THE face of Soho has changed. The paint and ink-stained doyens of yesteryear have slipped away. Their alcohol-fuelled chatter that once resounded in pubs is now only a memory that occasionally disturbs the muted conversation of the elderly survivors of a passing generation.

The ghosts of Augustus John, Francis Bacon, Henrietta Moraes, Elizabeth Smart, Dylan Thomas and Daniel Farson would all be able to surprise the hordes of young people who now throng Soho with accounts of life as it was. Media chatter still rings around the bar of the Toucan pub, or the Coach and Horses (famous for Norman, its landlord, and as the second home of Jeffrey Bernard and Private Eye).

The creativity displayed by the generation that frequented Soho was bought at a cost of heavy drinking. Not all pay the supreme sacrifice like Dylan Thomas, who died young. However, even for those who are more circumspect about drinking, or who are better endowed with the enzymes that metabolise alcohol, there is still the likelihood of a punitive hangover. Many who have had a hard night in Soho are later disturbed by pillow spin, and a sickening feeling each time they need to crawl out of bed and navigate their way to the bathroom.

Some may even remember Francis Bacon’s words: “I have never found any panacea for a hangover. I don’t think one exists apart from suicide.”

Only advancing age, with its concomitant progressively shrinking brain, finally removes the peril of a splitting headache after a night’s heavy drinking.

Compared with the headache of a hangover, the other adverse affects of alcohol, such as an upset gastrointestinal system, nausea, sweating and confused thinking, are as nothing. Even if Bacon is correct in suggesting there is no one panacea for a hangover, there are many ways in which one can be prevented or relieved.

How drunk someone becomes depends entirely on how much alcohol they have imbibed, their sex, their genetic make-up, their size, and how experienced their liver is in dealing with it. It is a myth that mixing drinks makes people more drunk: it merely gives them a worse hangover. Practice at the bar may not make perfect but it can increase the amount drunk without untoward effects by as much as a third. The body’s enzymes which metabolise alcohol can dispose of a unit much more quickly if the drinker is an established one whose liver is not yet beginning to fail. Women metabolise alcohol more slowly and less efficiently than men, so they get drunk faster and sober up more slowly — and may well have a worse hangover. Thin, muscular people can take it better than short, fat, couch potatoes.

The hangover, as opposed to drunkenness, is also dependant on the type of drink consumed. As a rough guide, the darker the drink the greater the hangover. Eating a proper meal — cashew nuts don’t count — while drinking not only reduces the hangover but also boosts the medicinal qualities of alcohol when taken in moderation.

For a century or two those who wined, dined or merely drank in the clubland district of St James, London, have had a refuge that they can attend the following morning: the long-established chemists D. R. Harris and Co of St James Street have been dispensing their pick-me-up made from a secret recipe of tincture of gentian and cardamom, clove oil and a little bit of camphor, diluted and served in a special glass. It clears the head and settles the stomach. Few people believe that a little alcohol the following morning can help, but as iniquitous as the habit may be, it can do so.

The scientific approach to a hangover is to study the effects of the alcohol and counteract each one. Alcohol dehydrates so that every part of the body is shrunken other than the brain, and needs refreshing. The brain swells because of the damage, usually only temporary, that has been done to the nerve cells by the alcohol. Old people don’t develop headaches because their age-shrunken brain has room to swell within the rigid skull without becoming crushed and painful.

Alcohol causes a great tide of insulin to flow out from the pancreas. As a result the blood sugar level is lowered, hypoglycaemia sets in and the drunken person becomes hot, sweaty and shaky, and the mind turns over rather more slowly than usual. Just as dehydration should be treated with a high water intake before and after drinking, so should the hypoglycaemia be treated by asking the hungover person to eat a diet with as much protein and carbohydrate — a classic fry-up will help those with a strong stomach — as they can without being sick.

Finally, alcohol also irritates the gastrointestinal system. Alka-Seltzer, Rennie, or any other popular remedies ease the inflammation and Alka-Seltzer has the advantage of helping the headaches, too. For the headache alone, there are the analgesics, preferably paracetamol — no one wants to make the inflamed gut bleed with too much aspirin.