Cold Weather Drink

Neighborly and helpful if a bit blatant seemed the San Francisco Public Health Office when the Ancient Arabic Order of the Mystic Shrine met there last summer. Tippling Shriners were invited to have their liquor tested free of charge. The invitation came from Dr. Jacob Casson Geiger, the bald, beak-nosed Director of Public Health at whose request a survey of poison cases was later made which resulted in the successful use last fortnight of methylene blue, a dye common in the textile industry, as antidote for cyanide of potassium (TIME, Dec. 19).

Dr. Geiger was neighborly again last week. With bitter cold weather sweeping the nation, he took occasion to say a word about fortifying drinks. He wrote to the San Francisco Examiner recommending that fine old U.S. fortifier, Tom & Jerry. The Examiner front-paged Dr. Geiger's recipe: "Whole egg and sugar, thoroughly beaten, about one tablespoon of sugar being used for each egg, a certain liquid added to the proper consistency and taste and then hot milk added to the mixture with nutmeg.*. . . The particular food product that should be stressed is hot milk in cold weather. ... It helps build up protection against colds. . . . "Just before retiring is a good time for hot milk. You take a glass of hot milk, sip slowly, then make one last readjustment of the pillows, snap out the light, pull the coverlets around your shoulders, give a little sigh, the sigh isn't absolutely necessary but usually is done, and the chances are greatly in favor of a good night's slumber descending before you have time to pick up again the count of sheep where you left off. "You don't have to wait until bedtime. . . . There are plenty of occasions during the day, for instance, when you are fatigued or fingers or toes are cold, or for no reason at all except that you need something warm and stimulating." Milk is an efficacious adjunct to alcoholic liquors because, more than any other food, it inhibits intoxication by retarding the accumulation of alcohol in the blood. By itself, alcohol is not warming; it produces an illusory glow by increasing the amount of blood in the skin, but this glow causes excess radiation of body heat, reduces the temperature. Hot drinks help promote sleep; those containing alcohol may do so if stimulation is absent or has subsided. The hypnotic action of beer is due in part to the lupulin of the hops rather than to the alcohol content.

*Most barmen use hot water, with a double hooker of rye, bourbon or corn. Scotch is eschewed as non-indigenous.

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