Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [199]
When he came to the heart of his speech he grew serious, pointing out the value and importance of the slave trade, on which every man in the room in some way depended. It was a sign of this value and importance that through all variation in the administration of public affairs, through all variation of government and party, this trade had always been approved, its encouragement voted, its benefit to the nation recognized on all sides …
These were the things above all that this company of men enjoyed hearing and he resumed his seat to general applause. He did not speak again to the lawyer or look at him but devoted his attention to the man on his right, who was already well known to him, as to most people in the room, and always to be found at these gatherings. Dr Ebeneezer Slingsby, familiarly known among his associates as Dr Sugar, was a man who had done more for the trade, in his own way, than almost anyone, having been for more than thirty years a tireless publicist for the medicinal virtues of sugar in every form, and having published not much previously a learned treatise entitled ‘A Vindication of Sugar’, in which he proved beyond doubt that sugar was beneficial to everyone, of whatever degree or age or sex. Throughout all this time his researches had been helped forward by generous subsidies from the West India Association.
Slingsby was corpulent and somewhat short of breath and his teeth were ruinous; but his full, round face had a good high shine on it and his eyes glistened as he described to Kemp his new remedy for all ailments of the eye: two drams of fine sugarcandy, one grain of leaf gold, one quarter-dram pearl. ‘Made into a very fine and impalpable powder, sir,’ the doctor said. ‘When dry, blow a convenient quantity into the eye. Relief will be felt within two minutes.’
‘The pearl and gold leaf will make it an expensive remedy, I fancy,’ Kemp said. ‘Beyond the means of most.’
‘That is true, sir, it is designed for people of fashion. But I am presently seeking patents for a hand-lotion made from sugar paste which will be a sovereign cure for all manner of external lesions and well within the means of the common general. And I am working also on a dentifrice made with powdered sugar, which should come out cheap enough. Alas, too late to save my own teeth.’ The smile he gave at this point attested in a graphic fashion to the terminal condition of these. ‘But we do not work for ourselves alone,’ he said. ‘It is the younger generation who will thank us. There is a Slingsby Sugar Snuff now on the market which I believe will replace tobacco entirely, to the better health of the whole population.’
The doctor paused to drink some of his wine. His nails, Kemp noticed, were a strangely uniform whitish colour without any evident presence of blood behind them. ‘Well, that is good news,’ he said. ‘I had not thought sugar could be put to so many uses.’
Dr Sugar set down his glass. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘sugar has a thousand uses, it is the most versatile of all commodities in the world. It is first of all a food, of course, and an excellent one. A man can live on the products of sugar alone for many weeks together without the smallest detriment, as I have proved upon my own person. But sugar is also a preservative, a solvent, a stabilizer. It is equally valuable as excipient or diluent. It gives consistency of body, it masks bitter-tasting drugs. It can be used in syrups and elixirs, as a demulcent or as a binding agent for tablets. It is a base for confections, oil sugars, aromatic sugars, candy cough lozenges. It improves the eyesight, preserves the hair and sweetens the blood. Sir, there is no end to the virtues of sugar.’
By the time Kemp had followed the doctor through this