Mon Docteur, Le Vin (My Doctor, Wine)

This volume, first published in French in 1936, extols the many joys and benefits of wine. Wine drinkers should take pleasure in Gaston Derys's quaint appreciation of the grape, and art lovers can admire Raoul Dufy's joyful watercolours. Reflecting the exuberance and lan of an earlier day, Derys takes us back to a time when the doctor's favoured prescription was an amiable glass of wine. In Derys's ode to wine, here translated into English, we discover that the medicinal and therapeutic uses of wine are many: it assists in fighting typhoid, infant sicknesses, and diabetes; it exerts a positive effect on one's character, beauty, and creativity; and it lends a fortifying power to athletes and soldiers. Supported by the comments of French doctors as well as Dufy's beautifully reproduced paintings, Derys's argument to raise a glass of wine becomes pleasantly irrefutable.