The benefit of a couple of glasses of red wine per day to stave off cardiac and other disorders is regularly canvassed in the press. Then we are told of the virtues of the Mediterranean diet as a whole. "More than a hundred years ago this gospel of the beneficent contentment of ordinary wine was the subject of a book by Dr Robert Druitt M.R.C.P.S.: Report on Cheap Wines, Their Quality and Wholesomeness with a Short Lecture to Ladies on Wine, was published in London in 1865. The author dedicated his book to Gladstone, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had tried to induce the British ordinary people to like ordinary wine. Dr Druitt even goes so far as to recommend a glass or two of claret (by which he means any reputable light clear red wine from France, Italy or Spain) for governesses and ladies who are compelled to earn their living. He suggests a glass or two at mid morning as healthful, strengthening and enlivening." (It could certainly be enlivening, for a glass or two often means a glass or two or three or more).
This quotation comes from a not obviously relevant footnote in a book by Moray McLaren, published just thirty years ago: Corsics Boswell. It is an account of a journey Boswell made to Corsica in 1765 to meet General Pasquale do Paoli, who, it is stated in the introduction, was endeavouring to free his people from the tyrannical alien rule of the Republic of Genoa." Boswell's book was, according to McLaren, an eighteenth century best seller.
But, back to the wine and the governesses. McLaren comments "How right! But one doubts if any mid Victorian governesses would have had the moral courage to take his advice. Moreover, Dr Druitt, admirable though his intentions were, forgot that the kind of claret he speaks of, would have had to be `fortified' before travelling to Britain. Perhaps some governesses in Europe took his advice, perhaps not. But Dr Robert Druitt's well informed and delightful book is an encouragement to ordinary lovers of ordinary wine. It ought to be republished."