Antedating of Gin and Tonic

[Baker, John]

        The OED has gin-and-tonic from 1935, but it can readily be
antedated with Google Books.  From the Medical Times and Gazette, vol.
2, p. 539, Nov. 8, 1873, "A Doctor's Log" (describing Bombay):
"Breakfast at nine, good eggs; lunch (I prefer the English words) at
one; dinner at 7.30; no wine drank after, but somehow brandy and soda
fit in later; gin and tonic also popular."

        The term appears as a count noun in the apparently anonymous
Chums:  A Tale of the Queen's Navy, vol. 1, p. 273 (1882):  ""Just one
B. and S. before you go, then," suggested the colonel; "or a gin and
tonic, eh?""

        A B. and S., I take it, is a brandy and soda.  I don't see any
support for, or refutation of, the theory that the gin and tonic
originated as a palatable way to take quinine as a prophylaxis for
malaria.


John Baker

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