Good beer--that is, beer well brewed and containing all the ingredients this beverage generally does contain--is, very justly, often given to nurses and mothers, because it assimilates easily and very rapidly. It is a kind of soup; one may take it when a person is too heated or fatigued to eat a regular meal. There is a kind of beer that contains more hops, and is therefore very bitter; it is very good for the stomach. The Bavarian beer, when genuine, contains more alcohol than the other, which gives it the advantages of liquor without its disadvantages. It therefore does not satisfy one's appetite, but, on the contrary, tends to increase it; thus it is more adapted to be taken at breakfast and supper. Another kind of beer, called white-beer, contains more sugar and oxygen; it may, for this reason, supply the place of sugar, and Seltzer-water, and is recommended to all those who need Seidlitz powders. In another part of this work we shall perhaps speak more about the usefulness of beer. To-day we must pray our readers to be satisfied with what we have said about it; we shall now speak about supper. CHAPTER XIX. SUPPER. No time of the day is more pleasant than the evening hours after the day's work is over; there is a solemn calm and quiet in them which charms both soul and body. This time of ease and rest must not be disturbed on our part by overburdening the stomach. We eat only for the purpose of compensating for the loss experienced through our work; we should not eat more than is necessary to supply the strength lost; in other words, to give us sufficient strength to continue our labor. And as the day's work is finished, there being not much work before us, we need not take much food. When glancing at a sleeping person and noticing his long breathing and increased perspiration, one may be led to the belief that he loses much oxygen and water during his sleep; that therefore we must provide ourselves abundantly with food before retiring to bed. This is, however, a mistake. The breath of a sleeping person is long and deep, but very slow; and his perspiring does not cause any great loss of water, but comes rather from this, that one's body during the night is more protected by covers and closed windows, etc., from draft which dries our evaporation, and therefore prevents perspiration in day-time. During sleep we need even less of bodily strength than through the day; for this reason we feel no hunger in the night, and, in spite of the long fasting, no fatigue in the morning. From this we conclude that supper should not be a meal for the night, but merely for the last hours of the day. It should be no meal _praenumerando_, but _postnumerando_! It is therefore best to choose but light dishes, which, if we wish to rest well, must be easily digested, and eaten at least two or three hours before bed-time.