It is generally the opinion of most physicians, that wine and strong drinks are not proper for children; and that the smaller and cooler their drink is, the better it will be with them; and that nothing conduceth more to the health of children than drinking water, which will prevent the foundation of those diseases that are caused in many by strong drink, and shew themselves in their more advanced age, wherein many also suffer much by the mother’s ill custom of making them gluttons, by constantly cramming their stomachs with food, many being thereby destroyed among the children of the rich, before they come to the years of maturity; when the children of poor country people, who fare hard, stand their ground till full grown: For fewer children die in the country than in great cities, where luxury in diet doth more abound; which is one reason why so few house-keepers in London were born in it, the great supply of inhabitants being from the country, children being brought up more hardy there than in London, where great numbers are killed by over-eating or pleasing their palates. Which mischief would be in a great measure prevented by their being accustomed to eat less, and drink water; this by experience being found to make young children free from that frowardness, which is commonly caused by a sharp, and hot, or feverish blood, which engendereth wind, and causeth pain and gripes: for there is no pain but is the consequence of heat, or inward as well as outward inflammations. [Sidenote: _Fair water equal to that at Tunbridge._] To what hath been said may be added this consideration, that, when the best physicians are baffled by some distempers, they advise their patients to use the water of some mineral spring, tacitly acknowledging thereby, that all their prescription may be excelled by water. They pretend indeed to ascribe its effects to some minerals with which the waters are tinctured: But Dr. Baynard, in p. 438, of Sir John Floyer’s _Cold bathing_, tells of a certain person who used to frequent Tunbridge, by which he found much benefit; but, being hindered from going thither one season, drank the same quantity of water taken from the pump of a spring in his own yard, which did him as much service: whereupon he wrote thus upon his pump: _Steel is a cheat; ’Tis Water does the feat._ And, indeed, if we consider how many diseases and pains proceed from a sizey, thick blood, which cannot pass as it ought to do through the finest pipes that convey the blood to the parts, pure water, without minerals, drank to the quantity of a quart or three pints in a morning, will attenuate or thin the blood sufficiently: Nothing, as Boerhaave affirms, being a greater diluter of thick blood, than warm water drank in great quantity. Which to thin the blood may be best, tho’ to strengthen the stomach it is best drank cold, having the same effect inwardly, in some cases, as cold bathing hath outwardly; its use this way being also great.