Sarah,

I've also given this same question some thought, and I think it depends
how you define "dehydration."  Listening to some medical advisors, one
might think 80% of modern-day Americans go around "dehydrated."

When Dr.  Rush runs down the available alternatives to "spiritous liquors"
(i.e., hard liquor straight as well as hard liquor with "mixers"), he
starts with plain water.  He then lists a number of things, apparently in
order, from least alcoholic to most alcoholic.  From this I get the
impression that "small beer," for example, could be quite watery. (This
discussion begins the second part of his _Inquiry_.)  He lived in
Philadelphia--not too far from the Chesapeake.

Beer, fruit juice, and alcoholic cider are certainly diuretics.  At some
point alcoholic beverages must remove more water from the body, in the
end, than they add.  At what point?  Of course this would vary from person
to person, but could one be "hydrated" by frequent half-pints or hourly
mixed drinks?  I would like to know the answer to this question, too.

And we also get a lot of water from food, right.  Colonists ate a lot of
fruit and vegetable "sauces"  which might be very watery.  Maybe this did
the trick for them.  Who knows where they got their water, or if they had
enough of it.  Is it not commonly said that constipation was a major
health problem for people in this era?  Isn't constipation related to
dehydration?  Maybe this is evidence they didn't drink enough water.

I'm no doctor.  I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Jon


----------------------
Jon Stephen Miller
Department of English
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa  52242
[log in to unmask]

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Sarah C. Hand wrote:

> Dear List members,
>
> I hope this question doesn't sound flippant.  I have been researching the
> Culture of Drink in the early Chesapeake (1600 to 1820), and I keep
> wondering if many early modern men and women were deyhdrated much of the
> time.  Does anyone know of any work, or have any comments, on whether
> cultures in which very strong alcohol is the predominant drink experience
> general dehydration?
>
> thank you,
>
> Sarah
>
>
> **********************
>
>
> Sarah C. Hand
> PhD Candidate
> Dept. of History
> University of Virginia
>
> Programming Coordinator
> The Women's Center
> University of Virginia
>