take nourishment

It’s the equivalent of asking someone how she is and she says, “Able to take nourishment.”

Patients can generally be persuaded at first to take nourishment.

He is much inclined to sleep, has entirely failed to take nourishment, drinks frequently when aroused from his lethargic condition, and has vomited everything taken into his stomach since the receipt of the injury or the performance of the operation.

The condition of "Number One" was at this time most deplorable; there was great pain, extreme debility, frequent attacks of syncope, insomnia, and a mercurial stomatitis which had been kept up for months by way of medical treatment and which rendered it nearly impossible to take nourishment in any form.

He chewed and chewed, rested from his labours, and chewed again, in an honest and earnest endeavour to take nourishment and work out his own insalivation, but was at last forced to acknowledge himself defeated by the stout and tough resistance of the indomitable lump.