he is mistaken. Heavy smoker Brousse Francois Brousseau (1772-1838) - a French doctor who considered the source of all diseases to be excessive stimulation of various organs, and the universal medicine to be relaxing agents, including bloodletting; giving advice in the “Physiology of Marriage” (Meditation XII) jealous husbands, Balzac recommends that they choose Brousset as their idol and, at the slightest indisposition, give their wife leeches in order to destroy excess energy in her. possessed Herculean strength; if he had not worked so much and smoked so much, he would have lived to be a hundred years old: he died recently, and given his cyclopean build, we can say that he died in the prime of his years. Finally, one dandy, who sinned by worshiping tobacco like a god, got an infection in his throat, and since it was completely impossible to remove it, he died.

At first, smoking tobacco causes severe dizziness; in most neophytes it causes profuse salivation, as well as nausea and vomiting. Despite this behavior of an indignant nature, the tobacco fan does not give up, he tries to get used to it. Hard training sometimes lasts several months. The Smoker eventually wins Mithridates' victory ...Mithridates' victory...- An allusion to the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator (c. 132-63 BC), who, with the help of repeated doses of poison in tiny portions, cultivated immunity to any poison. and experiences heavenly bliss. What else can you call the effects of tobacco? The poor man does not doubt for a second what to choose: bread or smoke; a young man who does not have a single sou in his pocket, wanders the boulevards all day long and forces his mistress to work day and night, also chooses a cigar without hesitation; the Corsican bandit whom you meet on inaccessible rocks or on a distant sandbank is ready to rid you of your enemy for a pound of tobacco. People in power admit that cigars console them in their greatest misfortunes. A dandy would never part with a cigar, even for the sake of his beloved woman, just as a convict would prefer to stay in the galleys if they gave him plenty of tobacco there! What power does this pleasure have over us, for which the king of kings would give half of his possessions and which, above all, consoles the unfortunate? I denied this pleasure and put forward the following axiom:

VI. Smoking a cigar means smoking fire.

I owe the key to this treasure to George Sand I owe the key to this treasure to George Sand.- At the beginning of 1838, after visiting George Sand at her Nohant estate, Balzac began smoking (as is known, among other habits that shocked the public, George Sand had an addiction to smoking), but he still did not become an avid smoker.. But I only allow Indian hookah or Persian nargile. Indeed, in material pleasures, Eastern people are much higher than us.

The Indian hookah, like the Persian nargile, is a very elegant device; it pleases the eye with bizarre and exciting forms that give the one who uses it a kind of aristocratic superiority in the eyes of the astonished bourgeois. This is a pot-bellied vessel, like a Japanese jug, with a clay glass on top; tobacco and patchouli are burned in a clay glass - substances whose smoke you inhale, for you can smoke many botanical products, some more attractive than others. The smoke passes through thin leather tubes several cubits long, embroidered with silk and silver threads; their mouthpieces are immersed in a vessel, at the bottom of which fragrant water is poured, into which a tube descends from a higher pipe. You inhale smoke that passes through the water and reaches you through the fact that nature abhors a vacuum. Passing through this water, the smoke leaves in it all its stench, becomes refreshed, becomes fragrant, without losing the basic qualities that the charring of the plant produces, it enters thin spirals of leather tubes and comes to your palate, like a young maiden on the bed of her husband, clean, fragrant, sparkling white, desirable. This smoke delights your taste organs, it nourishes them and rises to the brain, like melodious, incense-scented prayers to the deity. You are lying on the sofa with nothing to do, but you are busy, you are thinking tirelessly, you are drunk without wine, without disgust, without the sweet belch that champagne gives, without the nervous fatigue that coffee causes. Your brain acquires new abilities, you no longer feel the bony and heavy vault of your skull, you are soaring in a world of fantasy, you are chasing your fluttering visions, like a child running with a net through a green meadow after dragonflies, you see them in the most seductive guise, and you want to implement them immediately. The brightest hopes no longer seem unrealistic to you, they have taken on flesh and are jumping like a flock of Taglioni, and with what grace! You know this, smokers! This spectacle beautifies nature, all life's difficulties recede, life is easy, reason is clear, everything appears to us in a rosy light, but - strangely - the theater curtain falls as soon as the hookah, cigar or pipe goes out. At what cost did you achieve this heavenly pleasure? Let's see. What we will see applies equally to the short-term effects of vodka and coffee.

The smoker stops salivating. And if it doesn’t stop, then it changes completely, turning into a thicker mass. Finally, if he never spits out saliva, he thereby clogs the vessels, clogs or destroys taste buds, drain pipes, ingenious tubercles, the delightful mechanism of which belongs to the area studied by Raspail Raspail François Vincent (1794-1878) - French chemist and biologist who studied the cell. using a microscope, and descriptions of which, absolutely, in my opinion, necessary, I look forward to.

The path of various mucous secretions, a wonderful pulp located between the blood and the nerves, is one of the most ingenious human circulations invented by the great watchmaker ...a great watchmaker...- This definition of God, the creator of the Universe, who “winds up” the mechanism, and then the clock runs on its own according to the rules prescribed by the “watchmaker”, was widespread in French philosophy and deist literature from Fontenelle to Voltaire., to whom we owe the inventive joke called Humanity. An intermediary between blood and its main product, on which the future of the human race is based, these mucous secretions are so important for the internal harmony of our body that strong experiences cause us to urgently need them in order to withstand a blow to some unknown center. Finally, they are so necessary in life that all those who became very angry can remember how their throat suddenly dried out, their saliva thickened, and how it then slowly returned to its normal state. This phenomenon struck me so much that I wanted to test it in the area of the most terrible impressions. I secured an invitation ahead of time to dinner in the company of people whom decency makes outcasts ...dinner in the company of people whom decency makes outcasts...- This refers to a dinner with the philanthropist B. Appert, at which, together with Balzac, there was the detective Francois Eugene Vidocq and the executioner Henri Sanson, famous, among other things, for cutting off the head of Queen Marie Antoinette in 1794 (a free adaptation of his stories entitled “Notes executioner" Balzac, together with another writer, L.-F. Léritier de Len, released in 1830).: the chief of the detective police and the executioner of the Paris Royal Court, however, both of them are citizens, voters and have the same rights as all other Frenchmen.

Let me cite an incident that the ship's commander himself told me where it happened, and which is further evidence.

“Here is a criminal,” said the senior mate to the captain.

And he was not mistaken.

Turks who do not know moderation in tobacco consumption, weakening its effects by leaching, lose their virility early. Since there are few Turks rich enough to own the famous seraglios where they can waste their youth, it remains to be assumed that the main causes of the loss of fertility, when a thirty-year-old Turk is the same as a fifty-year-old European, are tobacco, opium and coffee - these three similar stimulants. The climate does not play a special role here: these latitudes are not so far from us. In addition, the ability to procreate is a criterion of vitality and is closely related to the state of mucous secretions.

In this regard, I know one secret experience that I want to make public in the interests of science and the state. One very nice lady loved her husband only when he was at a respectful distance from her - an extremely rare case and deserves special mention - but did not know how to keep him away from her without violating the authority of the Code ...without violating the authority of the Code.- That is, without getting a divorce, because divorce was not provided for by the Civil Code adopted in 1804.. Her husband was an old sailor who smoked like a steamship... She began to observe his love impulses and noticed that on those days when, due to some circumstances, her husband smoked fewer cigars than usual, he was, as the prudes say, , more loving. She continued her observations and discovered that breaks in love were directly related to tobacco consumption. Fifty cigars or cigarettes (he reached that amount) brought her peace of mind, all the more desirable since the sailor belonged to the ruined family of knights of the old regime. Delighted with her own discovery, she allowed him to chew tobacco, a habit he had once sacrificed for her sake. After three years of chewing tobacco, smoking a pipe, cigars and cigarettes combined, she became one of the happiest women in the kingdom. She had a husband, but no marital responsibilities.

“The habit of chewing tobacco gives us power over the crew,” one ship captain, distinguished by his extraordinary powers of observation, told me.

§ V. Conclusions

The authorities are unlikely to agree with these considerations regarding stimulants, which they also imposed on us; but my views are well founded, and I dare say that the Germans owe much of their peace of mind to the pipe: it frees a person from excess energy. The IRS is inherently stupid. The IRS is inherently stupid... - State monopoly the sale of tobacco, which existed in France since the 17th century and was abolished in 1791, was completely restored in 1811. and harmful to society, she is ready to plunge the country into the abyss of dementia for the pleasure of transferring crowns from one hand to another, as Indian jugglers do.

Nowadays all classes show a tendency towards drunkenness; moralists and statesmen should fight it, because drunkenness, in whatever form it appears, slows down the development of society. Vodka and tobacco are a serious threat to modern society. Looking at the London palaces where they drink gin, you begin to appreciate the society of sobriety.

These five types of excess lead to similar results: thirst, sweat, scarcity of mucous secretions and, consequently, loss of the ability to procreate. Let this axiom enter into human science:

VII. Any excess that affects the mucous membrane shortens life.

VIII. When France sends her five hundred thousand army to the Pyrenees, she has no one to send to the Rhine. It's the same with a person.

This man's name is Dan Jansen. Dan is 38 years old and works as a carpenter in the US state of Maryland.

They say that diversity gives life the spice, but this is not true about Dan. For 25 years he has eaten nothing but pizza. The only spice he adds to his food is oregano.

All of Dan's friends are surprised how he is still alive. In addition to his unusual eating habits, he also suffers from diabetes. Sometimes, when this guy's blood sugar drops to dangerous levels, he is found unconscious in the kitchen with pieces of frozen food scattered around. One day he bought a new car and “passed out” on the way home. The car, left without control, veered off the road and crashed.

VICE recently sat down with Dan to find out how he manages to live on dough, tomato sauce, and cheese.

VICE: You've been called the "King of Pizza." How did you earn such a reputation?

DAN JANSEN: I've been eating pizza every day for the past 25 years. And it's not just a piece a day. This is a whole big pizza, and only with cheese. I never get tired of this kind of food. If I buy pizza from a different place than usual, or a different brand, for me it’s like a completely new dish.

Why don't you eat anything else?

As a child, I ate the “normal food” that all Americans eat, but at about 15 or 16 I decided that I would become a vegetarian for ethical reasons. I liked the taste of meat, and I still have a passion for it, but I gave it up for the sake of my beliefs. And I just hate vegetables.

How does this way of eating affect your diabetes?

When I was diagnosed, my endocrinologist said, “You should see a nutritionist. You eat terribly.” I went to a nutritionist and just wasted my time. He just gave me a grocery list and said, “Oh, you’re a vegetarian. You need to try this, this and this.” And, of course, I didn’t eat anything from this list and don’t intend to.

I like pizza. And except for the first endocrinologist, no one said anything bad to me about this. On the contrary, other doctors said: “Your cholesterol is normal. You look healthy. Continue in the same spirit".

The only person who really cares about my pizza cravings right now is my fiancée. At her insistence, I visit a psychoanalyst to find out the reasons for my tendency to such a monotonous diet.

I know this all sounds like something terribly harmful and someone might think that I'm fat and clumsy, but that's absolutely not the case. I'm slim, I have a lot of energy, I feel great, so maybe there's something special about pizza.

May I ask what you are talking about with the psychoanalyst?

She helped me remember some details from my childhood that I did not attach importance to. For example, I was about five years old, we lived in North Carolina, and in the morning my parents took me to the house of a woman named Miss Stanfill and left me there until the evening. She had several children in her care, and for some reason she cooked us a roast every day. Not the best best food for five year olds. It was either chicken, pork or rabbit with beans, corn, potatoes and tomatoes.

I didn’t like this food and tried to run away, but she caught me. I don't remember her spanking me or the other children, but if I didn't eat the roast, I was sent to the pantry where I cried for hours until my mother came for me.

There was another story about my sister. One day we were playing in the yard, and she fed me mushrooms, which turned out to be poisonous. They took me to the hospital, gave me Coca-Cola and Karo molasses until I threw up inside out. After that I vomited all night. From now on I don’t put mushrooms in my mouth.

Do you ever cook yourself?

Oh no. My cooking involves heating it in the microwave. I never understood why you spend so much time, energy and money preparing food, which you then eat - and your work is gone.

Is there any dish you would like to try in the future?

I never intend to give up my passion for pizza. However, I would like to sometimes go to restaurants that do not serve pizza and find something acceptable on their menu, which I cannot do now. My fiancée is a vegetarian, so it will be easier for us to find a suitable restaurant in the future.

Since you started seeing a psychoanalyst, have you tried to diversify your food in any way?

No. In fact, one of the reasons I go to her is because her office is next to my favorite pizzeria.

Guidebooks warn of many dangers that may await travelers in a particular country. But no one warns about cannibalism. Surprise! Cannibalism is still practiced in some tribes such as India, Cambodia and West Africa. And here are 7 countries where tribes are still not averse to feasting on people.

South East Papua New Guinea

The Korowai tribe is one of the last on Earth that regularly eats human flesh. They live along the river, and there have been cases when they killed random tourists. Healers also considered warm brains a real delicacy.

Why do they eat people? When someone in the tribe dies without any apparent reason(illness or old age), they consider this to be the tricks of black magic and, in order to protect others from harm, they must eat a person.

Interesting fact: In 1961, Michael Rockefeller (son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller) disappeared while collecting artifacts about the tribe. His body was never found.

India

The North Indian Hindu sect of Aghori eats volunteers who bequeath their entrails. However, in 2005, Indian television crews conducted an investigation and learned that they also eat decaying corpses from the Ganges (a local tradition), and also steal organs from crematoria.

Why do they eat people?

Aghori believe that this prevents aging of the body.

Interesting fact: They make really nice jewelry out of human bone and skulls.

Fiji

Formerly known as "Cannibal Island". Until now, local residents cannot restore order, and there are still those who eat human flesh, but not all, but only those of enemy tribes.

Why do they eat people? This is a ritual of revenge.

Interesting fact: Fijian cannibals are not animals at all - they eat with cutlery and collect rare things left over from their victims. You can find examples of such collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.

Brazil

The Wari tribe ate pious and religious dead until 1960, and after that some government missionaries slaughtered almost the entire tribe. However, poverty levels in Olinda's slums have been prohibitively high since 1994, and outbreaks of cannibalism still occur.

Why do they eat people? Poverty and hunger.

Interesting fact: In 2012, information appeared from researchers who interviewed local residents, and they claimed that they heard voices that told them to kill this or that person.

West Africa

The Leopard Society of Active Cannibals has been eating people since the last century. Until the 80s, human remains were found in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. The tribe is usually dressed in leopard skins and armed with their fangs.

Why do they eat people? The tribe believes that eating people makes them stronger and faster.

Interesting fact: They have a following - the Human Alligator community, which does similar things.

Cambodia

Journalist Neil Davis reported that cannibalism in these regions gained momentum during the wars in Southeast Asia (in the 1960s and 1970s). Nowadays, manifestations of cannibalism are occasionally observed.

Why do they eat people? The Cambodian troops had a ritual - eating the liver of the enemy.

Interesting fact: Many people in cities and villages were under the control of the Khmer Rouge organization, which strictly controlled all food in the area and artificially created famine in the country.

Congo

There are known cases of cannibalism in the Congo, and the latest were recorded not so long ago - in 2012. They reached their maximum during the Congolese civil war (from 1998 to 2002).

Why do they eat people? During the war, rebel groups believed that enemies should be eaten, especially the heart, which was cooked using special herbs.

Interesting fact: Congolese still believe that the human heart gives special strength, and if there are people, this will scare away enemies.

Have a nice adventure! :)