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TEMPERANCE
P R I Z IV E S SA%Y.S.
DRS. MUSSEY AND LINDSLY.
HooXo
      ffJFasJjfnjjton:
PUBLISHED BY DUFF GREEN.
1835. 
r)V 
PREFACE.
   Among the numerous  obstacles which  have
retarded the  progress  of  that great benevolent
enterprize,  the  Temperance Reformation,  and
which seem to stand in the way of its entire .suc-
cess, there is none greater than the  prevalent im-
pression, that Ardent Spirit,  in the treatment of
disease, is  not only useful, but that it sometimes
is indispensable as an  article  of medicine.   If
this impression be well founded, it is clear, that
although Alcoholic Liquors  be discarded  as a
common drink, they will  still  continue to enter
into the beverage of the invalid, and find, it is to
be feared, too secure a lodgment in the sick room.
                                      3 
4                   PREFACE.

  With a view to procure a full  investigation of
this subject from the most competent sources, and
to ascertain  how far the  objection  urged on  this
score to the entire disuse of  Ardent  Spirit  is
founded in truth, and also to acquire more satisfac-
tory information  as to  its  origin, history,  and
introduction into medical practice, the following
notice was  given  in  the  public papers, which
resulted in  eliciting  the present, with several
other Essays :—

        TEMPERANCE PRIZE QUESTION.

  With the. laudable design of promoting the temperance
reformation, which has been so successfully commenced
in the United States, the Pennsylvania State Temperance
Society has united with several individuals for the  pur-
pose of raising a sum as a premium to be awarded to the
author of the best dissertation embracing the following
questions, viz  ;—

  1.  What is the history of the origin of Atident Spitut,
and of its introduction into medical practice ?

  2.  What  are  its  effects upon the  animal economy ?
And
  3,  Is there any condition of the system, in health  or 
PREFACE.
5
disease, in which  its use is indispensable, and  for which
there is not an adequate substitute ?

  It is desirable that the premium should be at least five
hundred dollars, and efforts will be made to raise it  to
one thousand dollars.  At present however we are autho-
rized to pledge a premium of but three hundred dollars,
which will  be awarded in money, a  gold medal, or  in
plate with a suitable inscription, at the option of the suc-
cessful writer.
  Dissertations must be  transmitted, post paid,  to the
Rev. W. W. Niles, New York city, on or before the 1st
January, 1834.   The dissertation should have upon its
title page a device, or motto, corresponding with one upon
an  accompanying sealed  letter, containing the author's
name, title, and residence.
  The seal of the letter  accompanying the successful
dissertation  only will be broken, while all  others, with
their dissertations, will remain at the disposal of their
authors.

  The Board of Adjudicators consist of—
Johu C. Warren, M. D., Professor of Anatomy and Sur-
  gery, Harvard University, Boston.
Thomas Sewall, M. D., Professor of Anatomy ana Phy-
  siology, Columbian College, Washington, D. C.
Roberts  Vatjx,  Esq., President  of  the Pennsylvania
  State Temperance Society, Philadelphia.
        1* 
6
PREFACE.
 Parker Cleaveland, M. D., Professor of Chemistry and
   Materia Medica, Bowdoin College, Maine.
 Vanbratjgh Livingston,  Westchester county, N. Y,
 Benjamin Silliman, M.  D.  Professor  of Chemistry,
   Yale College, New Haven, Conn.
 Fbancis Watland, D. D., President of Brown Univer-
   sity, Providence, Rhode Island.
 William Goodell,  editor of the ' Genius of Temper-
   ance,' New York City.
 Rev: W. W.  Niles, Secretary of the Board.

   Agreeably to the  foregoing publication, a number of
 dissertations were received by the secretary, and after a
 careful perusal of them by the Board of Adjudicators,
 several were  found to possess  great merit, and two of
 them were adjudged worthy of approval, having fulfilled
•the design for which the prize was offered.
   To the first, designated by the motto'Deo Juvante----,'
 was awarded  the prize of  three hundred dollars.  Upon
 opening the accompanying sealed letter, it was found to
 be the production of R. D. Mussey, M. D., Professor of
 anatomy  and surgery, in Dartmouth college, N. H.
   To the second dissertation, designated  by the motto
 {Palor et genae pendulae ooulorum ulcera tremulse mnnus,
 furiales  somni, inqvies nocturna*  was  awarded a prize
 of three  hundred dollars.  Upon opening the accompa- 
PREFACE.
7
nying sealed letter it was found to be the production of
Harvet Lindslt, M. D., city of Washington.
             W. W. Niles, Secretary of the Board.


  In pursuance of the original  design the  Com-
mittee  of Publication are now enabled to present
to the American  public the successful  Essays.
They have no hesitation in affirming that they
will  be found to contain  a mass of facts and rea-
sonings on  the nature,  history,  and  effects  of
alcoholic agents of the  utmost moment  to the
cause of Temperance, and thereby to the interests
of humanity.  The writers  have given no super-
ficial view of the several points  submitted to their
investigation.   Historically and  physiologically
they have probed  the subject to the bottom; and
yet  the results of  their inquiries are presented in
a form so perspicuous,  attractive, and popular,
that they cannot fail to  be read with intense in-
terest  wherever the  subject of temperance has
been agitated. 
 8                  PREFACE.
   From the nature  of the topics considered, and
 the circumstances of  the writers  acting  without
 concert or privity  to  each  other's plan,  it was
 hardly to be expected that they  should not occa-
 sionally, especially  in the historical  parts, have
 had recourse to the  same authorities.   This ma*y
 perhaps, in some few  instances, have  led  them
 over nearly the same ground, and occasioned the
 repetition of some few matters  of fact; but these
 instances are so rare, and  so slight, as not to
 form the least objection to the plan of  giving both
 the Essays in their original form  without subject-
 ing them to any modification on this account.
 The respective  writers have adopted  their own
 peculiar modes  of  treating  the  subject, and  if
 substantially the same idea  should occasionally
occur,  it will be found  to be presented in different
lights  and  bearing  different  relations, so that
nothing shall be abated on this account of the gene-
 ral interests of the discussion.   The Essays are
therefore submitted with entire confidence in their 
                    PREFACE.                 9
superior intrinsic merit, and in sanguine  hopes
of their extensive usefulness to the friends  of
Temperance in every part of our country.
                       By TftE Committee. 
 
ESSAY
ARDENT   SPIRITS,


                    AND

             ITS SUBSTITUTES

   AS  A  MEANS  OF  INVIGORATING  HEALTH-
"Deo Jnvante—-'•'      vA
              /          6l0
        Br REUBEN D. MUSSEY, M.D.
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, Dartmouth College, N. Hampshire ;
        President New Hampshire Medical Society;
   and Fellow of the American Aoademy of Sciences, he, kc 
 
  Entered according to Act of Congress of 1831, by Dutf
Green, in the clerk's office of  the district court of the Dis-
trict of Columbia. 
Page
	ERRATA.		
14 - for Deucation		read	Deucalion.
80	„ Thodosius	n	Theodosius.
81	„ Bcerhaave	99	Boerhaave.
82 4th line	„ acquire	99	acquired.
83 23d line	„ acquesus	91	acqueous
100 -	„ celeb atum	99	celebratum.
-	„ suspiciendum „		suscipiendum
•	„ revelatuum	9)	revelaturum.
116 note	„ corius •	9)	ebrius.
133 -	„ Leth	99	Lethe.
136 note	„ edenlutum	99	edentulum.
148 8th line	„ water	99	matter.
163 23d line	» by	*9	of.
7 
ESSAY,  &c.
Quest. I. What is the -history of the  origin of ar-
  dent spirit,  and of its introduction into medi-
  cal practice ?
Quest. II. What are "its effects  upon the animal
  ECONOMY J
Quest, in.  Is there any condition  of the system in
  HEALTH OR DISEASE IN WHICH ITS USE  IS INDISPENSABLE,
  AND FOR WHICH THERE IS NOT AN ADEQUATE SUBSTI-
  TUTE ?
                 CHAPTER I.
                    History.
  Ardent Spirit or  Alcohol  is  a thin  color-
less fluid, lighter than water, somewhat volatile,
of a pungent smell and taste, readily inflaming by
the application of a lighted taper, and burning with
a dim blue or purple flame.   It is pro-   Physica] pr0.
duced  only by the decomposition of pertiesand <>ri-
    ,  , ,     ,     •   1    i_i       •* •  gin of alcohol.
vegetable and  animal  substances,* in
a  state of fermentation.  It is  the intoxicating
principle of all fermented liquors, as wine, cider,
beer, &c, and may be separated from them by dis-
tillation  and other processes.
  •The Tartars and Chinese make a  kind of wine and
ardent spirit from the flesh of sheep.
       2                               13 
14                  HISTORY.
  Fermented  liquors derived from the juices of
fruits, and from the farinaceous grains, were used
           in periods of high antiquity.  The first
 wine invent- authentic record we have of wine, re-
           fers to a period scarcely less remote
than that of the deluge.   Noah planted a vineyard
and drank of  the fruit of it;  and the hypotliesis
that he was the inventor of wine, receives  coun-
tenance from the assertion of Hecataeus, the Mi-
lesian  historian, that the use.of wines was first
discovered in iEtolia by Orestes the son of Deuca-
tion.   This last personage, it is  well known, was
the hero of the deluge among those heathen nations
whose  records and traditions recognise that great
event.
  The early history of alcohol in its uncombined
state, or in the form .of ardent spirit,  is obscure.
 Theperiodat Had Mahometan  fanaticism spared
which distilled the Alexandrian library, the curiosity
spirit    was             .        J            J
invented—ob- ol our own times might perhaps  have
           been gratified by a knowledge of the
period of  its  discovery, as  well  as with the name
and residence of the individual whose researches
gave to the world a poisqn, which, in countries
where its use has become general, has caused more
human suffering than any other invention of man.
  There  is indeed  some probability that China
may claim the discovery of the process of distilla-
   DUtillation tion-  *In tnat Country,'  says More-
discovered  in wood, ' which  has preserved its civil
           polity for so many thousand years, the
art of distillation was known far beyond  the date
of its authentic records.'  The same writer,  refer-
ring to the authority of  Du Halde, Martini, Gro- 
HISTORY.
15
sier and others, says, that there is abundant proof
of the Chinese having been  well versed  in  that
branch of alchemy which has for its object a. pana-
cea, or universal medicine, long before this fancy
engaged the attention  of European practitioners.'
The search after  this elixir of life is said to  have
originated with the disciples  of Lao Chiun, who
flourished six hundred years before  the Christian
era.   If this statement be  authentic,   „.....  .
 .              .       11,1      Distilled spir-
there can remain scarely a doubt that it   possibly
the Chinese were  acquainted with dis- Chinese  y2ooo
tilled spirit more than two thousand years ag0-
years ago.
  With a knowledge of the process of distillation,
and impelled by a motive so strong as the hope of
finding an elixir, a single draught  of which would
confer an immunity  from 'disease,  decay,  and
death, the alchemists  could  hardly have failed
early to subject to this process every kind of be-
verage which was known to exert an exhilarating
influence upon the  actions  of life.  The infatua-
tions  of alchemy  still existed in China
in times  comparatively modern,  for neTi'ree iangs
three of her kings, two in the ninth, kj!led h/vAe
   .     .  ,   °      ,               elixir of life.
and one in the  sixteenth century,  pe-
rished from a draught of the elixir of life, prepared
by the alchemists,  and taken with a view to at-
tain  to immortality.
  To Arabia,  however, Europe appears to  have
been wholly indebted for  a knowledge  of  the art
of distillation.  It has been suggested, that, as the
Arabians at a  very  early  period for commercial
purposes penetrated into China, even as far as to
Canton,  there might  have been an  interchange 
16
HISTORY.
in the scientific  discoveries of the two nations.
      ,  .   As the  result  of  their  intercourse
   Distillation
probably  dis- must probably  always remain a mat-
Arlbiaf   m ter of conjecture, it is not unreasona-
           ble to allow  to  the Arabians,  what
has usually been accorded  to them, the credit of
having  found  out  the  process of  distillation,
whether they were the only inventors or not.  A
knowledge of chemistry came with  the Saracens
into Spain, and to this day, several terms purely
Arabic,  are retained  in  the  nomenclature of Eu-
ropean chemistry, as alcohol, alcali,  &c.
  Geber, whose period'and country are question-
able, but who is regarded by many as of Saracen
 Geber in the origin, and who is generally supposed
7th century.   ^o have lived in  the seventh century
of the Christian era, is  so particular  in his  des-
criptions as to show, that in his time not only the
art of distillation, but the methods of conducting
various  pharmaceutical  processes  were well un-
derstood.   Distillation  was  certainly  known  in
 in the  9th SPain as earIJ as t,ie ninth century,
century   in and there is a high  degree of  proba-
           bility that, along with other mechan-
ical arts, it was brought  there by the Saracens in
the early part of the eighth century.
  Rhazes, who was a most scientific and distin-
guished  Arabian physician, born about the middle
of the ninth century, and who resided at the court
of Almansor in Seville, gives minute directions for
making  a particular pharmaceutical  preparation
in a glass retort.  At  what  precise  period the
 hemists learned the art of  extracting  alcohol
 'ora fermented liquors  it is impossible^  deter- 
HISTORY.
17
mine;but from the fact of their being  .Ardent  spi-
     ...          . .    .         .   °. rit   probably
constantly engaged in the pursuit ot known in the
the elixir  of life, and from other con- possibly earlier!
siderations  already suggested, there
can be but little doubt of its having been known
at or before the time of Rhazes.  The ardent thirst
for discovery, and the guarded secresy with which
chemical  processes were at that  time conducted,
the great facility of disguising alcohol by a multi-
tude  of odorous and colored substances, together x
with  the  hope that in some shape  or  combina-
tion it would turn out to be the long sought elixir,
might prevent the  mode of its preparation from
becoming  public  for a long period of time, possi-
bly for centuries.
   We are not informed when it was first used as
a  medicine.   Its pungent and exhilarating pro-
perties would easily give  it a place among resto-
rative remedies, more especially as it might easily
be reinforced or modified by the  addition of me-
dicinal agents, from  the  vegetable  and mineral
kingdoms.
   The first spirit we have  any account of in Eu-
rope  was made  from  the grape, and sold as  a
medicine  in  Spain and Italy under the  Arabian
term  alcohol.*   The  Genoese  were   a ..
the first who prepared it from grain, medicine   by
   .       • 1 j   1       j     ji  ,i •    the Genoese in
and are said to have made, in the thir-  the i3th cen-
teenth century,  a  gainful traffic  by  tuiy*
selling it in small bottles at a high price, under the
name of aqua vitse, or water of life.   Distillation
was  known in France in 1313,  and to  this day
   *The original  signification of the word  'alcohol,' is a
substance which is odorous, and easily evaporates.
          2* 
18                 HISTORY.
 the common distilled spirit of that country bears
 the name of water of life.  In the 14th century
 medicated spirits were manufactured  and  sold in
 Hungary.   A  queen of that country is  said  to
 have become famous by making a preparation of
 aqua vitse  with rosemary,  which was thought to
            possess extraordinary  medicinal vir-
 aue°en ofHun-  tues.  The medicated  spirit  called
 garyinthe nth  pin, which is distilled with juniper-
 century.       »   '.   .                   •»    r
            berries, is said  to have been first pre-
 pared in Holland in the 17th century.*  It is still
            in vogue among those  who labor un-
 nthcentury!16  der certain local obstructions,  occa-
            sioned by irregular and  intemperate
 habits.
   Thus  introduced as a medicine, ardent  spirit
 gradually found its way from one region and king-
dom to another, and  is now used both as a medi-
 cine and a beverage  in every civilized country in
 the world.  The only  regions where  no kind of
 intoxicating liquor is manufactured, are  New-
 Zealand, New-South Wales, and  Van Dieman's
 Land.t
• Morewood.        f Dr. Thompson. 
EFFECTS  ON THE  ANIMAL ECONOMY.     19
               CHAPTER II.

Effects of Jlrdent Spirit upon the animal economy.

  The first effect of ardent spirit upon the living
fibre is stimulating.   This has been observed on
its application to  the web of the foot of a frog.
By the aid  of the microscope, it appeared that the
blood in the small  vessels  circulated, for a short
time, more rapidly than before. Rubbed upon the
human  skin, or snuffed into the nostrils in the
form of liquid  or of vapor, it augments the  sen-
sibility  and quickens the circulation upon the sur-
faces with which it is brought in contact.   Taken
into the stomach in a concentrated state, it instan-
taneously occasions a burning pain.
  When swallowed  in  a. state sufficiently di-
luted, it throws through  the stomach  Upon   thc
a glow  or  grateful warmth, which in stomach.
many cases is transmitted to the remote organs
of the body.  The  brain  and the nerves of the
senses partake in the exhilaration.   The eye glis-
tens, the hearing is more acute, the  colloquial
powers are exalted, and  the  expressions of the
countenance are vivid and emphatic, changing in
quick succession, in conformity with  Brain,nwves,
the rapidly shifting topics of conver-  &c
sation, denoting that the  movements of the mind
are led by the influence of its more remote and
capricious  associations.
  As the alcoholic excitation increases,  the pas- 
 20    EFFECTS ON THE ANIMAL  ECONOMY.

 sions are easily unfolded, as pity,  hatred, gener-
 osity, revenge, while the reasoning powers and
 the moral sense are weakened and perverted, and
  The passions  the degradation of these  noblest at-
 excited.      tributes of human nature is manifest-
 ed by indecent, profane, idiotic,  or  pugnacious
 garrulity.
   Under the still deeper and more  protracted in-
  Effects of   fluence of this poison, the functions of
 large doses.     the senses and the operations of the
 mind are slower and less coherent;  the volu    y
 muscles  at  the same time indicating theit en-
 feebled condition, by the falling eye-lid, the  open
 mouth, the  driveling lip,  and the hanging head  ;
 and the  exhausted brain  and nerves at  length
 leave the whole system to sink into a state of un-
 consciousness  or  profound insensibility, which
 sometimes terminates in death.
   The free  and habitual  use  of  ardent  spirit, is
  Effects   of  f°H°wed  by habitual languor in the
 spirits used ha-  functions of the organs of the senses,
            and in fact of every organ of the body.
 The physiognomy tells what has been done.   All
 the exquisite delineations of benevolence, of deli-
 cacy, and of high  moral and religious feeling, are
 effaced from the countenance, as  their prototypes
 are from the mind, and stupidity and selfishness,
 occupy  their places.   Even strong passion is but
 faintly portrayed  by the  half palsied  muscles of
,the face, and sluggishness dwells in that mind which
 was once impelled by a spirit of activity and en-
 lerprize.  The powers  of digestion, and  nutrition
 having been effectually invaded, the stomach ad-
 mits less food than before", and the whole svstem 
     EFFECTS ON THE  ANIMAL ECONOMY.     21

is  but  imperfectly supplied  with nourishment.
Numerous chronic diseases, with melancholy and
madness in their train, put in their claim for a re-
sidence in the decaying organs of the body; and
when acute forms of disease, as thoracic inflamma-
tion and pestilential fever make  an attack,  the
work of ruin, thus begun and prosecuted by al-
cohol, is completed by death.
  In  deep drunkenness there  is  lethargy  and
stupor,  the face  is often pale, some-   „.  .
±.     \a  i i            ,   i- • i   j   1'r.ysiognomy
times flushed,  very rarely livid and of  drunken-
sivollen, and still  more rarely natural.*
The  breathing  is  generally slow,  sometimes
stertorous  or laborious,  seldom  rapid  or  calm.
The respiratory  movements  are  chiefly or whol-
ly abdominal; the separate acts of inspiration and
expiration, particularly the former, occupying but
a short time.  The puffing of the cheeks  as in
apoplexy  exceedingly rare.  The extremities are
almost invariably cold; the pulse  feeble  and slow,
and not unfrequently  imperceptible ;  the  pupil
generally dilated, though sometimes contracted."t

  *  Dr. Ogston'a cases.
  ■(■ Remedies for a Jit of intoxication.
  1. Dislodge the spirit from the stomach by emetic*! aid-
ed by pressure upon the pit of the stomach, or by the use
of the stomach pump.
  2. Sometimes inject warm water to dilute the glairy
mucus, or to distend this  organ to the point of action,
when not sufficiently distended by its contents.
  3. Cold affusion to the head, especially when the head
is hot.
  4. The vigorous and persevering application of a cot-
skin whip,  or of small rods to the gluteal  eminences.
This last is a most effectual remedy in rousing the op-
pressed energies of the brain and nerves. 
 22      EFFECTS ON  THE ANIMAL EC01V0MY.

   Ir the bodies of persons dead from   Appearances
 a fit of drunkenness,  the following ap- after deatn-
 pearances have been  observed, viz.
   The Brain.  Its peripheral or exterior parts,
 commonly firm; its blood vessels engorged; tur-
 bid serum beneath the arachnoid membrane; and
 turbid or slightly bloody  serum, often several
 ounces,  in the ventricles.
   The Heart and  great vessels filled with  fluid
 blood; the right side of the heart more distended
 than the left;  sometimes bloody serum in the pe-
 ricardium.
   The Lungs.  Frothy mucus  in the air tubes
 and cells; lower portion of the lungs charged  with
 fluid blood ;—sometimes hepatized.
   The Stomach contracted  and small; its walls
 sometimes three or four times their natural thick-
 ness and indurated ;  the folds of its lining mem-
brane sometimes of a deep red color;  the whole
 membrane soft, and easily torn.
   The Intestines.  Inflammation, thickening and
 softening  of the  lining membrane; ulcerations  of
 this membrane in the terminal portion of the small
 intestine; occasionally preternatural adhesions  of
 them to  the other viscera as the duodenum and the
" pancreas.
   The Liver large and firm ; its surface frequently
 uneven, pale, mottled, or orange colored, its inte-
 rior orange colored, exhibiting fatty degenerations.
   The Kidneys paler than natural, large, and flab-
 by ; their cut surfaces sometimes bloody.
   It should  be  observed, that of the foregoin°-
 marks of disease, some, as  the serum under the
 arachnoid membrane  and in the ventricles of the 
      EFFECTS ON THE ANIMAL ECONOMY.     23

brain, the fluidity of the blood in the heart and
great vessels, and perhaps the deep red upon parts
of the lining membrane of  the stomach, are to be
regarded as the effects of the last or fatal fit of in-
toxication ; while others, as the striking  firmness
confidently  alleged by some anatomists to have
been  observed in the superficial  parts of the
brain;—the thickening,  induration, contraction,
and ulceration of the stomach and intestines—the
enlargement, unevenness, hardness, fatty deposits,
and  orange color  of the  liver—the unnatural
color,  size, and  flabby texture of the  kidneys,
must have resulted from the more gradual opera-
tion of the habitual use of strong drink.
   It is  well known, that  often in  cases  of death
by lightning, the blood does  not co-   Biood  re-
agulate, but remains in the form of a  mains fluid,
homogeneous  fluid,  the  principle of life having
been suddenly and  wholly extinguished by the
electrical shock.  The same thing is observable
when death takes place from the influence of cer-
tain poisons, as the  woorara, ticunas, and tobacco.
   This is also the case when a draught of alcoholic
liquor proves fatal.  The  blood in the heart, the
large vessels, and the lungs, is entirely  fluid; so
effectual is this poison in preventing  the last na-
tural act of vitality in the blood, its coagulation.
   A difference of opinion has existed among phy-
siologists as to the manner in which   Modes   by
alcohol acts upon the animal machine  ^^aea spi,^
in producing its peculiar effects. The  effects.
sudden exhilaration and  glow in distant organs,
occasioned by the swallowing  of a small quantity
of it, result, probably, from the impressions made 
24      EFFECTS ON  THE ANIMAL ECONOMY.
        .   upon the  nerves of that organ being
 By sympathy.   r     .                ,, B.   .,  8
           communicated by sympathy to those
of distant parts.  From experiments practiced by
Rayer, it  appears that an impression made by al-
cohol upon a  sensitive  surface of great  extent  is
speedily fatal.  Injected into the peritoneum of a
rabbit, it extinguished life in less than a minute ;
an effect altogether too sudden  to admit of expla-
nation by absorption.   This view will also explain
the sudden recovery which takes place upon the
stomach being entirely emptied, in those cases of
inebriation which arise  from a single and large
draught, and  in which the symptoms have existed
only for a period  too short to admit of absorption
to any extent.
  Mr. Brodie, indeed, from  some of his experi-
ments made  upon  animals, inferred, that  this
article is not at all absorbed or carried into the cir-
culation.  A  sufficient number  of facts, however,
 By absorption. Prove its capability  of passing into the
           circulation, and  sometimes  in  large
quantities. Mr.  Magendie, in  an  experiment
upon  a dog, half an hour after tying up the outlet
 m the wood. «f the stomach and injecting it with
           alcohol, found  a strong  odor of this
fluid in the blood, and obtained it also from the
blood by distillation.
  A healthy laboring man in London, about thir-
ty years of age,« drank at a single draught, a quart
of gin for a wager;' within  a quarter of an hour
he fell down  insensible,  and died in about  three
hours from the time of falling.  In the Westmin-
m the brain. ster Hospital his body was dissected,
           and in the ventricles of the brain was 
       EFFECTS ON THE ANIMAL ECONOMY.     25

 found a considerable quantity of limpid fluid, dis-
 tinctly impregnated with gin, both to the  sense of
 smell and taste, and  even to the test of inflam-
 mability.   The liquid appeared to the senses of
 the examining students, as strong as one-third gin
 to two-thirds water.*
    Another case in point is related by Dr. Ogston.
 lle'says, ' that on the 23d of August, 1831, he ex-
 amined,  in  company, with another  medical man,
 the body of a woman aet. 40, who was believed to
 have  drowned herself in'  a  fit of intoxication no
 one   having  witnessed the  act.'  'We found,'
 says  he,  'nearly  four ounces of fluid in  the
 ventricles  of  the  brain, having  all the  physical
 qualities  of alcohol,  as  proved by  the  united
 testimony of two other medical men who saw the
 body opened  and examined the fluid.   The sto-
 mach also smelt of this fluid.'  That  spirit exists
 in the circulation  is obvious, from the fact of its
 being present in many cases in the breath, after
 its entire  removal from the  stomach,! as  is shown
 by a careful  examination  of its contents, dis-
 charged  by vomiting, or through the aid  of  the
• stomach pump.
    Does spirit pass into the circulation by the route
 of lacteal absorption ? It has  been  indubitably
 established  by a great variety of experiments,!
 that  numerous  articles,  some of them  slowly,
 others expeditiously, may be imbibed directly by
 the walls or  coats of the blood vessels,  and thus

    * Cook on nervous diseases.—Hare on the stomach.
    ■J- Ogston.
,    j Made by Magendie, Fodera, Dutrachet, Coates, Law-
 rence, and others.
           3 
26    EFFECTS ON THE  ANIMAL  ECONOMY.
pass into the blood.  In one experiment, less than
three minute's were occupied in the passage of a
strong watery solution of nux vomica through the
coats of the jugular vein of a  dog.  In the other
experiment with the dog, already referred to, in
which M.  Magendie found  spirit in  the  blood,
there was none detected in the chyle.
  Spirit, then, may sometimes  enter the circula-
tion by direct imbibition through the coats of the
blood  vessels; and  when it has arrived at  the
blood, it unites with its watery part, for which it
has a  strong affinity, and circulates along with it
through every organ,  deranging,  oppressing, or
extinguishing the actions of life.  In  the brain,
when a portion of the watery part of the blood is
thrown into the ventricles to relieve the gorged
vessels, alcohol is deposited with it; and from its
strong affinity for water, it is probable that a pro-
portion of it is deposited along with the thin  fluids
secreted by  the  large glands, as the  mammary
glands, and kidneys; and there can be no doubt of
its being exhaled in large quantities from  those
surfaces,  as  the skin  and  bronchial membrane,
from which there is a free transpiration of aque-
ous matter, whether in a liquid or seriform state.
  The inhalation, only, of the vapor  of distilled
  inhaling the *Pirit or of w™e. may be carried so
wpor of spirit far,as to  produce deep intoxication
orofwinemay -o      ,  \    ..   ""-«-p 1u10A.lCd.llOU.
cau«c  drunk- Keceived in this manner, it is proba-
           bly  imbibed  by the blood in the fine
vessels distributed upon the walls of the air cells
of the lungs, and then conducted by the route of
the circulation to the brain and other distant or-
gans. 
       EFFECTS ON THE ANIMAL ECONOMY.    27

  In so far as we are acquainted with the powers
of the stomach, we have no evidence that it is ca-
pable of digesting or decomposing alcohol.  Dr.
Beaumont, in his experiments with St. Martin, ob-
served that neither alcohol nor fermented liquors,
nor other fluids, not  holding aliment in solu-
tion, are changed  by the gastric juice,  but very
soon after being received, pass out of the stomach
either through  the pylorus or by absorption.  And
from the fact of an  alcoholic exhalation from the
lungs existing for several hours after the drinking
of any kind of intoxicating liquor, as appears from
the odor of  the breath, it  is  to  be inferred  that
no healthy animal process  whatever can accom-
plish its dissolution.   The  stomach  and its aux-
iliary organs act upon the  thousands of nutrient
articles, decomposing them, changing their nature,
and preparing them  to become a component part
of the organs  themselves;  but the  versatile and
wonder working agencies  of animal  chemistry
seem  powerless  when  brought to operate upon
this uncongenial and refractory material.  In the
stomach it is alcohol, in the lungs it  is alcohol, in
brain it is alcohol: and as the organs are unable
to break down its elements and render it nutritive
or harmless, they throw it out at every emunc-
tory and pore; not, however, until it  has left upon
the vital tissues and movements the impress  of
mischief, which being reiterated from day to day
and year to year, brings premature decay, disease,
and dissolution. 
28        CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
               CHAPTER  III.

  Is there any condition of the system in health or
disease, in which its  use is indispensable, and for
which there is not an adequate substitute ?

  Of the effects of alcohol as a beverage in health,
 Alcohol as a  there  ought to  be but  one opinion.
beverage.    The whole history of  spirit drinking,
whether simple, or  combined with  the different
ingredients  existing- in fermented or  brewed  li-
quors, affords abundant proof of its  being uncon-
genial  with the most natural and  healthy actions
of the bodily organs.   How wide  from  the truth
is the  notion that spirit, aids the  stomach in the
process of digestion.
  Dr.  Beddoes observed that, animals to whom he
 impairs di-  had given spirits along with their food,
gcstion.      had digested nearly one  half less than
other like animals to whom none had been given.'
Under the habitual  use of spirit,  the daily dose
may give a  temporary alleviation to the irritated
nerves of the stomach already enfeebled, but in-
stead  of conferring  tone or vigor to that or«-an,
it only serves to perpetuate its disease  or debility.
  In the case of St.  Martin, the young man before
 in the case  mentioned, into whose stomach through
of st. Martin,  the side, a large opening was left after
the  healing  of a severe wound,  Dr. Beaumont
frequently observed diseased  appearances ;__as 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
29
red or purple spots upon the lining membrane of
the stomach, from some of which exuded small
drops Of glUinOUS blood ;—aphthous Or Changes in the
cankery patches upon the same mem- the 3tomach-
brane; 'the gastric fluids mixed with a large propor-
tion of ropy mucus, and muco-purulent matter
slightly tinged with blood, resembling the discharge
from the bowels in some cases of dysentery.'  It is
worthy of remark that these, beginnings of disease
were not always accompanied with external  signs
or symptoms of disorder.  When of  considerable
standing, however, these appearances were occa-
sionally observed to be attended  with   sympathetic
' an uneasy  sensation and tenderness effects-
at the pit of the stomach, and some dizziness and
dimness and yellowness of vision  on stooping down
and rising again,'  also, with a brown  coat  upon
the tongue, and a  slight sallowness of the coun-
tenance.
   ' Improper indulgence in eating and  drinking,'
says Dr. Beaumoht, 'has been the most  Spiritof wine
common precursor of these diseased produces these
conditions of the coats of the stomach.
The free use of ardent spirits, wine, beer, or any
intoxicating  liquor,  when  continued for  some
days,  has  invariably  produced  these   morbid
changes.'
   In evidence of the directly poisonous influence
of alcoholic drinks upon the constitution, is the
fact, that men long accustomed to their daily use
may be  taken off suddenly and en-  Men   may
tirely from them, not only without im- deniy1""
pairing the health, but with a  certainty of im-
proving it.  In the summer of 1829, Mr. Powers,
         S* 
3Q         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

agent and keeper of the Penitentiary at Auburn,
 libumPris-  N.  Y. declared, that  during  several
on.         years' residence in that institution,
he had never known an individual  whose health
had not been benefited by the total abstraction of
spirit and every other stimulant drink and nar-
cotic from  his  diet.   This testimony is very im-
portant, inasmuch as a  large proportion of the
whole  number of convicts when admitted to that
establishment are  drinkers  of  alcoholic liquors,
from tippling  to beastly drunkenness.  ' These
drinkers,' said  Mr. P. are generally very  uneasy
and nervous, and sometimes greatly distressed for
ten or fifteen  days after being put upon water as
their  exclusive beverage;  but after that period
they have a good appetite,  increase  in flesh, and
become healthy.'  A  considerable  number are
annually received  and  discharged;  the  average
number remaining in the  penitentiary, was six
hundred.  I have never seen so large a congrega-
tion of men so  healthy looking as these convicts,
when they came  into the  chapel on Sabbath
morning to hear a sermon from their chaplain.
Some of these men were sixty years old when ad-
mitted, and  were confirmed  drunkards.  The
evidence furnished by all our state prisons, where
similar discipline is practised, is of the same cha-
racter.
   A wealthy farmer in Sullivan  county,  New
Hampshire, had been in the habit of drinking
spirit for a number of years, and during the hay-
ing  season he often used it freely.  With  more
than ordinary  activity of  mind and a vigorous
bodily constitution, he attained the age of seven- 
           IN HEALTH OR  DISEASE.           31

ty-five years;  much  broken  down   case of p
and  decayed  however, under occa- farmer-
sional attacks of gout, which  he  called rheuma-
tism.  At this period he broke off suddenly and
wholly from  the use of  spirit; and  within two
years, that is, at the age of seventy-seven, he was
so much recruited as to  appear several years
younger, and he assured me that in  the last two
haying seasons he had accomplished more person-
al labor than  in any other two haying seasons  for
the last ten or twelve years.   He expressed him-
self  in the most decisive and energetic manner
when remarking upon the effects,  in his own case,
of total abstinence from spirituous drinks; he had
not only  not  been injured, but had  been an un-
speakable gainer by the change.  This case, and
others like it, show the^ futility  of the opinion
that  it is unsafe for. persons of -any age  suddenly
to break  the habit  of spirit  drinking, and that
those advanced in life should either not attempt to
discontinue it, or should do it in the most cautious
and  gradual  manner.  The truth is, that the  ef-
fects,  whether immediate or remote, of alcohol,
whenever they are so distinct as  to be estimated,
are  always those of an unnatural; unhealthy, or
poisonous agent;  and soon after the  daily poison
is withdrawn, the  vital  powers, relieved from
their oppression, rally, the organs act with more
freedom and  regularity, and the whole machinery
of life exhibits something like a renovation.
   Spirit has  been  erroneously supposed to afford
a protective influence against the  effects of severe
cold.  A sea captain of Boston, Massachusetts, in-
formed me that in a memorable cold Friday in  the 
32         CONDITION OF THE  SYSTEM
           year  1816, he  was  on a homeward
protection a- passage off our coast not far from the
gainst coid.   ktitude  of Boston.   Much ice made
upon the  ship, and  every person  on board was
more or less frozen, excepting two individuals, and
they were the only two who drank no spirit.
  'In 1619, the crew of a Danish ship of sixty
men, well supplied with provisions and  ardent
spirit, attempted  to pass the winter in Hudson's
bay;  but fifty-eight of them died  before spring.
An English crew of twenty-two men, however,
destitute of ardent spirit and obliged to be almost
constantly exposed to the cold, wintered in the
same bay, and only two of them died.   Eight En-
glishmen did the same in like circumstances, and
all returned to England.  And four Russians, left
without spirit or provisions in Spitzburgen, lived
there six  years and afterwards returned  home.'
Facts of this nature might be multiplied to any
extent.
  So far, also, from guarding the  animal fabric
  Againstheat. against the depressing and  irritating
effects of  heat, spirit tends to produce inflamma-
tory diseases.  A distinguished medical  officer,
Marshall, who was subjected to great exertion and
exposure in a tropical climate, observes, < I have
always found that the strongest  liquors'were the
most enervating;  and  this in whatever quantity
they were consumed : for the daily use  of spirits
is an evil which retains its pernicious character
through all  its gradations; indulged in at all  it
can produce nothing better than a diluted  or  mi-
 tigated kind of mischief.' 
             IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.           33

  Those ships' crews who now visit hot and sick-
ly climates without spirit, have an average of sick-
ness and mortality strikingly less than those who
continue the use of it as formerly.   ' The Brig
Globe, Captain Moore,' says the anniversary Re-
port of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society for
1831, 'has  lately returned from a voyage to  the
Pacific  Ocean.  She had on  board a crew  of  ten
persons, and was absent  nearly  eighteen months.
She  was, during  the  voyage, in  almost all  the
climates of the world; had not one person sick on
board, and brought the crew all  back orderly and
obedient.  All these advantages Captain  Moore
attributes, in a great measure, to the absence of
spirituous liquors.   There was not one drop used
in all that time; indeed there was none on  board
the vessel.'
  To a place among preventives of disease, spirit-
uous drinks can present but the most  gpirit as a pre.
feeble claims.   If, under occasional ventive of dis-
drinking during the period  of alco-
holic excitement, a temporary resistance may be
given to those morbid influences which bring acute
disease, be it occasional  or epidemic, that  excite-
ment, by the immutable laws of vital  action, is
necessarily followed by a state of relaxation, de-
pression, or collapse, in which the power of resist-
ance is weakened, and this too in proportion to the
 previous excitement.  In order therefore to obtai»
 from alcoholic stimulus  any thing like a protec-
 tive influence against the exciting causes of disease,
 the  exposure to these  causes must be periodical,
 precisely corresponding  with the stage of artificial
 excitation.   If, however, such accuracy of adjust- 
34         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

ment between the powers of vital  resistance arti-
ficially excited, and the unhealthy agencies which
tend to produce disease be wholly impracticable,
then the danger must be increased by resorting
under any circumstances to spirit as a preserva-
tive ; and if  not, other articles would  do as well.
  The best protection against disease  is derived
from a natural, healthy, unfluctuating state of vital
action, sustained by plain articles of nutriment
taken at regular intervals, uninfluenced by any
innutritious stimulus  which  operates   upon  the
whole nervous power.   The habitual drinking of
ardent spirit creates  a multitude of  chronic or
subacute organic irritations and  derangements,
upon which acute disease is most easily, nay, often
necessarily ingrafted; hence  tiplers and drunk-
ards, exposed to the exciting causes of inflamma-
tory, epidemic, and contagious diseases, are liable
to an attack, and when attacked, having the vital
powers unnecessarily wasted,  they die in  larger
numbers.   These results are witnessed in  epide-
mic pleurisies, lung fevers, the severe forms of
influenza, pestilential fevers, and cholera.
  Most appalling evidence is afforded  by the his-
  choiera. •   tory of this last disease of the  perni-
cious influence of intoxicating liquors in preparino-
the human  constitution for its  attack.   In  India,
Ramohun Fingee, a native physician, declares that
  in India.    ' people who do not take spirits  or opi-
um do not catch the disorder, even when they are
with those  who have  it.'   In  the army under the
command  of the Marquis of Hastings in  India,
consisting  of eighteen  thousand men,  more  than
half of the men died in the first twelve days ;  the 
IN HEALTH OR"DISEASE.
35
free use of intoxicating liquors  in a  hot  climate
will assist in  explaining this extraordinary mor-
tality.
  In China, according to Dr. Reiche,' the disease
selected its victims from among such of the people
as live in tilth  and intemperance.'        China.
   Mr. Huber, who saw 2160 perish in twenty-
five days in one town in Russia, says, * It  is a
most  remarkable- circumstance, that    Russia.
persons given  to drinking have been swept away
like flies.  In Tiflis,  containing 20,000  inhabi-
tants, every drunkard  has fallen! all are dead—
not one remains?
  A physician of  Warsaw says, 'that the disease
spared all those who led regular lives, and resided
in healthy situations ; whereas they whose consti-
tutions had been broken down by ex-    Poland.
cess and  dissipation,  were  invariably attacked.
Out of one hundred individuals destroyed  by  cho-
lera, it was proved that ninety had been addicted
to the free use of ardent spirits.'
  In Paris, of the  30,000 persons  destroyed by
cholera, it is said that a great propor-   France.
tion were intemperate or profligate.
  It has been computed that ' five-sixths of all
who have fallen  by  this disease  in   England.
England, were taken from the ranks of the intern'
perateand dissolute.'
  Dr. Rhinelander, who visited  Montreal during
the prevalence of cholera there in the   Montreal.
summer of 1832, says, • that the  victims of the
disease  are the intemperate—it invariably  cuts
them off.'  In that city, after there had been twelve
hundred cases of the malady, a Montreal  journal 
36         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
 states, that * not a drunkard who has been attacked
 has  recovered, and almost all the victims have
 been at least moderate drinkers.'
   Dr. Sewall of Washington city, while on a visit
 to the cholera hospitals in the city of New York,
 the  same season, writes  to a friend, that' of 204
 cases of cholera in the Park Hospital, there were
  New York,   only six temperate persons, and that
 those had recovered, while 122 of the  others.
 when he  wrote,  had died;' and that the  facts
 were 'similar in all the other hospitals.'
   In Albany, the same  season, cholera prevailed
 for several weeks,  attended with a severe mor-
 tality ; and it is a remarkable fact, that during its
  Albany.     whole period it is not known that more
 than two individuals, out of the five  thousand
 members  of Temperance Societies in that city,
 became its victims.
   Water is the natural and proper drink of man.
 Indeed it  is the grand beverage of organized na-
ture. It enters largely into the composition of the
water, the na- blood, and juices of animals and plants,
turai beverage. forms an important ihgredient in their
organized structures, and  bears a fixed and unal-
terable relation to their whole vital economy.  It
was  the only beverage  of the  human  family in
their primeval state.
  In that garden, where grew ' every tree pleasant
to the sight and good for  food,' producing all the
richness and variety of < fruit and flower' which
an omnipotent  and  all-bountiful Creator  could
adapt to the relish of his senses, and the evi.rencies
of his ent.re organization, it cannot for a moment
be doubted that man was  in a condition the best 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
37
suited to secure to him the uninterrupted, as well
as  the highest aftd best exercise and enjoyment,
of  his physical, mental, and moral powers.   His
drink was water.   A river flowed from Paradise.
From the  moment that river began to ' water the
garden/till the present, no human invention has
equalled this simple beverage; and all the attempts
to improve it by the admixture of other substances,
whether alcoholic, narcotic, or aromatic, have not
only failed, but have served to deteriorate or poi-
son it, and render it less healthful and safe.
   Water is as well adapted to man's natural  ap-
petite, as to the physical wants of his  Water ad   A
organs.   A natural  thirst,  and  the  to man's appe-
pleasure derived from its gratification,
were given us to secure to the vital machinery the
supply of  liquid necessary to its healthy move-
ments.   When this natural thirst occurs, no drink
tastes so good, and in truth none is so good as wa-
ter; none possesses adaptations  so exact to the
vital necessities of the organs. So long as a fresh
supply of liquid is not needed, so long there is not
the least relish for water;  it offers no temptation,
while its addition  to the circulating fluids would
be useless, or hurtful.
  This topic has been most ably discussed by Dr.
Oliver, as follows:—' The waste of the fluid parts
of our bodies requires the use of drink  Dr. Oliver.
to repair it, and we derive a sensible gratification
from  quenching our thirst.  What use do we make
of this  fact?   Why, to  try if we cannot  find
something that we shall take pleasure in drinking,
whether we are thirsty or not; and in  this search
mankind have been remarkably successful.   To
      4 
38         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
 such a degree indeed have we succeeded in vary-
 ing avA increasing a pleasure which was designed
 by nature merely as  an incentive to  quench our
 thirst, that to quench  thirst is become one of the
 last things that people drink  for.  It is  seldom
 indeed that  people  in health  have any  natural
 thirst, except perhaps after exercise, or labor in a
 hot day.   Under all other circumstances; we anti-
 cipate the sensation  by drinking before it comes
 on, so as  but  seldom to  enjoy the natural and
 healthful gratification of drinking  because we are
 thirsty.  Who has not observed the extreme satis-
 faction which children derive from quenching their
 thirst with pure water, and who that has perverted
 his appetite for drink, by stimulating  his  palate
 with bitter beer, sour  cider, rum and water, and
 other brewages of human invention, but would be
 a gainer even on the score of mere animal gratifi-
 cation, without any reference to health,  if he could
 bring back his  vitiated taste to the simple relish
 of nature.  Children drink because thev are dry.
 Grown people drink, whether dry or not, because
they have  discovered  a way of making drinkino-
pleasant.   Children drink  water because this is a
beverage of Nature's own brewing, which she has
made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst.
 Grown people drink any thing but water, because
this  fluid is intended  to quench only  a natural
thirst, and natural thirst is a thing which they sel-
dom feel.
  'One of the evils, though not the only or the
greatest one, of perverting the natural appetite of
thirst,  is, that  it leaves us without a guide to
 direct us when we need drink,  and when we do 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
39
not.   There is no danger, it is true, that this want
will mislead us into drinking too little; the dan-
ger is, that we shall be betrayed into drinking too
much, i. e. when nature does not  require it; and
such no doubt is frequently the case.   If a man
is fond of some particular drink (and most people
I believe have their favorite liquor,) he will  be
tempted to take it when he does nqt really need it.
This consideration points out the wisdom of na-
ture in providing for us a beverage which has no-
thing  to tempt us to drink, except when we are
really thirsty.   At all other times, water is either
perfectly indifferent!, or it is disagreeable to us;
but when we labor under thirst, i. e., when nature
requires drink, nothing is so delicious to a pure,
unadulterated  taste.   While we adhere to this
simple beverage we shall be sure to have an uner-
ring prompter  to remind us when we really require
drink; and  we  shall be in no danger of being-
tempted to  drink when  nature requires- it not.
But the moment we depart  from pure water, we
lose this inestimable guide, and are left,  riot to the
real instincts of nature, but  to an artificial taste
in deciding on actions intimately connected with
health and long life.  What is more common than
for a man to take a glass of beer, or cider, or wine,
or rum and water, not  because  he is thirsty, and
really needs drink, but because opportunity makes
it  convenient, and  he  thinks it  will taste  well.
And  this is true, not  only of fermented or dis-
tilled .liquors which are directly injurious in ottier
modes, but in a less degeee of any addition made
to pure water to make it more palatable. Let me
not be misunderstood.   I am far from insinuating 
40         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

that lemonade, soda water,  and milk and water,
are hurtful drinks.  Far'froinit.  But I say, that in
using even these mild and healthful beverages we
lose one important advantage  we should derive
from  the use  of pure water alone.  If they are
more palatable to us than water (and otherwise
we should  have no motive to use them,) we  shall
be tempted to take them  oftener, and in greater
quantities  than is required  by nature, and  may
thus unconsciously do ourselves an  injury.   It is
rare for a  person to drink a glass of water when
he is not thirsty, merely for the  pleasure of drink-
ing ; and as thirst is the natural  guide, if he drinks
when not thirsty, he takes more fluid than nature
points out  as proper; and so far violates one of
her obvious laws.   But it may be asked if any in-
jury can result from drinking  more than nature
absolutely  requires.  Not perhaps  in  particular
instances,  but the  habit of drinking more  may
undoubtedly be injurious.  It is a  sufficient an-
swer to  all  these questions to say that our Creator
knows best.  Under the guidance of the instincts
he has implanted in us we are safe.   But as  soon
as we leave these, and place ourselves under the
direction of our own educated  appetites, we are
constantly  liable to be led into danger.   It is cer-
tainly hurtful  to drink habitually more than was
intended by nature, because it  imposes upon  the
constitution the task of removing the excess- or
else it is  retained in the  system, and there  may
leafl to dropsy, or some other of the consequences
of plethora, or redundance of fluids in  the  sys-
tem.'
   Dr.Cullen, formerly a distinguished professor ' 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
41
of Medicine at Edinburgh, after speak- Dr. Cuiien.
ing of the general use of water, both by man and
the brute creation,  remarks,—' Simple water is,
without any addition, the proper drink of mankind.'
  Dr. Gregory,  the  successor of Cullen, in his
Conspectus Medicinae  Theoretical,  Dr. Gregory.
says, that * pure spring water, when fresh and cold,
is the most wholesome drink, and the most grate-
ful to those who  are thirsty, whether they be sick
or well; it quenches thirst, cools the body, dilutes,
and thereby obtunds  acrimony—often promotes
sweat, expels noxious  matters, resists putrefac-
tion, aids digestion, and,  in fine,  strengthens the
stomach.'
  Dr. James Johnson, an eminent physician now
residing  in  London,  remarks  upon   Dr. j. Joim-
water as follows: ' There can be no son-
question that water is the best and the only drink
which nature has designed  for man; and there is
as little doubt but that every person  might, gradu-
ally, or even pretty quickly, accustom himself to
this aqueous beverage.   The water drinker glides
tranquilly through life without much exhilaration,
or depression, and escapes many diseases to which
he would otherwise be subject. The wine drinker
experiences short but  vivid periods of rapture,
and long intervals of gloom; he is also more sub-
ject to disease.   The balance of enjoyment then,
turns decidedly in  favor of the  water drinker,
leaving out his temporal prosperity and future an-
ticipations ; and  the  nearer we keep to his  regi-
men, the happier we shall be.'
  How congenial is this fluid to the human organi-
zation, adapted  as it is  to its necessities under
         4* 
42         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

every variety of constitution, and  vicissitude of
climate,  from the equator to the  arctic circles.
Dr. Mitchel, in reference to facts already quoted,,
and others like them, respecting ships' crews win-
tering in  icy regions, says, ' that in all the frequent
attempts to sustain the intense cold of winter in
 Dr. Mitchei.  the arctic regions, particularly in Hud-
son's  Bay,  Greenland, and  Spitzbergen,  those
crews or companies which had been well supplied
with provisions and  liquors,  and enabled thereby
to indulge in indolence and  free drinking, have
generally perished; while  at the same time  the
greatest number of survivors  have been uniformly
found among those who were  accidentally thrown
upon the inhospitable  shores, destitute of food and
spirituous liquors, compelled to maintain an inces-
sant struggle against the rigors of the climate in
procuring food, and obliged to use water alone as
drink.'
  In hot climates, too, water is the only safe drink.
 Dr. Moseiy.  Dr. Mosely, on tropical diseases, uses
the following language: * I aver, from my own
knowledge and custom, as well as  from the cus-
tom and  observations of others,  that  those who
drink nothing but water, or make it  their principal
drink, are but little affected  by the climate, and
can undergo  the  greatest fatigue without incon-
venience.'
  The Arabs of the desert are  among the most
  Arabs.     hardy of the  human race, enduring
the greatest fatigue and exposure under a burning
sun, and their habitual drink  is water.
   The effects of water drinking in  a burning cli-
mate are well marked in the following account 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
43
given by Mr., afterwards Sir James M'Gregor, of
the march in Egypt of  a division  of the British
army sent from Hindostan to aid the main army
in opposing the French  under Napo-   sh-j. M'Gre-
leon.   ' After crossing the Great De- e« in Egypt.
sert  in  July 1801, from  a difficulty in  procuring
carriage, no ardent spirit was issued to  the troops
in upper Egypt.   At this time there was much
duty of fatigue,which, for want of  followers, was
done by the soldiers themselves; the other duties
were severe upon them;  they were frequently ex-
ercised, and were much  in the sun ; the heat wa,s
excessive: in the soldiers' tents in the  middle of
the day the mercury in  the thermometer of Fah-
renheit stood at from 114 degrees to 118 degrees,
but at no time was the Indian army so healthy.'
   Dr. Johnson, from whom an opinion   Remarksand
on the  superiority of water to wine as  ^se  by  Dr.
   ,        1111      •      Johnson.
a  beverage has  already been given,
remarks, in his Tropical Hygiene, that' it might
appear  very reasonable  that  in a  climate where
ennui  reigns triumphant, and an  unaccountable
languor pervades both mind and body, we should
cheer our drooping spirits with the mirth-stirring
bowl;  a precept which  Hafiz has  repeatedly en-
joined.  But Hafiz, though an excellent poet, and,
like his predecessor, Homer, a votary of Bacchus,
was not much of  a physician; and without doubt
his 'liquid ruby,'  as he calls it, is one of the worst
of all  prescriptions for  a * pensive heart.'  I re-
member a gentleman at Prince of Wales' Island,
(Mr. S.) some years ago, who was  remarkable for
his convivial  talents, and  flow of spirits.  The
first time I happened to be in a large company 
44          CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
 with him, I attributed his animation and hilarity
 to the wine, and  expected to see them  flag, as  is
 usual,  when  the  first effects of the  bottle  were
 past off;  but I was  surprised to find them  main-
 tain a uniform  level, after many younger heroes
 had bowed to the rosy god.   I  now contrived to
 get near him and  enter  into a conversation, when
 he  disclosed  the  secret,  by assuring  me he  had
 drunk nothing but water for many years in India:
 that in  consequence  his health was excellent—his
 spirits  free—his  mental faculties  unclouded, al-
 though  far advanced on time's list; in short, that
 he could conscientiously recommend the ' antedi-
 luvian'  beverage, as he termed it, to every one that
 sojourned in a tropical climate.'*
  Facts and  opinions,   corresponding  with  the
 foregoing, from  physicians and  others,  might be
 cited to a much  greater  extent,  but it is deemed
 unnecessary.  Not only at  the  present day, but
 Eminent Pny-  in times  gone bJ» and even  far  back
 Bicians in ditie-  up to  the remote  periods of regular
 rent ages com-     ,.  .       .    ...       ouuu
 mend  water  medicine, eminent  physicians  have
 asadrink.    commended  water  as the best, or as

  * Hon. J. S. Bucking-ham, Esq., member of Parliament,
 says, that < the finest and strongest men he ever saw in his
 life, were a tribe residing upon the Himalaya mountains
 They came to Calcutta  as Athletae, to show their skill iri
 wrestling, boxing, throwing the quoit, and other athletic
exercises; they were pitted against British grenadiers and
sailors, the strongest  that could be found ; the  result was
that one of them was a match for any three, and yet these
men never tasted any drink  stronger than milk or water
 from their infancy upwards.  He had himself traveled
 from Diarbekir to Bagdad,  a distance of eight hundred
 miles, on horseback  in ten  days, with the thermometer
 ranging from 100 at sunrise, to 125 or 130 degrees in the 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
45
the only proper and healthful  beverage  for man.
Among them may  be mentioned Parr,  Cheyne,
Arbuthnot, Sydenham,  Haller, Stahl, Van Swie-
ten, Boerhaave, Hoffmann, and even Celsus, Galen,
and Hippocrates.   These were like so many me-
teors  shooting here and there amid the darkness
which for ages hung over men's minds; but upon
this darkness a  broad light  has at length broken,
which, it is believed, is a sure presage of ' perfect
day.'   The experiment  has been made on a large
scale, and many thousands of witnesses in  our
country may now be referred  to for  an opinion
furnished by their own personal experience, on the
effects of water as the habitual and  only drink.
Multitudes of farmers, mechanics, manufacturers,
sea-faring, and  professional men, give their voice
in its favor.*

afternoon, without drinking any thing but water, and he
was as fresh and as strong at the  end of his journey as
when  he set out.'

  * ' More than 1000 American vessels are now afloat on
the ocean  in which ardent spirit is not  used.'—Annual
Report of the American Temperance Society. May, 1834.
  Of  186 whaling vessels  belonging to New Bedford,
Massachusetts, 168 furnish no spirits for their crews; and
the uniform opinion of the owners and captains of these,
as well as of merchant vessels in different ports, as fur-
nished to the executive committee of the New York State
Temperance Society is, that the use of intoxicating drinks
for sea-faring  riven in any climate, and under any circum-
stances, are not necessary, but injurious ; and they assert
that observation  and  experience prove  that sailors  are
more  healthy, more orderly, and perform their duty alto-
gether better without these liquors.  Vide ' Testimony of
American merchants and sea captains.'—American Quar-
terly  Temperance Magazine for August, 1834.
   So  fully impressed are commercial men with the belief 
46          CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
   As a vehicle  for medicinal  agents, alcohol  has
             held a  distinguished place.   An  ex-
  Alcoholas a      .         »        r        .
vehicle for me-  tensive list or tinctures, or spirituous
(hemes.       infusions of vegetable articles, and of
alcoholic solutions of mineral substances, is still
found in our dispensatories.   In a highly scientific
work of this kind, lately published in  this coun-
try,  there  are given  the  methods of  preparing
about one hundred and fifty tinctures !
 Vegetable to-    The  tonic barks,  and roots,  and
nics-         woods, impart more or less their me-
dicinal  properties to distilled spirit;  and thus im-
parted, these properties  are preserved for a con-
siderable length of time.  Of  these preparations,
however, it  may be observed, that the spirit often

that disasters at sea are very often connected with the use
of intoxicating drinks, that an insurance company in Bos-
ton, and more recently all the marine insurance compa-
nies in New York, in all amounting to ten, have engaged
to  return five per  cent, on the premium of every vessel
navigated without spirit.%
  «At a meeting of the board of underwriters,  held at
the office of  the American Insurance  Company, in  the
city of New York, on the second of October, 1834, it was
 _ Resolved, That the different marine  insurance compa-
nies in the city of New York will allow a  deduction of
five per cent,  on the net premiums which may be taken
after this date on all vessels,  and on vessels together with
their outfits, ,f on whaling and sealing voyages, termi-
natmg without loss, provided the master ami mate'make
affidavit, after the termmation of the risk,, that no ardent
spirits had been drunk on board the vessel by the officers
and crew during the voyage or term for which the vessel
or outfits were insured.

  Walter R. Jones, Secrecy of^Wd ' **"**"*•

Novlmbetrm"  ^^ TemI— Magazine for 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.           4.7
so modifies the impression made upon the stomach,
brain, or blood vessels, as to prevent their being
given in doses  sufficient for the objects intended.
This is the case in certain forms of gastric and
intestinal  irritation, accompanied with an unna-
tural irritability, not only of the ganglionic nerves,
but of those belonging  to the cerebro-spinal sys-
tem.   Cases not unfrequently  occur where the
decoction or watery infusion of the Peruvian bark
is altogether preferable to the tincture;  and per-
haps there  is never a case in which some prepara-
tion of quinia,  as the sulphate for example, is not
decidedly better for the patient than any alcoholic
infusion of the  bark.
  The spirituous preparations of opi-    Opium.
um are in many, if not in all  cases, inferior to
the black drop.  The  stomach has been known,
in a state of great irritability after excessive vomit-
ing, to retain the black drop, or one  of the  salts
of morphia, when the  tincture of opium was per-
severingly rejected.
  In  those cases of excessive irritability of the
stomach, accompanied with spasms of   For external
its muscular coat, and also that of the  aPPlication-
intestines, in which external anodyne applications
are indicated, the warm black drop upon  the ab-
domen, or the  (dry) acetate of morphia applied to
a blistered surface,  is  altogether more efficient
than  the  tincture of opium.  I have. repeatedly
witnessed a much  happier effect from the simple
acetous  solution of opium  locally applied, than
from the spirituous solutions, in relieving the ago-
nizing pain of phlegmasia dolens.
   The medicinal quatities of the tonic and nar- 
48         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
     • vi re- C0^C vegetables  may be  preserved
parationBofve; without decay in the form of the ele-
ones Vefera- gant preparations,  which  owe  their
?tuousthe sp'r existence to the perfection in chemical
           processes invented in our own times;
and these preparations may be employed without
alcoholic  or any other admixtures which would
serve to modify or impair their effects.   The ma-
teria medica then would sustain  no loss if alcohol
were wholly given up as a vehicle for these classes
of medicines.   The same is true of its combina-
tion with  the active principle of the Spanish fly.
This  article yields to water and to vinegar  its
active properties.   A strong vinegar of flies is a
be'tter vesicant  than  the alcoholic infusion; and
the chemical  extract  named  cantharidin unites
readily with oil as a vehicle, and in this form may
be most conveniently employed for the purpose of
making a  blister.
  The essential oils,  the balsams, and the resins,
  Essential oils, may unite" with, or become diffused in
balsams, kc.   water by tfae  aid  Qf sugar ^  ^
arable, or by  the admixture of ammonia, where
this can be done without  too far modifying  their
medicinal effects.
  Emulsions      These  mixtures,  called emulsions,
admit of the medicinal article being taken at any
requisite  degree of dilution.   They are ereatly
to be preferred to the alcoholic solutions?  inas-
much as these last are precipitated in the form of
a white or brown  cloud, or in a  mass of small
globules the moment they are thrown into water,
and are  thus  less  equably  diffused in  the  water
than when combined with it through  the  medium 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.     '      49
of sugar, or some other suitable arti-   camphor.
cle.   Camphor may be  very effectually commi-
nuted  and diffused  in  water by rubbing it with
calcined magnesia,  and  adding .water  slowly.*
This  is a more uniform  mixture, and  more con-
venient for internal  exhibition, than can  be made
by mixing the spirituous solution with water.
  The emulsions then of these articles, as medi-
cines  to be taken into the stomach, are decidedly
preferable to the alcoholic solutions, or tinctures
as they are  called.   If an attempt be made to
swallow these  tinctures  without  diluting them,
they are not only found too pungent, or acrid, but
they are at once precipitated by the fluids of the
mouth and throat; and when the tincture of guai-
acum or of tolu is taken, the resinous matter is
at once spread out upon the surface of the tongue
and mouth in the form of an adhesive coating or
varnish, which is dislodged with difficulty.
  As  a remedy itself, in various forms of disease
alcoholic stimulus has  long been re-   Alcohol as a
garded with  high consideration.  In  medlcine-
the slight departures  from the equable  healthy
living actions of the body, marked  by exhaustion
from  fatigue, loss of  blood, hunger, thirst, and
exposure to great heat or cold, which approach the
state  of syncope or  fainting:,  some   in slight de-
,.,   /..,   ...   t     "         partures  from
kind  ot intoxicating liquor is gene-  healthy action.
rally  resorted to as  if it were the  only remedy;
but in some of these states this  kind of stimulus
is not quite safe, and in none of them is  it abso-
lutely necessary. '
  * 'Camphor is soluble  in  strong acetic acid.'—Tur-
ner's Chemistry.
         5 
50          CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

  A draught of bland liquid, as simple water, or
sweetened water, or milk and water, or cocoa, or
 various sub-  some  other  simple  nutritious  sub-
stitutes,       stance, as some liquid farinaceous pre-
paration, or the pulpy or juicy part of fruits; or the
tea of some aromatic herb ; or a drop or two of one
of the essential oils, as those of the mint tribe, dif-
fused in water by the aid of sugar, or a small dose
of carbonate of ammonia; or simple ammonia well
diluted with water—taken, one or more of them,
at a  temperature suited to the state of the stomach
and  of the circulation, and repeated  at  proper
intervals, will accomplish every good purpose of
alcoholic  stimulants, and  in most cases with less
exposure  of some of the functions  to undue or
dangerous excitation.   In the prostration, for ex-
ample, occasioned by long exposure to cold, the
introduction of a stimulus so exciting and uncon-
genial as distilled spirit  into the stomach, makes
an impression upon its nerves too strong  and un-
natural,  and  a  transition from a state of languor
and exhaustion  to that of activity, too sudden to
comport  with an economical expenditure of  the
vital power, tending to create a predisposition to
some form of disease, if not speedily to excite it.*
  in a fainting   In  a  complete syncope,  or fainting
fit-          fit, cold water dashed upon the head

   * Captain Harding gives his own experience as follows.
 «In  answer to your eighth question I say, that when I was
 in the habit of using ardent spirits when wet and fatigued
 at sea, on going  below to refresh and shift myself, I
 thought a little toddy was absolutely necessary to prevent
 taking cold; but now that I am more than fifty years old,
 I can get wet, cold, and fatigued, go below and put on
 dry clothes, and, if thirsty,  take a drink of water,  and 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
51
and face; ammonia, or some essential oil, or both,
passed into the nostrils, or into the mouth  and
throat, will do more  than any preparation of alco-
hol, towards a speedy and effectual resuscitation.
  Ammonia and the essential oils exert an agency
different in kind from that made by alcohol.   If
in a sense they are diffusible, their impressions
bring readily transmitted from one part to another,
they are  not intoxicating.  They seem to stimu-
late the brain only indirectly, perhaps through the
medium  of  a slightly  increased   action of  the
bloodvessels, causing like muscular exertion a
brisker motion of the blood in the brain ; but they
do not make the same  apparently direct,  unna-
tural, poisonous, bewildering, and exhausting  im-
pression  upon the whole power of  the brain  and
nerves as that which is  derived  from alcoholic
stimulus.
  In dyspepsia the alcoholic treatment is now  for-
tunately almost universally abandoned.  Dyspepsia.
Experience has at length taught physicians that the
irritations, chronic or subacute,  of the lining mem-
brane of the alimentary canal, the capricious ex-
citements of the nervous  system, and  the  slight
but obstinate deviations from the healthy standard
in the circulation, may be  more easily and per-
manently controlled, under the  influence of a
plain diet, suitable clothing, bathing, frictions, ex-

feel no inconvenience  whatever; so that in this  case I
answer from actual experience.
          Samuel Hatidixg, master, ship Romulus,
                             of Brunswick,  Me.'
  Vide Letter to Mr. Delavan, American Quarterly Tem-
perance Magazine for August, 1834. 
52
CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
ercise in the open air, proper hours for sleep, and
a light and agreeable occupation of the mind, than
under the use of any kind of intoxicating drink,
in any manner administered.
  Scrofula.      In strumous constitutions,  and un-
der  the local developments  of scrofula, ardent
spirit was formerly employed.   But who, at this
day, would think of placing it in competition with
the preparations of iodine, employed at the hospi-
tal of St. Louis  in Paris,  and  in other places,
joined with proper  diet,  bathing, frictions,  exer-
cise, air, &c. ?
   In the whole range of nervous diseases alcohol,
 Nervous dis- in any shape, is entitled to but very
eases.       limited  confidence.  It seems to be
incapable of doing  any thing better than  to cause
a transient alleviation,  while  its ultimate effects
are pernicious; with the exception perhaps of that
state of the brain and nerves exemplified  in  trau-
matic tetanus, which requires a narcotic influence.
For  this  purpose the  combinations  of  morphia,
either  internally  given,  or externally   applied,
especially to  a blistered surface, are* to  be pre-
ferred.  A tonic or sustaining power in the treat-
ment of this disorder may better be derived  from
the judicious use, in  addition to the morphia,of
some vegetable tonic, as-the sulphate of quinia,
joined  perhaps with carbonate of ammonia, than
from spirituous drinks'.
  In inflammations, whether deep-seated or su-
  innamma-  perficial,  the vascular and   nervous
        a   ™tations "equally observed to be
increased by the  use of alcoholic liquors  some-
times a  soothing effect is seen to follow the appli- 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
53
cation of spirit to an  inflamed part.  But how is
this accomplished, if the internal exhibition of it
be pernicious ?  Without much doubt, by the great
abstraction of morbid heat caused  by the rapid
evaporation of the spirit from the inflamed part,
and by its anodyne  or stupifying  influence which
is ultimately exerted upon the  irritated nerves,
unremittingly drenched in it  by its persevering
application.   The brain, at the same time, and the
nerves not directly involved in the  inflammation,
receive but a  slight impulse from the spirit so cir-
cumscribed in its application ;  the morbid impres-
sion they may receive  from  the  medicine being
more than  compensated for by the diminution of
local heat and irritation.
  But  all the anodyne effects of spirit in such
cases, as well as that by which heat is abstracted,
may be  had from other agents.  Watery infusion
of opium, or  the solution of the salts of morphia,
or a poultice  of-the petals of the poppy, and as a
lotion to cool the part, simple water will accom-
plish every good object that can be obtained from
the spirit.  Besides, the persevering local use of
alcohol appears to enfeeble, as it might be expected
to do, the vital  powers of the part, while water
may be  applied for any length of time required
by the inflammation, widiout an undue local ex-
haustion of vitality.
   In a case of simple fracture of the leg of a boy,
several  years ago, in which common spirit diluted
with water was locally employed  for two or three
weeks, there  was in five weeks so slight a union of
the fracture that a very small force broke it down.
This effect seemed fairly to be attributable, chiefly
           5* 
54         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

at least,to the influence of the spirit, in part over
and above what  resulted from the escape of heat
by evaporation;  especially as  the  limb was so
covered as to prevent the sensation of cold, the
fragments were kept in undisturbed contact, and
the general health was pretty good.   A consider-
able number of surgeons at the present day prefer
simple water to every other lotion for the purpose
of moderating excessive excitement in local in-
flammation.
  In the treatment of gangrene, intoxicating drinks
  Gangrene or bear no comparison with opium or the
mortificauon.   saits 0f morphia, carbonate of ammo-
nia, and sulphate of quinia.
  To the morbid conditions of the system in fe-
  Fevera.     vers, alcohol, as a remedial agent, is
far from being well -adapted.   It bears no com-
parison with the sulphate of quinia as  an article
  intermittent  suited to break up the morbid associa-
and remittent.  tions in intermittent and  remittent
fevers after suitable evacuations.
  In the apyrexia,  or remission of the  paroxysm
  continued,   of continued fever, there  are probably
but few physicians  in our country wno have seen
a large febrile practice during the last twenty-five
years, who have not had occasion to reoret its un-
favorable effects.  Under the  stimulant practice,
trains of morbid symptoms are often aggravated,
new centres  of  irritation established, and which,
if not sufficient to destroy the patient, prolong the
period of the fever, and frequently cause relapses
or a lingering and interrupted convalescence.   In
the occasional states of depression  occurring in
continued  fever, those internal stimulants should 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.          55
be preferred, if any be used, which  exhaust the
nervous power  less than the intoxicating articles.
In this connexion may be named the carbonate of
ammonia, camphor, and some of the essential oils.
   In the  collapse and prostration of  Cholera.
cholera the spirit practice is now very generally
acknowledged to have been unfortunate.  Indeed
it would have been remarkable if an article which
so strongly predisposes to this disease as alcoholic
stimulus should have proved to be its best remedy.
The evidence of the mischievous effects of spir-
ituous drinks in cholera is  too generally diffused
to require its being introduced here  in  a  formal
manner.   Ice,  cold water,  or even ice in small
bits, swallowed at  short intervals, may be more
relied on for allaying the deadly nau-    Tn d bi]it'
sea of cholera  than any  form  of in-  after acute dis-
toxicating liquor.  For the purpose of
restoring the strength in  the debility which fol-
lows acute disease, is alcohol necessary ?
  If the fever  or  inflammation have been early
treated with the proper evacuants, and the pro-
gress duly watched, and local determinations pre-
vented or obviated, the debility which remains on
the subsidence of the disease is easily removed
The patient may be greatly reduced in strength,
but when free from  disease, his convalescence is
rapid under the most simple treatment. But when
the stimulant plan has been perseveringly pursued
with a view to remove the disease, or the debility
subsequent to it, how often if the constitution can
resist the action both of the disease and the me-
dicines, is the patient observed to linger for weeks,
and perhaps months, before  his  health is re-esta- 
56
CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM
blished ; and how often is  he subjected to some
new form of disease, either subacute or chronic,
or perhaps both in succession ;  a cough, or difficult
breathing from bronchial or thoracic irritation or
effusion,  an enfeebled and irregular action of the
alimentive organs, a swollen limb, &c.  In illus-
tration of these remarks, the  following sketches
of actual cases are given, the facts of which may
be fully relied on.
  Dr. R., set. twenty-five, possessing a good con-
stitution, had, in February 1806, a severe  typhus
 Cases.      fever which showed symptoms of crisis
on the twentieth day.  He took, early in the dis-
ease, purgative  doses containing calomel, and
afterwards small  doses at short intervals of the
same article, which in ten or  twelve days occa-
sioned  a slight soreness of the mouth; soon after
this, aphthae  being observed in the  throat, bark
and wine were  prescribed.  The  bark however
was soon omitted on account of the great distress
it  seemed to have occasioned  at the pit  of the
stomach, but the wine was  continued.   In three
or four days after the symptoms  of crisis were
observed, a cough  arose which  was very trouble-
some for about a week, but as it subsided a swel-
ling attended with pain and heat seized the whole
left lower limb.  In six weeks from the attack of
the fever the patient began by the aid of  a staff to
hobble  out of his chamber.   The  swelling of the
limb, however, although bandaging was employed
for several weeks, was never  wholly  removed;
and  from that day to the  present,  upwards of
twenty-seven years, the leg has exhibited  a vari-
cose state of its superficial veins, and the  whole 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.
57
limb including the foot has been larger and less
vigorous than the other, proving that its organiza-
tion was permanently affected.  Before the fever,
and until after the  crisis, this limb was, in the
estimation of the patient, as  sound in every re-
spect as the other.  If in this case  the processes
of nature had not been interfered with by an un-
natural excitation of the nerves and bloodvessels,
is it probable that any form of local disease would
have shown itself simply as the effect of the fever ?
One result,  rather inconvenient to the patient as
he has  often remarked, of the use of wine during
his convalescence was the acquisition of a strong
relish for that beverage which he had never before
felt, and which at various periods since it has re-
quired  some effort properly to control.
  'Mr.  F., set.  eighteen, tall, and  of  fair  com-
plexion, having I believe  always enjoyed  good
health, was attacked with continued fever in au-
tumn.   He was bled  repeatedly, and took purga-
tives and antimonials.   At the end of the  second
week it was thought  that he would bear  tonics-
Mild articles  were  resorted to, and  continued
about a week.   The  symptoms  remaining nearly
the same, sulphate of quinia and wine were pre-
scribed.  In a few days he had cough and difficult
breathing, with symptoms of effusion in the chest.
Auscultation readily detected a fluid in the  right
cavity.  Blisters and  diuretics with active  cathar-
tics were now employed.  He was soon relieved,
and in  about a week his symptoms were very much
as when he  began to take the wine and  quinia,
excepting that  the  debility was greater.   Wine
and the sulphate of quinia were again given, and 
58         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

soon the same  train of  symptoms appeared as be-
fore, with an effusion of fluid ,in the left cavity
of the chest.  Under  the  use of diuretics and
blisters, these  symptoms were  removed.
  A third time the wine and quinia were resorted
to,  and the result was  a  swelling of one  of the
lower limbs with heat and pain, resembling some-
what the appearances in phlegmasia  dolens.  All
tonics and stimulants were now laid  aside, and at
a time when he was unable to turn himself in bed.
A mild diet was now  prescribed, together with
ablutions  and  frictions; and he  very gradually
and uniformly recovered, so as to have acquired a
tolerable degree  of health in about four months.
  In the  course of the treatment, valerian, car-
bonate of soda, carbonate  of ammonia,  camphor,
serpentaria, and sulphuric acid, were employed.
We varied  the  combination of the  medicines a
great many times ; a measure which seemed to be
rendered  necessary  by the sickness  at stomach
which invariably followed each combination in a
day or two.  At the time when he rejected  stimu-
lants, and in fact all medicines, he  could  retain
articles of food.'
  Mr. H., a?t.  twenty-five,  of a fine  constitution,
had remittent fever.  In one full day of his sick-
ness, that is in twenty-four hours, he took three
pints of brandy, and in addition, a small  pill of
opium every two hours, besides a small dose of
sulphate of quinia at the  same  interval through
the night.   Spirit was  taken  freely  for  several
days, although the quantity, as well as that of the
opium and quinia, cannot be vouched for.  Two
years after this sickness the patient  had not re- 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.           59
covered his health, but was still feeble, with im-
paired digestion, and swollen limbs.
  There is probably no case in which pure wine
would not answer as  good a purpose as ardent
spirit; especially if the acidity of  stomach rarely
attending its  use  should  be corrected by some
alkaline article; and there is one  ground of pre-
ference due to wine, if the use of any sort of in-
toxicating liquor be insisted upon, nantely, that it
is probably rather less  liable to establish the habit
of intemperate drinking than distilled spirit.
  But there are agents of higher importance than
alcohol or fermented liquors, which may safely be
employed to sustain the sinking powers in fevers.
and to restore the lost  strength  after they have
subsided.
   Of these, the first  to be named is  Air a tonic.
pure air.   ' I believe,' says Mr. James in  his valu-
able work on  inflammation,  ' there is no poison
more injurious than foul air—no restorative more
effectual than pure air;  and it runs no risk of dis-
ordering the digestive organs, as  bark often  does,
 or stimulating the vessels too much, like wine.'
 The restorative powers of  the blood depend on its
 purity, and the  purity of  this  fluid cannot be
 secured without  pure  air;  hence  the absolute
 necessity of the most strict and persevering atten-
 tion to ventilation and cleanliness.
    Another agent is water.   This is the   Water.
 proper beverage  when a beverage is needed.
 Nothing is so grateful in  the thirst  of fever, and
 nothing  so good; and its  febrifuge,   Appued  «o
 as well as tonic or invigorating power, tt>o surface of
  judiciously applied to the surface of 
60         CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

the body is  most striking.  Either pure, or  im-
pregnated with soap, or saline substances, it may
be used by way of  affusion, ablution,  or sponging,
at a temperature warm, cool, or cold,  according to
circumstances.  The successful use of cold water
by Dr. Currie applied to the body in fevers is well
known.
  Dr. r. Jack-   Dr. Robert Jackson, speaking of the
son's remarks. fever3  0f Jamaica,  says, that  ' after
obviating particular symptoms of a fatal tendency,
it was the principal indication to support the gene-
ral powers of life, or to excite the tone and vigor
of the system.'  For  this purpose he mentions
' cold bathing' as ' the most important remedy in
the cure of the fevers of the West Indies.'   For
the purpose of removing the prostration and lan-
guor accompanying a form of fever prone to attack
foreigners arriving in hot climates, he observes,
that' the principal trust was placed in warm  and
cold bathing, which under  proper management
seldom failed of answering every expectation com-
pletely, or of speedily removing the  chief symp-
toms  of danger.'   This gentleman  was  in  the
habit of frequently impregnating the water strongly
with common  salt.
  Often have I  witnessed in fits of distressing
prostration,  joined  sometimes  with  great  irrita-
bility of the nerves,  both  during and after the
subsidence of the severity of acute disease, a far
more refreshing and  invigorating  effect  from
sponging the head,* body, and  limbs with simple
water, or weak warm soap-suds, followed by gen-
tle friction, than from any doses of spirit, wine,
    • The hair having been previously sheared ofF. 
            IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.           61

 or porter, I have ever  seen  administered.  It is
 a striking remark of the celebrated Hoffman, that
 if there  be in nature a  universal remedy, that
 remedy is waters'
   Among the means of restoring the strength, one
 of great value is  exercise, especially  in  the open
 air.  Indeed there  seems  to be no adequate sub-
 stitute for this remedy.  Who has not felt its in-
 vigorating effects?  Dr. Jackson, already quoted,
 observed the most happy effects in the restoration
 of the  bodily  powers  reduced by yellow fever,
 from his patients  when too  weak to raise their
 heads, being carried out daily in carts  or wagons.
 Passive exercise in the sick  chamber, /or the je-
 moval from it to an adjoining room on a  truckle-
 bed or chair, may be made very useful to  the sick
 patient, when his strength is too much reduced to
 admit of his being carried abroad.
  In addition to the  common articles of plain,
 unstimulating food, may be mentioned as an im-
 portant restorative agent, fresh, ripe fruit.  This,
 especially if acidulo-saccharine and  juicy,  often
 presents to the'stomach precisely the stimulus it
 craves, and may be borne when  spirit and wine
 cannot be taken without disturbing the circulation.
 The man who shall invent a cheap and easy me-
 thod of preserving without decay the well  ripened,
juicy, and  pulpy fruits, will  be  entitled to the
 thanks of  succeeding generations.    Could the
 grape,  instead of being manufactured into wine,
 be carried fresh and distributed freely in distant
 countries, in place of the intoxicating liquor with
 which  it  now  supplies  them, an  unspeakable 
62        CONDITION OF  THE  SVSTEM
amount of health and comfort would result to the
human family.
  With prescribed attention to ventilation, clean-
liness, ablutions, and frictions, plain, nourishing
food,  including often fresh  fruits, joined  with
early  and persevering exercise,  I  have known
patients to recover with a rapidity greater than I
remember to have observed  from any use vvhat-
ever of intoxicating drinks and narcotics.
  Under a more  perfect acquaintance  with the
functions of life, and with the influences exerted
upon it by remedial  agents, may it not be hoped
that the period will arrive when not only ardent
spirit, but all intoxicating liquors, will be regarded
as  not  absolutely necessary in  the  practice  of
physic or surgery ?  It may perhaps be worth re-
marking, that throughout the wide-spread  king-
  Alcohol never doms of animal and vegetable nature,
getabieCor0aiai- not  a particle of alcohol in  any form
mai secretion.  or  combination whatever  has  been
found as the effect of a single living  process, but
that it arises only out of the decay, the dissolu-
tion, and the wreck of organized matter, or of its
ever varied and wonderful productions; and is it
probable that the beneficent author of such a count-
less multitude of medicinal agents as exist in the
products of vital  action,  would  have left, to be
generated among  the results of destructive che-
mistry, an article essential to the successful treat-
ment  even of a single disease ?
   objects of    The profession of  medicine has an
the  medical extensive scope.   It looks into the
profession.     ,    ,     c    •   ,    i •      .  .
           structure ot animal machinery, it in-
vestigates the  laws of its vital movements, both 
IN HEALTH OR -DISEASE.
63
in health and disease, and contemplates  a variety
of influences by which  its complicated processes
are  accelerated,   retarded, >suspended, or  de-
stroyed.  It learns, that to  the  functions of life
belongs a standard rate of action, beyond which
they cannot be  safely excited or driven ; that al-
coholic and narcotic stimulants derange and con-
fuse the healthy  movements, exhaust  the  vital
power  more than  nature  intended, and induce
premature decay, and dissolution.  This profes-
sion claims the strictest  alliance with the cause
of humanity; it cherishes good will, and proffers
substantial blessings to men.  It extends its hand
not only to the exhausted,  bed-ridden patient, and
to the tottering and dejected invalid, but even to
the healthy man, to save him from  the pain  and
suffering which ignorance, or custom, or reckless-
ness might bring upon him.
   Let physicians then be  true to their profession.
Let them study the duties they owe to the com-
munities with whom  they live  and labor.   Let
them teach the means of preserving health, as well
as of combating disease; let them show, as it is in
their power to do,  that the taking of medicine in
health in order to prevent disease is most absurd
and mischievous;  that  the  surest  guarantee of
health is a correct rep-imen, and that the best treat-
ment of acute disease is often very  simple.
   Let them explain, as far as practicable to those
around  them, the mechanism of their physical or-
ganization, and when it can be done,'knife in
hand,' the work will be easy.  Let them expound,
so  far as known, the beautiful and harmonious
hiws enstamped upon this organization, by which 
 64        CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM

 its complicated movements and diversified pheno-
 mena are sustained; laws as  immutable in  their
 nature, and inflexible in their operation, as those
 that hold the planetary system together; and like
 them  originating in  the same incomprehensible
 and mighty mind, which, acting in the strength of
 its own philanthropy and unchangeableness,  gave
 to man a moral code  from amidst the smoke and
 thunders of Sinai. No law coining from this high
 source can be violated with impunity; and he who
 infringes a law of the vital economy, receives, in
 an injury done to the machinery of life, the pe-
nalty of his transgression with no  less certainty
than he who leaps from a tower  heedless of  gra-
vitation.   With all its given power of accommo-
 dation to  circumstances, no possible training or
 education of this machinery can change the nature
of its primitiye adaptations, and  make  an article
congenial  and healthful,  which was  originally
repulsive and  noxious.  No human ingenuity or
perseverance can render impure air as wholesome
as that which  is pure, or any form of  intoxicating
liquor as healthful as water.
  So long as  alcohol retains a place  among  sick
patients,  so long there  will be  drunkards;  and
 who would undertake to estimate the amount of
 responsibility assumed by that physician who  pre-
 scribes to the enfeebled,  dyspeptic  patient the
 daily  internal  use of spirit, while at  the same
 time he knows that this simple prescription  may
 ultimately ruin his health, make him a vagabond,
 shorten his life, and cut him off from the hope of
 heaven.   Time was when it was used  only  as a
 medicine, and  who will dare to offer  a  guaranty 
IN HEALTH OR DISEASE.          65
that it shall  not  again overspread the world with
disease and death ?
  Ardent spirit—already under sentence of pub-
lic condemnation, and with the prospect of under-
going an entire exclusion  from the social circle,
and the domestic fire-side—still lingers in the sick
chamber, the companion and pretended friend of
its suffering: inmates.  It rests with medical  men
to say how long  this unalterable, unrelenting foe
of the human race shall remain secure in this sa-
cred,  but usurped retreat.  They have the power,
and theirs is the duty to perform the mighty  ex-
orcism.   Let the united effort soon be made, and
the fiend be  thrust forth from this strong but un-
natural alliance and companionship with men, and
cast  into that' outer darkness' which lies beyond
the precincts  of human  suffering  and human
enjoyment.
6* 
 
C1
AN  ESSAY
ORIGIN  AND  INTRODUCTION  INTO MEDICAL
             PRACTICE, &c. &c,
ARDENT  SPIRITS
 Pallor et genie, pendulae oculorum ulcera, tremulee manus, furialea
jomni, inquies noctuma.—Pliny.        /
By HARVEY LINDSLY, M. D.
""H, 
 
  The author of the following Essay has deviated
somewhat from the plan contained in the original
advertisement of the Prize Committee.  But he
has omitted nothing referred to by them ; and his
object  in' embracing more, was  to form a work
which, while it would answer the purpose intended
by the Committee, might also serve as a book of
medical reference for the whole subject of intem-
perance.
                              69 
■ 
CONTENTS.
              CHAPTER I—page 75.

  Distillation not known by the ancients, nor in the time
of our Saviour—Strength of the wine increased by the.
addition of various articles. Pliny ignorant of any stronger
liquor than wine—Dioscorides collected essential oil on the
fleece of a  sheep—'Galen speaks of distillation  per de-
scensum—Saracens made great advances in  the arts—>
Description of mode of distillation used by Geber—Disco-
very of Alcohol generally attributed to European alchy
mists—By some referred to the Chinese—This idea unsup-
ported by facts,  and  improbable—Alcohol discovered
about 1050 or 1100.
               CHAPTER II—p. 19.

           Introduction into Medical Practice.

  Used extensively  immediately after its  discovery—
Brandy did not come into general use  until  towards the
end of the fifteenth century—Spirit of wine first used in
the composition of medicines in the thirteenth century-
Hungary water, why so called, and recipe for making it—■
Aqua vitse early introduced intfl Ireland—Considerable
article of commerce in the reign of Queen  Elizabeth—■'
Held in much  higher estimation when first known 'thanf
afterwards. •> 
72
CONTENTS.
               CHAPTER III.—p. 106.

                General Observations.

  Intemperance has prevailed from the earliest periods-
Various inebriating drinks known to the  ancients besides
wine—Intemperance very prevalent at Rome during the
latter part of its history—The reverse the fact during the
early  ages—Wine forbidden  to females—Drunkenness
less prevalent in southern than northern latitudes—Savage
nations particularly intemperate.


              CHAPTER IV.—p. 114.

Immediate Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Physical Con-
                      stitution.

  Various phenomena observable  after excessive drink-
ing—During the paroxysm of drunkenness  the body ex-
ceedingly insensible to  external  impressions—Ardent
spirits, when  taken  upon an  empty stomach, intoxicate
sooner than when that organ is full, &c.
              CHAPTER V.—p. 119.

Remote Effects  of Ardent  Spirits  on the Physical  Con-
                      stitution.

,  Question whether alcohol is absorbed or not—    I
opinions—His view of the  subject not adopted by  m<
writers—Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Stomach, Liver,
Brain-Ophthalmia, Gout, Corpulency, Epilepsy, Hyste  :,
—Perspiration altered—Ulcers—Gutta Rosacea—Change
of Temperament—Tremors—Mania-a-potu—Melancholy
—Madness—Premature old age.


              CHAPTER VI.—p.  138.
     Effects of Intemperance on the Moral Character.

  The temper is rendered fretful—The drunkard r   u f 
CONTENTS.
7.3
less of right  and wrong—Disregards the happiness of
others—Has a contempt of the good opinion of the world
—Forms idle and profligate habits.
              CHAPTER  VII.—p. 143

          Intellectual Evils of Intemperance.

  AH the intellectual powers injured by intemperance,



              CHAPTER  VIII.—p. 147.
 Effects of Alcohol influenced by the Intoxicating Article.

  Theories respecting the existence of alcohol in differ,-
ent wines—Extract from Paris's Pharmacologia—Brande's
table of the alcoholic strength of liquors—Brandy said to
be the worst  form in which it  can be taken—Peculiar
properties of  ardent spirits—Of wine—Of malt liquors,



              CHAPTER  IX.—p. 157.

        Spontaneous Combustion of Drunkards.

   Disbelieved by  some—Cases related—Cause of this
phenomenon—Ascribed by some to sulphuretted hydro*
gen.



              CHAPTER X-—p. 160.

    Do Alcoholic Stimulants Contribute to Strength ?

  Lord Bacon's remark—Debility can be removed by two
methods, one  gradual, the other rapid—Which of these
modes  is to be preferred ?—Great labors performed by
the Greek and Roman armies—Styjnulants may be ben?-
ficial in disease, although detrimental in health,
          7 
74
CONTENTS.
               CHAPTER XI.—p. 167

               Causes of  Intemperance.

  Very numerous—Force of Custom—Parents giving it
to children—Alcoholic medicines—Idleness.
              CHAPTER XII.—p. 174.

      Method of Curing the Habit of Drunkenness.

  Exceedingly  difficult—But not impossible to reform
the drunkard—Perfectly  safe for him  to break off at
once—Several authorities on this point, Rush,  Sir Anthony
Carlisle, and Cheyne—Useless to employ force—Various
articles used to disgust the drunkard with his drink—Tar-
tar emetic contained in most of these—Chambers' medi-
cine—A feeling of opposition sometimes  effectual for this
purpose—Sickness also.
             CHAPTER XIII.—p. 183.

Substitutes for Ardent Spirits in the Practice of Medicine.

  Medical use of these articles frequently produces in-
temperance—Cases in which ardent spirits are supposed
to be beneficial or necessary—Other articles of the mate-
ria medica amply  sufficient as  substitutes—Duty of the
medical profession in relation to this subject.
• 
ESSAY,  &c.
                CHAPTER I.

           Origin of Ardent Spirits.

  We shall perhaps be as unsuccessful  as those
who have preceded us, in the attempt to ascertain
the precise period of the discovery of alcohol.  But
although we may not succeed in the main object
of our pursuit, yet it will  not be uninteresting to
collect what is known in relation to this  subject;
and to trace the gradual steps  by  which  the pro-
cess of distillation has  advanced from the  rude
manner in which it was  practised  by its  first in-
ventors  to the  present  perfect and  convenient
mode.
  Much discussion has  taken place among histo-
rians and antiquaries on  the question whether dis-
tillation was known at all by the ancients.  Some
contending that it was practised before and during
the  time of our  Saviour,  and others that it was
discovered by the alchymists as late as the eighth
century. 
76                 ORIGIN OF

  We have every reason to suppose  that  it was
entirely unknown to the sacred writers of the old
Testament, as  no mention of  it is  airy where to
be found among them : and we cannot doubt that
it would have been  referred to had any such pro--
cess been in vogue during the period at  which
these works were written.  It has been asserted
by some that  the use of the  still was  partially
known in our Lord's time, as, say they, he alluded
to the distillation  of herbs for medicinal purposes,
when he employed, in Matthew vi. SO, the word
;twC*iw, speaking of die grass of the field ' which
today is, and  tomorrow  is cast into  the  oven,'
or according to  others it should  be translated
• into the still.'  But this idea seems  rather fan-
ciful, as there  is  nothing  in any other author to
corroborate it.*
  The most ancient physicians, whose writings
have  descended to us,  seem entirely  ignorant of
the mode of extracting any of the  essential  oils
by steam or vapor.  In the works of Hippocrates,
who flourished 400 years before the Christian era,
not a single word can  be found which would in-
duce us to think that an alembic or retort  had
been used by him for medicinal or any other pur^
poses.
  Although the ancients were thus ignorant of the
mode of obtaining  by distillation  a  liquor of a
Stronger intoxicating power than their wines, yet
they contrived to  add somewhat to the strength of
the latter by other means.  In order to increase
the inebriating  effect of wine,  as well as to im^
* Morewood's Essr.y, p. 11. 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
77
prove its flavor (ut odor vino contingat, et saporis
quaedam acumina), it was not unusual to sprinkle
pounded pitch* or resin on the  must, or to infuse
the flowers of the vine, the  leaves of the pine or
cypress, bruised myrtle  berries, the shavings of
cedar-wood,  southern-wood, bitter almonds,  and
a great variety of other articles.  Indeed, from
the great attention which was paid to this subject
by the ancients, from the skill displayed in  the
evaporation of must as well  as on account of the
extensive scale in which it was carried on, it seems
surprising that they had  not discovered the mode
of extracting brandy by distillation.
  Salt, and occasionally even  honey, were  an-
ciently employed for the purpose of preserving
dead bodies.   Pharnaces placed the dead body of
his father  Mithridates in salt  brine  in order to
send  it to  Pompey.t Eunapius also  in the fifth
century speaks of  the heads of  martyrs being pre-
served in salt,J and we are  told by Sigebert, who
died in 1113, that even then the same process  was
employed  with the  body of St. Guibert, that it
might be kept during a journey in summer.§    We
may suppose  from this circumstance that spirit of
wine or alcohol was  not known, or at least  was
not in common use as late as the beginning of the
twelfth century, for had it been it would no doubt
have been used for this purpose instead of salt.

  * Henderson  on Wines—London,  1824—p. 44.
  fSalis natura, corpora adstringans, siccans, alligans:
defuncta etiam  a putrescendo vindicans, ut durent ita per
wcula.—Plin. lib. 31. cap. 9.
  t Eunapius in Aedesio.
  § Sigebertus in Acta  Sancti Guiberti, cap. 6. 
78    .             0RIC.IN OF
  Pliny the elder, who was nearly cotemporary
with our Saviour,  seems entirely ignorant of any
stronger liquor than that produced  by fermenta-
tion.  He mentions a variety of drinks  used in
Egypt, and also in France and Spain, which were
made from grain steeped  in water, and were dis-
tinguished by the names zythum, ccelia, ceria, ceris
vinum,  curmis cervisia, &c, which  seem  to be
equivalent to our ale or beer.*  No little discus-
sion has arisen as to his precise  meaning, when
after enumerating these beverages he says,  ' Heu,
mira vitiorum solertia !  inventum, est quemadmo-
dum aqua quoque inebriaret'—' Alas, the surpri-
sing skill of vice! it was discovered that water
also might be made to intoxicate.'!  Some authors
assert that Pliny here obviously refers to a  liquor
obtained by distillation,!  and the passage uncon-
nected  with what precedes  it,  would  certainly
seem to justify such an  inference; but when con-
sidered  in connexion with the context, it evidently
refers to the intoxicating  quality acquired  by the
water during the fermenting  process.   He also
speaks of a mode of obtaining artificial quicksil-
ver  by  distillation.   The  apparatus  employed
consisted of two earthen pots, and an iron pan,
but he does  not mention its application to the ex-
traction of the juices of vegetable matter,  if we

  * Plin. b. xiv. chap. 22.
  f Plin. b, xiv. sec.  29.
  * This idea is adopted by Murphy in his translation of
Tacitus.—' Pliny the elder,' says he,' observes that the
Egyptians had their intoxicating liquors distilled from
grain, which they produced in great abundance— De
Moribus German, v, iv. p. 26. 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
79
except his account of the manner in which oil was
obtained from pitch in  book xv., ch. 7—the vapor
arising from the boiling  pitch  was collected on
fleeces of  wool spread over the pots, and after-
wards  extracted from  them by expression.'   As
no other  mode  of distillation is  mentioned by
Pliny, we  can reasonably infer that this imperfect
process was all that was known of the art in his daj\
   Although the  Arabian  word  alembic,  which
means a vessel for distillation, is derived from the
Greek (*^t/2/|), yet it does not follow that this latter
people made the same  use  of  it as the Arabians
did.*   And indeed  it seems  probable that  they
hardly knew as much about distillation as the Ro-
mans ;  for Dioscorides, who was  cotemporary
with Pliny, and physician to Cleopatra, collected
essential oil on the fleeces of a sheep, which seems
a conclusive proof that he knew of no other mode
of distilling.
  One  hundred and thirty years subsequent  to
this lived  the celebrated Galen of Pergamus, who
wrote many works on medical and philosophical
subjects.   He speaks of distillation per descensum,
but it is generally supposed that he meant nothing
more by this than what regarded  the  melting of
metals.  It is thought by some that  St. Paul  in
Romans xii. 20. alluded  metaphorically to  this
practice, which is thus expressed by the poet,—-

     « So artists melt the sullen ore of lead
     By heaping coals of fire upon its head—
     In the kind warmth the metals learn to glow,
     And pure from dross the silver runs below.'

       • Le Clerc's Histoire de Medecine, p. 641. 
80
ORIGIN OF
   In the same way Caligula, according to Pliny,*
endeavored to collect gold from orpiment, a mine-
ral substance found in various parts of the world.
   In the reign of Dioclesian who succeeded Nu-
merian in  the year 287,  according to some  au-
thors, the Egyptians had carried their speculations
in chemistry so  far as to  induce that emperor to
publish an  edict for the suppression of all the  an-
cient books that treated of the art of making gold
and silver, fearing  lest  the  power and wealth of
the Egyptians  should excite them to rebel against
his authority.!   This account however is rejected
by De  Pauvv, and some other authors, as entirely
fabulous.
  But  still it would appear from a commentary oil
the second book of Aristotle's Meteors, written
by Olympiodorus,  a peripatetic philosopher who
flourished under the second Thodosius in the ear-
lier part of the fifth century, that distillation was
not then known  in  a state at all more advanced
than it was 400 years  before: for he  says, that
* sailors, when they labor under a scarcity of fresh
water at sea, boil the sea-water, and suspend large
sponges from the mouth of a brazen vessel to im-
bibe what is evaporated, and in drawing  this  off
from the sponges they find it to be  sweet water.'}
This, although a probable, is  not a positive proof
that a more perfect process of distillation was not
known at that time.
  Olaus Borrichius, the learned Danish professor,
has exhibited in  his * Hermetis et Egyptiorum Sa-

  • Plin. b. 33. c. 4.
  fLe Clerc Histoir. de Med., p. 770.
  $ More wood, p. 25. 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
81
pientia/  some figures of a  distilling apparatus,
Which are  said  to be contained  in  the works of
Zosimus the Panoplite, who lived at the close of
the fourth century or the  beginning of the fifth.
According to some authors, this Zosimus was the
first who used the  word ' Chemia,'  which in the
Arabic  signifies concealment,  and  from which
Boerhaave and others have derived the word che-
mistry.*   Le Clerc however quotes  a remark of
Joseph Scaliger, in which he  says Julius Firmicus
Maternus, who lived at the beginning of the fourth
century, is the most ancient of all  authors now
extant, who have used the  word  alchemy or che-
mistry.t
  While chemistry however was making slow but
gradual  and  regular advances toward a higher
degree of usefulness, an event occurred which did
more to retard the progress of letters than almost
any other  recorded in history.  During  the sixth
century the Saracens, at that time a rude and bar-
barous race,  besieged and captured Alexandria,
and with reckless ferocity committed to the flames
the splendid  and extensive library which  it had
been the pride and glory of the  Ptolemies to col-
lect.  Thus were  destroyed more than 700,000
volumes,  comprising the most valuable works of

  •Histoir. de  Medecin., p. 770,
  f Some authors say that the word chemistry is of Egyp-
tian origin, as that nation was the first who cultivated the
science.  Those who maintain this opinion, as Olaus Bor-
richius, found it upon the fact that there are now various
papers of Hermes on chemistry to be found in some of
the  European  Cabinets.  They  derive the term  from
Cham, the name which the ancient Egyptians  gave to
Egypt in their own language. 
82                ORIGIN OF
which the world  could  then  boast.  But this in-
genious and enterprising people soon made amends
for the devastation they had committed: tor, as
their  conquests made them more extensively ac-
quainted with other nations, they acquire a  taste
for literature and science, and become inventors
and cultivators of a new art which was destined
in after ages to confer innumerable benefits on the
world, and to illustrate with new force and power
the intellectual  greatness of the human mind.
Alchemy and medicine  became  the favorite pur-
suits  of  this hitherto barbarous  people.  Their
works on these subjects are very numerous, and
they did  more than all the Grecian writers to in-
crease the powers of the medical art, and extend
the boundaries of science.
  Many  of the Caliphs  themselves made great
progress in the learning of the day.  Almamur, in
particular,  who ascended the Moslem throne in
the 198th year of the Hegira  (813th of the Chris-
tian era), was much distinguished for his  profi-
ciency in various branches of science. He devoted
large  sums of money to the  purchase of books
from every quarter, and employed the most learned
men to translate them; and  encouraged by his
own patronage and example the  study of science
and literature  to  the  greatest  possible extent.
Among the earliest of their eminent  physicians,
whose names have descended to us, are  Isac Is-
raelite, adopted son of Salomon, king of Arabia,
Serapion, and Avenzoar.  The first of these, ac-
cording to the  calculation  of  Rene  Moreau,*

       * De missione sanguinis in pleuritide. 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
83
flourished in the seventh century, and the second
about the year 762.   To these followed Geber, an
Arabian prince, who was eminently proficient in
the knowledge of alchemy, and lived according
to the generally  received opinion in  the seventh
century.*   His  works  contain some interesting
directions as to the mode of  conducting distilla-
tions ; and in one of his works he has given much
curious matter relative to the nature  and formation
of aqua fortis, as  well as of acids and  salts in
general.   And this renders more  probable  the
story that is told of Almokanna  the veiled pro-
phet, that when  in danger of being taken  by the
troops under the  command of Almohdis' general,
in the year 780, to avoid falling into the hands of
his enemies, he  threw himself into  a vessel of
aqua fortis,  a  preparation which could not be ob-
tained but by distillation.  In Morewood's essay
is contained a translation of the twelfth chapter of
the second book of Geber's ' Liber Investigation is
Magisterii.'
  ' Distillation,' says he, ' is the raising of  aque-
sus vapor in  any vessel in  which it is  placed.
There are various  modes of distillation.   Some-

  * Much discussion has taken  place as to the age in
which Geber flourished.  Some  authors contending that
he lived in the seventh century—others in the eighth, and
others making him as late as the ninth.   But the weight
of authority seems to be in favor of the opinion stated in
the text.   Geber signifies king, which perhaps accounts
for his being called king of India ; and in  another place
king of Arabia.   Some say he was nephew to Mahomet.
His works are written in Arabic, and were presented in
manuscript by Golius to the University of Leyden. 
84
ORIGIN OF
times it is performed by means of fire, sometimes
without it.   By means of fire  the  vapor either
ascends into a vessel, or descends: such as when
oil  is extracted from vegetables.  The object of
distillation is to free liquors from drugs, and  to
preserve them fresh: since  every thing distilled
possesses  greater purity, and is  less liable to pu-
trescency.   The object of distillation by a still is
to get water free from earthy substances, by which
both medicines  and  spirits  are  injured.  The
motive for distilling by a  filtre  is to obtain pure
water.  There are two modes of  distilling by fire :
the  one is performed in an earthen vessel full of
coals or embers : the other with water in a vessel,
with herbs on  wool,  arranged in  order lest the
cucurbit or still be burst before  it is completed.
The first is conducted by a strong, the latter by a
gentle, and equal fire.   Thus it  happens that the
heavy  and grosser parts are raised by the first
means, whilst by the latter we obtain a more subtile
spirit,  approaching nearly to  the nature of com-
mon water.   It is well known that when we distil
oil  by embers,  we obtain  oil without any altera-
tion :  but when we distil oil  by  means  of  water,
we  obtain fair and clear oil from what  appeared
excessively red at first.  By means of water then
we  must proceed with every vegetable and thing
of the same  nature to ascertain the elementary
parts.   By the descensive mode  must we proceed
with every kind of oil.  The arrangement of that
which  is  performed  by embers is  this: take a
strong earthen  pot and fit it to  a  furnace of the
same shape as that which is used for  sublimation; 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
85
 around its bottom let sifted embers be placed, and
 covered with them up to the neck: then put in the
 substance to be distilled : finally let the cucurbit,
 or receiving vessel, be attached and luted  to the
 neck of the still, that nothing may escape.  Let
 the still and receiver be of glass, and increase the
 fire as circumstances may require, until the whole
 is distilled.  The second mode is like the first
 both in vessel and still, but different in requiring
 a brazen or an iron pot fitted to the furnace as the
 former, and then upon the bottom of the pot must
 be placed two or three inches of herbs or wool to
 prevent the receiver from being broken, and let
 the receiver be  covered with  the same  herbs in
 something similar up to the neck of the  still, and
 upon these herbs let flexible twigs be strewed, and
 on them let heavy stones be placed that may com-
 press the still, receiver, and herbs, to prevent the
 contents from rising, which would  break the ves-
■ sel, and destroy the distillation.   Fill the pot with
 water, and  apply the fire until  the operation is
 completed.  The arrangement of that  which is
 performed by descent  is this:  take a glass vessel
 having a proper descent, with a lid which must be
 luted, to the descending vessel: put in what is to
 be distilled, and place the fire upon the lid.  The
 arrangement of that which is performed by filtre
 is this : place  what  is to be distilled in  a hollow
 stone, and let the broad  part of the filtre be well
 washed, and water be placed in the hollow part:
 let the slender part project over the edge of the
 stone,  under Which  let a vessel be placed  to re-
 ceive the filtered substance.  If not pure at first,
put it back until sufficiently pure.   N. B. At first
       8 
86                ORIGIN OF

it will send over only  the  water with which  it
was moistened—then the liquor to be distilled.'*
  It is obvious from this extract, and from other
remains of the writings  of Geber, that the process
of distillation  had  attained  no  inconsiderable
degree of perfection even at that early period, and
that the mode of conducting pharmaceutical pre-
parations was also much advanced.  We may also
infer  that distillation  must have  been  known
before the time of Geber, as he does not speak of
the invention of any process, but merely describes
the mode then in use.
  At the period in which he flourished, a love of
science and literature had been extensively dif-
fused, and continued  to keep  pace with the con-
quests of  the caliphs, whose empire now extended
from  the gulf  of Persia and the  borders of Tar-
tary to the mediterranean and Indian  seas,  and
from the isthmus of Suez to the Atlantic Ocean.
   The collection of books and curiosities at Bag-
dad alone was such as would do honor to the proud-
est and most  literary capitol of modern Europe,
even  in  the  present  age of scientific taste  and
research.  The fondness for extensive libraries was
carried to such a pitch, that we  read of a  physi-
cian who declined the invitation of the Sultan  of
Bochara to reside at his court because the carriage
of his books alone would require four hundred
camels.   Cairo in  Egypt contained a  library  of
100,000 volumes handsomely copied and  bound;
and these rich and abundant treasures of know-
  * The figures in the print will give a good idea of part
of the apparatus employed by Geber. 
ARDENT  SPIRITS.
87
Tertius Distill. Modus.   Quartus Distill. Modus.
                     Ignis.


      Coopertorium  W.  jfjf  Baculi.
83 
88
ORIGIN OF
ledge were liberally thrown open for the  use of
students  and  learned men who  resorted  to that
city from various  parts  of the world.   In  Spain
too, the most ample opportunities existed for the
promotion of science, and the advancement  of the
arts; for  there the  caliphs had collected 600,000
volumes in one library—forty-four of which were
employed in the mere catalogue.*
  While  the means of acquiring  information and
knowledge were  so abundant, and so accessible by


  • The splendor and wealth of the caliphs of the East,
as well as those of Spain, were quite equal to the munifi-
cence with which they patronised literature and learned
men.  Besides all that he expended on his numerous wars,
and splendid buildings, the  Sultan Almanzor left behind
him a treasure amounting to £30,000,000 sterling.  His
son Mahadi,  in a single  pilgrimage to Mecca, expended
6,000,000 of dinars of gold; and at  the nuptials of his
grandson Almamon,  one thousand pearls of the largest
size were showered on the head of the bride.   His palace
was  adorned with 38,000 pieces of tapestry, 12,500 of
which were of silk, embroidered with gold.  A hundred
lions were  exhibited with a keeper to each lion.  Among
other objects of show and  splendor was a tree of gold
and  silver spreading into eighteen  large branches, on
which  and on  the small boughs sat  a variety of birds
which, as well as the leaves of the trees, were made of
the  same  costly materials.   The  birds sang melodious
notes, while the branches and leaves moved in harmony,
as if impelled  by  the winds of heaven.  The vizier of
a Sultan expended two hundred thousand pieces of gold
In founding a college at Bagdad, and endowed it with an
annual revenue of 15,000 dinars.   Six thousand  pupils
were here instructed of every grade, from  the  highest
noble to the lowest mechanic: indigent scholars were sup-
ported out of the  public funds; and  the professors and
teachers were  rewarded by  handsome  salaries.__See
Morewood's Essay—Gibbon's decline and fall of the Ro-
man Empire—Murphy's Spain, &c. &c. 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
89
all, we need not be surprised that important dis-
coveries in science, and great improvements in the
arts were  made by the  Saracens.   And in fact
we cannot doubt for a moment that this people, in
some respects at least, excelled all who had  pre-
ceded them: and although we have to regret that
so much of  their skill and ingenuity was wasted
in the vain and frivolous pursuits of alchemy—
in endeavoring to find the philosopher's stone, and
to discover an  elixir of life,  yet the science  of
chemistry may almost be said  to have owed its
origin to them.   They in all probability invented
and named the alembic  for the  purposes of dis-
tillation—they analyzed the subtances of the three
kingdoms of nature:  discovered the three mineral
acids—distinguished the vegetable  and mineral
alkalies from each other—and though perhaps a
knowledge  of gunpowder* was derived  from the
East, yet they greatly improved  its mode of pre-
paration, and found  out new ways of employing

'  * It is a singular fact that the two agents (alcohol and
 gunpowder) which have perhaps proved  more destruc-
 tive of human life than any others should, with respect to
 the period of their origin, be involved in the same mys-
 terious darkness,  and yet should, so far at least as we can
 ascertain, have been invented about the same time. Gun-
 powder seems to have become known first in Europe in
 the thirteenth century.  Albertus Magnus, and Roger
 Bacon, who died  in 1*278,  are the  first who mention it.
 Beckman (vol. 4, p. 525) in his learned and interesting
 work, thinks it probable that it was invented in India, and
 brought by the Saracens to Europe;  while other authors
 contend that it was invented by the Chinese, and that its
 use among that  ancient and singular people was coeval
 with their most ancient historic records*—Du Halde, Bar-
 row, Morewood,  &c,
             8* 
90                ORIGIN OF

it  in war.  It  is also certain  that the Arabian
physicians introduced many new medicines into
practice, such as (among others) manna,  senna,
rheubarb,  cassia, &c.  They also used sugar more
extensively than had hitherto been done—honey
having been employed by their predecessors in-
stead of it.  It is said to have been known to the
Greeks, but, according to Le Clerc, it was  of a
different kind from  that now in use.  The disco-
very of sugar enabled the Arabians to make  use
of many preparations  unknown to the Greeks, as
syrups, julaps, &c.
  According to Sorsannus, the disciple and biogra-
pher of Avicenna, the latter, who was born at
Assera near Bochara A. D. 980, and who wrote a
work on  alchemy,  makes  no  mention of  any
chemical medicines in any of his works which have
descended to us except rose water; and it is  pro-
bable that  this article was obtained by distillation,
because Mesue  mentions the same thing,  and
expressly  distinguishes that which was  made by
distillation, from that which was obtained by simple
infusion of roses in common water.  The author
of the book entitled * Liber Servitoris' is not con
tent with  mentioning rose water, but also teaches
the  manner of  making  it, and describes   the
furnaces and vessels employed in its distillation.
He adds that the manner of making this water
was extensively known in his time.  ' Aqua rosa-
rum operatio scita est apud multas gentes.'
  As no mention of any chemical medicine occurs
in the writings of preceding physicians, and as
these, viz., Avicenna and Mesue are the first who
have spoken of any medicines  of this  kind, it 
ARDENT SPIRITS.              ^~I
seems proper to fix upon the age of Avicenna* as
the earliest period at which this class of  remedies
was introduced into medical use.   It is possible,
to be sure, that these remedies, some of them at
least, had been discovered before this time by al-
chemists, and perhaps been used by a small num-
ber of curious physicians who had profited by their
labor.  But as we  can find no trace or vestige of
them  in  the works of Galen, who lived in the
second century, nor in those of Aetius,  Oribasus,
or other Greek physicians who lived  in the fourth
century, although they have described a great va-
riety of medicaments; nor in the writings of the
first Arabian physicians, which were composed in
the seventh century, we  may safely infer that che-
mical preparations prepared by distillation  were
 not then known,  or used ; and of course alcoholt
 among the number.
   Although the  discovery  of alcohol  has  been
 almostuniversally ascribed to European alchemists
 of the middle ages, there are not wanting respecta-
 ble authorities^ who contend that it was first em-
 ployed in China;  and they even assert that this
 beverage was known among the Chinese far be-
 yond the date of their most authentic records, or

   • Who was born as already mentioned in the tenth cen-

 ^tThe intelligent reader will not of course confound the
 invention of the process of distillation with the discovery
 of alcohol, or ardent spirit. .  The former, as we have
 already seen, was  practiced in an imperfect marnier"
 early as the seventh century; while the latter did not be-
 come known till long afterwards.
   * Morewood, Du Halde,  Le Compte, Osbeck, Grosier,
  &c. &c. 
92                  ORIGIN OF

at least long before its introduction into any other
part of the world.  It seems that their philoso-
phers were engaged in the pursuit of the elixir of
life a great while before  this fancy engaged the
attention of their brethren in Europe, since some
of their empirics have from  an early age boasted
of a specific which could confer immortality on
all who partook of its virtues.  It is said that the
pursuit of this chimera* commenced with the dis-
ciples  of the philosopher Lao-Kium,  about 600
years before the  Christian  era.  And  these au-
thors, who  contend  for the antiquity of civiliza-
tion and science among the Chinese, assert  farther
that their knowledge of distillation  should be re-
ferred to  a period  as remote as this,  which  is
greatly anterior to the  time of its introduction
into other parts of the world.  But  however this
may be, they say it is certain that the  process of
distillation has been  known  there  for  so  long a
time, that the precise period  of  its introduction is
  • Hyen-Tsong, in the  year of the Christian era 820,
procured some of this liquor, with which it is thought his
eunuchs had mixed poison, as he died immediately after
drinking it, at the  age of forty-three.   Sween-Tsong it
appears had no sooner taken it in the year 859, than  he
became a prey to worms which swarmed in his body, and
killed him in a few days, at the age of fifty.   Shi-Tsong
or Ky-a-Tsing, also died of this liquor in  1556, at the age
of fifty-eight.  It  is  said of the emperor  Vu-Ti, who
reigned in China in the year 177 before Christ, that when
 about to put one of his ministers  to deatli for drinking a
 cup of this liquor, which had been prepared for himself,
 he was  convinced of his weakness and  follv by the  fol-
 lowing wise and sensible remonstrance  of  his minister.
 •If this drink, sir, hath made me immortal, how  can von
 put me to death?  But if you can, how  does such a fri-
 volous theft deserve it?'—Morewood, and Du Halde. 
                  ARDENT  SPIRITS.              93

 lost in  the lapse of ages, and that owing to the
 little intercourse which the Chinese have with the
 rest of the world, and the care and jealousy with
 which they exclude  strangers from  among them,
 it is very possible that this art may have existed
 for ages in that country without  becoming known
 to Europeans.   We  must  confess however that
 these accounts are  so intermingled with fable*
 that very little dependance can be placed on their
 accuracy, and the utmost  circumspection is neces-
 sary in  receiving them.   It would seem that the
 Jesuit missionaries,  and  the earlier travelers in
 China, were  either  completely  deceived by the
 national  spirit  of vanity and  exaggeration  so
 remarkable in that people, or  else they were wil-
 ling coadjutors  in  purposes of deception for the


   * The following circumstances are  gravely detailed by
 Du Halde, and as gravely repeated by Morewood, as au-
 thentic history.   Under the government of the emperor
 Yuor TaYu, 2207 years before Christ, the making of ale
 or wine from rice was invented by an agriculturist by the
 name of I-tye (who is sagely conjectured to be one of the
 immediate descendants  of Noah), and that as the use of
 this liquor was likely to be attended with evil consequen-
 ces, the emperor expressly forbade the manufacture or
 drinking of it under the severest penalties.  He even
► renounced it  himself, and dismissed his cup-bearer, lest,
 as he said, the princes, his successors, might suffer them-
 selves to be enervated by so delicious a beverage.   This
 however bad not the desired effect, for the people having
 once tasted it could never afterwards entirely abstain from
 the bewitching  draught.  It was even at a very  early
 period carried to such  excess,  and  consumed in such
 abundance, that the emperor  Ky-a, the Nero of China in
 the year 1836 before Christ, ordered 3000 of his subjects
 to jump into a large  lake which he  had prepared, and
 filled with it. 
94                 ORIGIN  OF
 sake of creating an interest in their narrations  at
 home.  And it is very certain that the extravagant
 notions formerly propagated respecting  the great
 antiquity, the wonderful mechanical skill, and the
 profound  scientific acquirements of the Chinese
 are not at  all confirmed  by modern,  and more
 authentic  observations.   The medical  skill, in
 particular of the Chinese, which has been so much
 celebrated by the Jesuits, makes a very contempti-
 ble figure  in  the  descriptions  of more  recent
 travelers; and indeed seems to be elevated but a
 shade above the empirical  practice of the Abori-
 ginese of our own country.  Abel* says  that they
 are entirely ignorant of anatomy, and that one of
 their most intelligent surgeons  remarked  to  Mr
 Manning that anatomical plates would be the most
 valuable present which could be made to  his coun-
 trymen.   They had heard of the heart, lungs, &c,
 but placed them all on the wrong side of the body.
 Dobel  remarks that they had no correct idea of
 the circulation of the blood:  they think it flows
 differently on different sides of the body ; ' hence,'
 said one of their most learned doctors, ' a Chinese
physician  feels the pulse in  both  arms.'t  On the
 whole then it would appear that vague and  uncer-
tain, and unsatisfactory as are the fragments which
have been collected respecting the progress of the
  * Embassy to China.
  f The following is a specimen of the Chinese  skill in
 medicine.   ' The cheyal de mer,'  a creature like a  sea-
 horse, and about six inches long, is very useful, as it will
 enable a woman whose life is threatened  ' accoucher  sans
 effort.'  ' II suffit de le mettre dans la main de la femme,
 et elle se de livrera de son fruit, avec la  meme facihte
 qu'une brebis, dont le terme est arrivee.' 
ARDENT SPIRITS.
95
art of distillation in Europe during the dark ages;
at least as much dependance can be placed upon
them as upon  those which can  be gathered from
the East.
  Inasmuch as the writings of Avicenna, or at least
a considerable number of them, have descended
to us, and as  they contain no  notice of alcohol
or spirit of wine, we have good reason to believe
it was unknown in his day, especially as we cannot
suppose so important an  article would have been
overlooked by so accurate an observer and so good
a chemist.  It  would seem that the  period of the
discovery of alcohol is nowhfere  mentioned in any
works now extant; and we can therefore only
make an approximation to this  period by placing
it between the time of Avicenna (who was born
A. D. 980), that of  Thaddeus the Florentine (born
A. D. 1190), who is the first author who speaks of
the spirit of wine.
  Arnoldus de Villa Nova, a Frenchman, or accord
ing to some authors a Spaniard, who flourished a
few years  later than the preceding authors, is the
first who recommends the spirit of wine, impreg-
nated with certain herbs, as a  valuable remedy.
He speaks at length of its virtues.  He says some
call it the « water of life,'' the water which confers
immortality,'  ' the water of gold.'  < It  is  with
reason,' he remarks ' that they  call it the water
of life,  for it  strengthens  the  limbs and whole
body, and prolongs life.'                     <  .
  He mentions also the diseases for which  it is
the proper remedy, either alone or when charged
with the virtues of herbs, which were frequently
added  to it, as rosemary,  sage. &c. &c.  'The 
 96         ORIGIN  OF ARDENT SPIRITS.

 water of life,' he remarks,  ' on  account of it*1
 simplicity, readily receives the  impressions Of all
 odors, savors, and qualities.'
   It seems singular that the discovery of alcohol
 should be attributed to Arnold as  has  frequently
 been done,' since we cannot doubt that, if this had
 been the case, frequent reference would have been
 made to so interesting and important a fact in his
 writings, and in those of his disciple Raymond
 Lully.   The absence of all such reference there-
 fore seems  conclusive proof that the discovery
 was not made by him, but must be ascribed to an
 earlier period.
   From  a consideration  therefore of the  whole
 ground, we  are led irresistibly to the conclusion
 that the discovery of alcohol must  have  taken
 place between  the  age of Avicenna (A. D. 980),
 who does not mention it,  and that of Thaddeus
 the Florentine (A. D. 1190), who does speak of it;
 and  as it seems  pretty well known  in Arnold's
 time, it was no doubt brought into use sometime
 previous, probably as earlyt as 1050, or 1100

  • Hall's distiller, &c. &c.
  f I am aware that this is 150 or 200 years anterior to
the time at which this discovery is commonly supposed to
have occurred ; but I think any one who will  candidly
examine the point  for himself will  arrive at the above
conclusion. 
INTRODUCTION INTO MEDICAL PRACTICE.  97
                CHAPTER II.

      Introduction into Medical Practice.

  There is  little reason to doubt, both from  the
nature of the article, and  the  extravagant com-
mendations bestowed on its qualities, that alcohol
was used  extensively as a  remedial agent soon
after its discovery.  When physicians and others
thought  so highly of a medicine as to call  it' the
water of life,' ' the  water which  confers  immor-
tality,' &c. &c, we  cannot  suppose for a moment
that they would suffer it to lie idle, but on the con-
trary that it would  be introduced in numberless
instances to  cure diseases, as well as to preserve
beauty and  prolong life.
  We have  now perhaps no means of ascertain-
ing at what period alcohol began to be extensively
manufactured, but  in  all  probability like other
inventions it gradually extended from small  be-
ginnings, and moderate quantities,  until  in  the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries* it had spread
over the greater part of Europe.  It was  at first
manufactured exclusively from spoiled wine, after-
wards from the dregs ofbeer, wine, &c, and then
from wheat,  rye, barley, &c.
  Alexander Tassoni relates that the Modonese
were the first in Europe who in consequence of
  * From a passage in the Testamentum Novissimum of
Raymond Lully, who was a disciple of Arnold, and born
it Majorca in 1234, we may infer that brandy was well
known, even  at that early period.
           9 
 98            INTRODUCTION  INTO

 a superabundant vintage, made considerable quan-
 tities of it.   It was first extensively used among
 the German miners as  an ordinary drink, and
 hence the demand for it soon became so great that
 the Venetians  were induced to share wifh the
 Modonese the lucrative commerce to which it gave
 rise.
   It would  appear however that brandy did not
 come into general use until the end of the fifteenth
 century.   In the reformation of the archbishopric
 of Cologne, early in the sixteenth century, brandy
 is  not mentioned  among the articles  which the
 people were prohibited from using, as it probably
 would have been  had  any serious abuses existed
 from its consumption.
  William  II, Landgrave of Hesse,  about the
 beginning of tne sixteenth  century, ordered that
 no vender of brandy suffer it to be drunk in his
 house, and that no one should offer it  for sale be-
 fore the church doors on holidays.  In 1524 Philip,
 Landgrave of Hesse, totally prohibited the sale of
 burnt wine or brandy.
  In  1595,  in the electorate of Saxony, burnt
 wine was  expressly forbidden to be made except
 from wine-lees, and the dregs of beer, because it
 was thought an unpardonable use of grain to ap-
 propriate it for this purpose.
  In 1582 brandy was  prohibited at Frankfort on
 the Maine, because the surgeon-barbers asserted
 that it was injurious in the prevailing disorders.
 From the same cause the prohibition was renewed
 in  1605.
  It appears from various passages in authors of
the latter part of the  sixteenth, and during the 
               MEDICAL PRACTICE.            99

seventeenth centuries, that the intemperate use of
alcoholic stimulants had at that early period made
dreadful havoc of the health, and lives, and morals
of the human race; and  that then, as now,  the
warning voice of  the philosopher, the divine, and
the patriot, was  raised against this destructive
vice, and its dreadful consequences.
  A forcible writer,  in  a volume published in
London  in  1582,* remarks,  'that the  Russians,
Swedes, and Danes have  so  naturalized brandy,
aqua vitas, beer, rum, &c, that they usually drink
our Englishmen  to death, so that the most  in-
genious author of the Vinetum  Britannicum con-
cludes that' temperance  (relatively  speaking) is
the cardinal virtue of the  English.'  And in ano-
ther passage—' How many instances have we had
yearly of men's dying suddenly from drinking of
brandy ?  In short, brandy burns the hearts of  his
majesty's subjects out; in  a few years it hath been
the destruction  of some thousands.'!
  As  remarked above, we know that spiiit of
wine was used for sometime after its discovery as
a medical agent;  although we have  no means of
ascertaining with precision the particular diseases
it was supposed to cure, or the peculiar states of
the system to which it was thought best adapted.
  It was likewise introduced  and  used in the
composition of medicines  not long after  its dis-
covery.  HallJ asserts, though upon what authority

  * Quoted in the Harleian miscellany, vol. U2, p. 38.
  | It is stated, that at this time in England brandy sold at
two-pence, or at most at three-pence a quartern, and rum
at sixpence a quart.
  t Hall's distiller, preface, 
100
INTRODUCTION  INTO
he does not inform us, that it was first used  for
this purpose by the Arabian physicians  so late as
1333.  But Hall is undoubtedly mistaken in this
matter, for Zapata, an  Italian physician, who
wrote  in  the  sixteenth  century,  says that  the
method of making spirit of rosemary (in  which
aqua vitoe is used) was known to Arnold de Villa
Nova, who, as we have already seen, died in 1310.
In an  edition of  his works with this titlepage—
' Joh.Bapt.Zapatae, medici Romani, Mirabiliaseu
secreta medico-chirurgica—per Daviden  Sple-
issium, ulmiaj 1696—is  the following passage,
p. 49:  * Ab Arnoldo de villa Nova, vinum rorisma-
rini  magnis laudibus celebatum componebatur,
qui ut  encomii cumulumeiadderet, de Anaxagora^
memorat,  quod in Babylone degens, ex medico
quodam Saraceno satis de crepito, virtutem roris-
marini  summis precibus  percontatus, ab ipso id
responsi  tulerit:  se  nee  cuiquam  secretum sibi
suspiciendum  revelatuum,' &c.
  The  process as employed by Arnold is very im-
perfect, but still serves to show that spirit of wine
was employed in the composition of medicines as
early at least  as  1275.   A more scientific mode
of manufacturing spirit of rosemary, or Hungary
water,  is detailed by John Prevost in a work pub-
lished  by his sons in 1659,* from which  it appears
that this more perfect process was employed by
Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary (whence  the  name
  * With the following title—Selectiora remedia multi-
plici usu comprobata, quae inter secreta medica jure re-
censeat.  Auctore Johanne  Prsvotio, Rauraco, in Patav.
gymnasio  olim medicinae professore et horti medici prx-
fecto.  Libellus posthumus  a Johan. Bapt.  et  Theob.
auctoris fil. in lucem editus—12mo. 
MEDICAL PRACTICE.
101
of Hungary water), who died in 1380, or 1381.
It.may  not be uninteresting to insert the account
which,  although  mingled  somewhat with fable,
according to the custom of the age, is  still sup-
posed  to  be substantially  true.  In page sixth
the following passage occurs:  ' For the gout in the
hands and feet.'  ' As the wonderful virtue of the
remedy given below has been  confirmed to me by
the cases of many, I shall  relate by what good
fortune I happened to meet with it.  In the year
1606 I  saw among the books of Francis Podoca-
th'er, of a noble Cyprian family, with whom I was
extremely intimate, a very old breviary, which he
held in very high veneration, because he said it
had been presented  by St. Elizabeth,  Queen of
Hungary, to some of his ancestors as a  testimony
of the friendship which subsisted between them.
In the beginning of this book  he showed me  a
remedy for the gout, written by the Queen's own
hand in the following words, which I copied :—
  'I, Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, being very
infirm, and much troubled with the gout, in  the
 seventy-second year of my age, used for  a year
this receipt given me by an ancient hermit whom
 I never saw before nor since : and  was not only
 cured, but recovered  my strength,  and appeared
 to all so remarkably beautiful,  that the King of
 Poland asked me in marriage, he being a widower
 and I a widow.  I however refused him for  the
 love of my Lord Jesus Christ, from one of whose
angels I believe I received the remedy.'
   The receipt is as follows:—
    Take of aqua vitae four times distilled, 3 parts,
    Tops and flowers of rosemary,      .2 parts,
       v    9* 
102
INTRODUCTION  INTO
put them together in a close vessel, let them stand:
in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then distil them.
Take one dram of this in the morning once every
week, either in your food or drink, and  let your
face and the diseased limb be washed with it every
morning.
  It renovates the strength, brightens the spirits,
purifies the marrow and nerves, and preserves
the sight, and prolongs life.'*
  According to Campion,!  aqua vita? was very
early introduced into Ireland, and used  there  in
immense quantities as it has been ever since.  He
says (p. 13) that in his time, ' on account of the
marshy and watery state of Ireland, the inhabi-
tants,  but  particularly  new comers, were very
subject to  rheums, distillations, and fluxes,  for
remedy whereof they used ordinary drink of aqua
vitoe (usquebagh), so qualified in the  making, that
it dryeth more and inflamcth less than other hot
confections.'   It is also remarked by the same
author, that' in  haste they squeeze out the blood
of raw flesh, and  ask  no more  dressing thereto,
the rest boileth in their stomachs with aqua vita?,
which they swill after such a surfeit by quarts and
pottles.'  Speaking of a famine that occurred  in
1316, he observed ' that it was caused by the sol-
diers eating flesh and drinking aqua vitas  in Lent;
and in another place he says, that a knight named
Savage, who lived in 1350, while leading an army
against the Irish* gave  every soldier before  he

  * For most of the above particulars I am indebted to
the history of inventions by the ingenious and  learned
Beckman.
  -j- Campion's History of Ireland. 
              MEDICAL PRACTICE.            103

engaged with the enemy, a mighty draught of aqua
vitas.'*
  Ledwich remarks, that for some time aqua vita?
was used only as a medicine: and its operation in
preserving health, dissipating humors,  strength-
ening the heart, curing the  colic, dropsy, palsy,
quartan  fever, stone,  and  prolonging  life, was
firmly believed on  the faith of physicians, and
made it eagerly sought  for.   At what period, con-
tinues this author, it reached Ireland is not ascer-
tained.  It  was  called aqua vita? very  early in
England.  In Ireland it was at one period as well
known by the name of buil-ceann as usquebagh.*
The former application was very expressive—buil
signifying madness, and ceann the head, indi-
cating its infuriating effects.
  In 1556  an act of Parliament was passed at
Drogheda against  distilling aqua vita?, 'a drink
nothing  profitable to be daily drunken  and used,
now  universally  made throughout  this  realm,
especially in  the borders of the Irishry, whereby
much corn, grain, and other things are consumed,'
&c. &c.   The act forbids  the  manufacture of it
without  the  Lord  Deputy's  license, under the
great seal, on pain of imprisonment, and  fine of
four pounds.   But gentlemen of ten pounds per
annum  in lands for life, or inheritance,  and free-
men  of  towns' corporate,  had liberty  to make
aqua vita?.
  In the reign of Queen Elizabeth aqua vita? was
a considerable article of trade, but notwithstand-

  • See also Morewood's essay.
  t Our word whiskey is said to be derived from this lat-_
tar name. 
104
INTRODUCTION  INTO
ing its  great abundance, the  wealthy and  luxu*
rious indulged extensively in the use of expensive
wines.  Hollinshead in  his chronicle relates that
the great Shane O'Neil, who was so bitter an oppo-
nent to  Queen Elizabeth, usually had  in his cellar
at Dundrun  200 tons  of wine,  of which  as well
as of usquebagh he drank copiously,  and  to such
excess that his  attendants were often obliged to
bury him in the  earth chin-deep until the  heating
effects of intoxication had subsided.
  From the  earliest period, with the exception
already  mentioned, no restriction  had been  laid
on the distillation of spirits until the year 1661,
when a  duty of fourpence per gallon  was levied
upon all the aqua vita?  in the kingdom.
  Alcohol, as already mentioned, seems to  have
been held in much higher estimation as a remedial
agent shortly after its discovery than at any sub-
sequent period.   It  seems at first to have  been
prescribed  and used as a sort of universal pana-
cea, and to have been confided in as a medicine,
which was to expel disease and misery,  if not
death, from our world.  Bitter  experience how-
ever soon convinced mankind that its virtues  had
been  greatly overrated; and  in a short  time it
sunk down to the subordinate  rank which  it now
occupies among the articles of the materia medica.
We accordingly find it but seldom mentioned by
authors  who flourished  later  than the fifteenth
century, and when  referred to at all, it is  merely
as aiding in the preparation of other medicines.
  Riverius, who  lived about the year 1600, speaks
pf it occasionally as employed in the  administra-
tion and preparation  of other remedies.  Tlje 
MEDICAL PRACTICE.           105
following  is a  specimen of his prescriptions:—
•Claret water,'  says he, 'is made thus.'—Take
of cinnamon grossly powdered two ounces: steep
them in one pint of aqua vita? in a glass:  in ano-
ther glass  put  six  ounces of  sugar with  half an
ounce of rose water.'
   In page 256 he remarks :
   'Moreover  wine  plentifully taken assuageth
hunger according to Hippocrates, and especially
the spirit of wine or aqua vita?.'  (
   Thos. Willis in his ' Diatriba de medicamen-
 torum operationibus in humano corpore,' published
 in 1675,  in speaking  of the  causes of pleurisy,
 gays, < Hue spectant caloris et frigoris excessus,
 pororum constipatio subita, crapula,vini autliquo-
 rum ardentium potus.'
   He  also mentions the 'potus  aquarum arden-
 tium,' as among the causes of jaundice. 
106         GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
              CHAPTER  III.

             General Observations.

  Habits  of  intemperance  have no doubt  been
more or less  prevalent  from the earliest ages of
the world.   The  first  instance  of intoxication
of which we have any record is that of Noah ; and
from the time of  this  ancient  patriarch to the
present day, a thirst for intoxicating liquors has
pervaded every nation,  and has been the fruitful
source of poverty, wretchedness, and crime.
   Various inebriating drinks besides  wine were
known and used long before the invention of the
process of distillation.   The ancient  Egyptians,
according to  Herodotus, made great use of beer
extracted  from barley:  and  in  the time of  Cam-
bvscs, 529 years  before the Christian era, the
Svrians were skilled in the manufacture of palm
wine.  And  Xenophon, in his history of the cele-
brated retreat of the  10,000,  remarks that the
people in  that part of Armenia  called Curdistan,
had a mode  of preparing a powerful  liquor from
what appeared to be barley.   Morewood observes
that this is probably the same liquor as that called
Zythem,  made in some of the provinces of Asia
Minor, mentioned by Diodorus  Siculus more than
 300 years afterwards.
   Tacitus speaks of ale or beer as a common
 drink among the  Germans of  his  time.  The
 liquor called arrack, which possesses a powerfully 
            GENERAL ODSERVATIONS.          107

Intoxicating quality, is supposed  to have been
used in the island of Java as well as in Hindostan
from time immemorial.   Ale was a favorite beve-
rage with the old Saxons ;  and so great was their
attachment to  its use that they made the glory
and felicity of valballa  (their paradise) to  consist
in drinking it  from  the  skulls of their enemies
slain in battle.
  But the ancients were not only acquainted with
a variety of intoxicating beverages, they also em-
ployed them to as great an extent perhaps as the
more modern nations, at least such seems  to have
been the fact among the Romans just before  and
after the decline and fall  of the  republic.   Some
remarkable  instances are  related by Pliny of
immense  quantities  of wine  swallowed  by the
 drunkards of his day.   Norvellius Torquatus was
 knighted by Tiberius Claudius with the title Of
 Tricongius, or the three-gallon knight, because he
 could drink three gallons of wine  at a draught.*
 It is said of Caius Piso during the reign of Tibe-
 rius, that he would  sit for two  days and nights
 drinking  almost without  intermission. And we
 also read that the Emperor Maximilian performed
 still greater feats in this way, for he could carry
 six  gallons without  being guilty  of a debauch.t
 A son of the celebrated orator Cicero, from whom
 better things might have been  expected, was  sur-
 named Bicongius, because  he  was accustomed  to

   * Pliny, b. xiv., chap. 22.
   f Sinclair in his code of health says, that a  Mr. Vanhorn
 of more modern  times drank, in  the course of twenty-
 three years, 35,688 bottles, or 59 pipes of red port:  a feat
 equal pcrhaoa to any of hi3 predecessors. 
 108         GENERAL  OBSERVATIONS.

 drink two congii or eight bottles at a sitting;  and
 even the elder Cato allowed his slaves during the
 saturnalia four  bottles of  wine per diem.  Their
 poets too seem to have been seized with the mania
' for drinking.  Martial thus  speaks of the cup—
 'Regnatnocte calix, volvuntur biblia  mane, cum
 Phoebo,  Bacchus dividit imperium.'
      • All night I drink, and study hard all day ,
      Bacchus and l'hocbus hold divided sway.'
   The  ancients  had the same  fancy for keeping
 wines to a great age, which so much  distinguishes
 our modern wine-bibbers.   In Pliny's time there
 were some wines which were 200 years old, and
 which from  their great excellence could not be
 purchased with  money.*   If  a  small quantity of
 this wine were mixed with others more  recent, it
 is said they communicated an astonishing flavor.
 The Empress Julia Augusta often said she  was
 indebted to the goodness of the Percine wine for
 living to the age of eighty-two.
   But although there  is so much to condemn in
 the customs  and  habits of the ancients in  this
 respect, yet we should not  forget that there is also
 much to admire and imitate.
   It seems probable that the Romans were a very
temperate people, for at least 600  years after the
foundation of their city; for, before that period
according to Pliny, wines were  so scarce that the
  * At Bremen there is a wine cellar where five hogs-
heads of Rhenish wine  have been kept since 1625   'If,'
says an antiquary, < a calculation be made, it will be found
that the original cost (£50) at compound interest would
now amount to 100,000 millions  of pounds  sterling • a
SnOA??6 W°Uld amountto jE9°8v311, and one glass to 
            GENERAL  OBSERVATIONS.         109

libations to the gods Were made with milk.  Numa,
the successor of Romulus, enacted, on account of
the great  scarcity of  wine, that  no man should
besprinkle the  funeral pile with it: and when the
offer of wine was allowed in sacrifice at all, it was
decreed,  with  the intention  of encouraging the
cultivation of the grape, that all wine thus offered
should be the produce of such plants as had been
cut and pruned.
  In  the  early ages of Rome women were pro-
hibited from using wine, and  hence their near
relations were  allowed to salute them in order that
they might ascertain by the sense of  smell if they
had been drinking it.   We learn from Dionysius
Halicarnassensis  that Romulus made a law that
a husband might kill his wife for drinking, as well
as for adultery.  And Fabius Pictor  in his annals
relates that a Roman lady was stoned to death by
her own relations for having picked the  lock of a
chest in which were the  keys  of  the wine cellar.
Pliny also tells us that Cneius Domitius, a judge
in Rome, in  a  similar case pronounced sentence
against a woman because 'it seemed she had drunk
more wine without her husband's knowledge than
was necessary for the preservation of her health,'
and that therefore she should lose the benefit of
her dowry.*  Every one knows the contempt and

 * The customs  of females seem sadly changed in Sene-
ca's time, for he complains that this prohibition was almost
universally violated.  'Women,'  says he, 'now  value
themselves upon carrying excess of wine to as great an
extent as the most robust men : like them they pass whole
Bights at table, and with a full glass of unmixed wine in
their hands they glory in vying with them, and if they
can in overcoming them.'
          10 
HO         GENERAL  OBSERVATIONS.

abhorrence with which drunkenness was regarded
by the hardy and  intrepid inhabitants of ancient
Sparta; and although the benevolent and consci-
entious mind cannot approve the means employed
by them to disgust their children with the vile and
odious practice, yet we must give them the  meed
of approbation for the end they had in view.
  The shafts of wit and ridicule  were  then as
now occasionally  directed against  intemperance.
'There  li;ni:s a bottle  of wine,' exclaimed the
Roman soldiers as they pointed to the body of the
drunken  Bonosus*, who  in  a fit of despair had
hung  himself on a tree.   ' If you wish to have a
shoe of durable materials,' says Matthew Langs-
berg, ' you should make  the upper leather of the
mouth of a hard  drinker, for that  never lets in
the water.'
  In comparing the manners and customs of the
present  day with  those of the dark ages, and of
still more remote antiquity,  although perhaps an
amendment can be perceived in  the  increased
temperance of the higher classes;  yet we cannot
doubt that a very great  deterioration  has taken
place  among the  middle  and lower ranks.  The
substitution of rum, gin, whiskey, brandy, &c,
for the more innocent and less intoxicating beve-
rages of  former times, has been productive of the
most mischievous  and ruinous consequences to the
health, morals, and happiness of the community.
  Intemperance is certainly the crying sin of Our
age, but it is much more  prevalent in some coun-
tries  than in  others.   'Drunkenness,'  says Dr.
M'Nish, 'prevails to a  much greater extent in
northern than in  southern latitudes.   The nature 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.         Ill
of the climate  renders this inevitable, and gives
to the human frame its capabilities of withstand-
ing liquors: hence a quantity, which scarcely
ruffles the frozen current of a Norwegian's blood,
would scatter madness and fever into the brain of
the Hindoo.   Ev*n in Europe the inhabitants of
the south are far less adapted to sustain intoxica-
ting agents than those of the north.  Much of this
depends upon the coldness  of the climate,  and
much also upon the peculiar, physical, and moral
frame to which that  coldness gives rise.  The
natives of the south are a lively, versatile  people:
sanguine in their temperament, and susceptible to
an  extraordinary  degree of every  impression.
Their minds seem to inherit the brilliancy  of their
climate, and are rich with sparkling thoughts and
beautiful Imagery.   The  northern  nations are the
reverse of all this.  With more intensity  of pur-
pose, with greater depth of reasoning powers, and
superior solidity of judgment, they are in  a great
measure destitute  of  that sportive and creative
brilliancy  which hangs  like  a rainbow over  the
spirits of the, south, and  clothes them  in a  per-
petual  sunshine of delight.   The one  is chiefly
led by the heart, the other by the head.  The  one
possesses the  beauty of  the  flower  garden,  the
other the sternness of the rock mixed with its
severe and naked hardihood.   Upon constitutions
so differently organized it cannot be expected that
a given portion of stimulus will operate with equal
power.  The airy, inflammable nature of  the first
is easily roused to excitation, and  manifests feel-
ings  which the second does not experience till he
has partaken much more largely of the stimulating 
112         GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
 cause.  On this account the one may be inebriated
 and the other remain comparatively sober upon a
 similar quantity.  In speaking of this subject, it
 is always to  be remembered that a person is not
 to be considered a drunkard because he consumes
 a certain  portion of liquor;  but because what he
 does consume  produces  certain effects upon his
 system.   The  Russian  therefore  may take six
 glasses a  day and be as  temperate as the Italian
 who takes four, or the Indian who takes two.  But
 even when this  is acceded to,  the balance of
 sobriety will be found in favor of the south; the
 inhabitants there not only drink less, but are bona
 fide more seldom intoxicated than the  others.
 Those who have contrasted London  and Paris,
 may easily verify this fact: and  those who  have
 done the  same of Moscow  and Rome? can bear
 still stronger testimony.   Who ever heard of an
 Englishman sipping  eau .wcrr'r, and treating his
 friends to a glass of lemonade  ?   Yet such things
 are common in France: and of all the practices
 of that country, they are those most thoroughly
 visited by the contemptuous malisons of John Bull.'
  It is very doubtful  however whether the inge-
 nious idea of Dr. M'Nish, that it will take more
 to intoxicate  a  Russian or an Englishman than a
 Frenchman or an Italian can be sustained, at least
$o the extent to which he seems to carry it.
  Savage nations seem particularly fond of intoxi-
cating liquors, and with scarcely an  exception
have contrived  by some  means or other to enjoy.
that luxury.   Among them the  inhabitants of
Kamtsehatka are perhaps as  much devoted to the
use of ardent spirits as any other people. 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.         113
  Such as cannot distil  it themselves, procure it
from  the  Russian and Cossack  merchants, who,
knowing their blind attachment  to its bewitching
qualities, sometimes take advantage of their weak-
ness, as the following anecdote related by Lesseps
will fully illustrate.   A Kamtschatdale had given
a sable for a glass of brandy.  Inflamed with a
desire of  drinking another, he invited the seller
into his house.  The merchant thanked him, but
said he was in a hurry.   The  Kamtschatdale re-
newed his  solicitations, and  proposed a  second
bargain :  he prevailed :—' Come, another glass for
this sable :  it is a finer one than the first.'  ' No,
I must keep the rest of my brandy; I have pro-
mised to sell it  at a certain place, and  I must be
gone:'   ' Stay a moment:  here  are  two sables.'
'Tis all  in vain.'  ' Well, come, I will add ano-
ther.' ' Agreed—'drink.'  Meanwhile  the three
sables were seized, and the hypocrite made a fresh
pretence to get  away : his host redoubled his im-
portunities  to retain him, and  demanded a third
glass. Further refusals, and  further offers were
made.  The higher the chapman raised his price,
the more the Kamtschatdale was prodigal of his
furs.  Who would have  supposed that it would
end in the sacrifice of seven most beautiful sables
for the glass! They were all he had.
         10* 
114           immediate Errrxvy-s
               CHAPTER  IV.

 Immediate  Effects of  Ardent  Spirits on the
            Physical Constitidion.

   The effects  of ardent  spirits are so various,
so extensive in their ramifications,  give rise to so
many diseases,  and influence the constitution in
so many ways, that  this division  of the subject
alone would require a volume to discuss it  fully;
and therefore we can only give a brief outline of
its most prominent effects.
  Whenever alcohol in any form is taken into the
stomach an almost immediate effect is produced on
the system ; the pulse rises—the skin glows—the
spirits become light and joyous—care vanishes—
sorrow is forgotten—business is neglected;  as the
potations increase, other and more striking  symp-
toms  are produced;  the head  becomes sensibly
affected—the patient (for patient the drunkard may
now be called) sees double—he talks immoderately
and foolishly—he pours out the profoundest secrets
of his bosom—laughs  without cause, or  weep9
without knowing it; although conscious  of the
ridiculous part he is acting, and  perhaps deeply
mortified  at it, he cannot restrain himself; the
power of volition is much impaired or totally lost;
and  now  as glass after glass  is quaffed  by  the
wretched and insensate animal, the scene thickens,
his remaining powers of mind  and body rapidly 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
115
disappear; if he attempts to walk, his limbs refuse
to perform their office—he is vociferous or musical,
and generally quarrelsome—takes offence at the
slightest provocation, or at no provocation at all—
makes the most ridiculous mistakes, and miscalls
his  most intimate  acquaintances—asks  pardon
where he has done no wrong—talks to and of  per-
sons who are absent or dead as if they were actu-
ally before him: the expression of his countenance
now becomes idiotic—his mouth is wide open—his
eye is sunken and listless—his head  hangs on his
shoulder—he is  no longer  able to articulate—he
staggers, reels, and falls, for he is dead drunk.
  If the  drunkard  escape  an apoplectic fit (of
which he is in no little danger) he should be carried
to bed, where  he is soon  destined to experience
the appalling effects  of  his brutish  debauch;
perhaps he will fall into a profound sleep as com-
plete and total as that of death, or more probably
he will be harassed and annoyed by 'thick-coming
fancies;'  he may dream of his past carousal, of
his drunken companions, of their noisy  mirth and
hideous yells, or what is still more likely to occur,
if the tipler be but  a beginner in the path of in-
temperance, his stomach  will revolt at the  load
imposed upon it—nausea will succeed, and a vio-
lent emesis  will somewhat relieve the  oppressed
debauchee.
  But, however the night may be passed, when

         * Morning comes, his cares return
         With ten-fold rage.'

He awakes with a burning fever—his skin is hot
and dry—his hands hard and parched—he has a 
116           IMMEDIATE EFFECTS

violent head-ache—his eye is inflamed and intole-
rant of light—a distressing nausea prevails, and his
appetite has fled.  A thirst almost unquenchable
torments him*—his spirits are depressed, and all
his sensations are of the most painful nature, and
in the agony of his distress and mortification he
perhaps solemnly vows never again to touch the
enticing  bowl;  a  vow  alas !  which melancholy
experience daily proves is too soon violated.
   Such are the principal appearances which are
generally exhibited during, and immediately after,
a fit of intoxication.  These phenomena are much
varied, according to the temperament and  habits
of the individual.   Some are gay and  talkative
and frolicsome—others  are silent, reserved, and
sullen.   One will  be mild, gentle,  and obliging;
another will be furious, revengeful, and malicioui.
One like the ferocious Alexander will plunge his
dagger into the bosom of his dearest friend, while
another  will shed  tears of sympathy at even a
fabulous tale of human suffering.
   It is an old adage, that' in vino Veritas,' and  it
is generally believed that the drunkard during his
fit of intoxication will display his most prominent
traits of character.   The sensualist will exhibit his
amorous propensities—the petulant will quarrel—
the calumniator will slander his friend—even the
 miser, it is said, will display as it were ' the ruling
passion, strong in death,' and not give a farthing
 to alleviate the  direst distresses of  suffering
 humanity.


   * The  action of the kidneys is always increased.   1'
 corius interdum improviso mingit, et alvum exonerat. 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.          117
  The description given above of the drunken fit,
is perhaps in most of its particulars, more appli-
cable to the man who has seldom indulged in the
phrenzy of the bottle, than to the habitual drunk-
ard, for in the latter the frequent repetition of the
habit causes considerable variation  in  the pheno-
mena :  he enjoys few or  none of those agreeable
sensations which  beset the path of the  inexperi-
enced tipler, and allure him on to dissipation and
ruin.  Like all  other human gratifications, the
pleasure, whatever it be, which is  derived  from
indulgence in ardent spirits,  grows le9s  and less
by repetition, while the quantity required to pro-
duce any impression  is constantly increasing in
an almost geometrical ratio.
  The body of the inebriate during the paroxism
of intoxication is exceedingly insensible to ex-
ternal  impressions of every  kind.   It is related
of a sailor in  the British  navy,  that  during a
drunken fit he quarreled with his wife, and in the
midst of his passion seized a butcher's clever and
cut off two of his own fingers.  The wound was
dressed, and the man put to bed.  On his awaken-
ing in the morning he had no recollection of what
had happened, and manifested the greatest sorrow
and mortification on  learning that the misfortune
had occurred through his own rashness and  folly.
  It is  an interesting fact, that the  drunken fit
can be broken by any sudden excitement, as over-
whelming fear, intense joy, or acute sorrow.  The
same  effect will also  frequently be produced by
throwing  a bucket of qold water over the drunk-
ard, or by his falling into a stream.
  The  same quantity of alcoholic stimulus will 
118
IMMEDIATE EFFECTS
produce very different effects at different times on
the same  individual.   A much smaller quantity
will intoxicate when taken upon an empty stomach
than after a full meal.  This is  shown by daily
experience and observation.   Every one therefore
who wishes to  avoid the exciting effects  of this
stimulus as much as possible, will  never drink
fasting.  Captain Bligh relates in his narrative,
that when during a scarcity of provision in one of
his voyages the allowance of food  and water to
each man was reduced to almost nothing, even a
tea spoonful  of rum would  frequently produce
intoxication.
   In some forms of disease, as tetanus, gangrene,
and retrocedent gout, much greater quantities of
alcohol can  be borne than in a  state of  health,
without causing intoxication.
   An individual who has been accustomed to any
strong stimulus will often be unaffected  by  it,
while one much weaker will produce an immediate
and powerful effect upon him.   * I  have  known
people,' says M'Nish, * who will  drink eight  or
ten glasses of raw spirits at a sitting without feel-
ing them much, become perfectly intoxicated  by
half the quantity made  into toddy.'   And some-
times a change from one  kind to another, even
where the strength of the liquor  is  precisely the
Bame, is productive of violent consequences. 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
119
               CHAPTER V.

  Remote  Effects  of Ardent Spirits  on  the
            Physical Constitution.

  We will now proceed  to detail the principal
morbid derangements, and give an account of the
principal  diseases caused  by the habitual use of
ardent spirits, reserving the consideration of its
effects on the moral and intellectual character for
another chapter.
  It does not seem yet to be fully settled whether
alcohol is absorbed into the circulation, and thus
produces  its deleterious consequences, or whether
its influences are  confined chiefly to the nerves.
It is at least certain that it sometimes operates
exclusively in the latter mode.  This is the case
undoubtedly: when taken in very large quantities
into the stomach it produces instantaneous insen-
sibility,  and  even death, before time has been
allowed for absorption.
  Orfila,  in his Toxicologic Generale, states that
alcohol, when injected into the cellular substance
of a  dog, produced but slight effects: but when
thrown into the  stomach, the consequences were
decided  and  immediate.   Even when  injected
into the veins of a dog, alcohol would not cause
death for several hours, while a small quantity of
opium used in the same manner was fatal in a few
minutes. 
120
REMOTE I.IKECTS
   Brodie is of opinion that there is no absorption
 whatever of alcohol, and  for the following rea-
 sons:  1st. 'In experiments  where animals have
 been killed by the  injection of spirits into  the
 stomach I have found this organ  to bear the marks
 of great inflammation,  but never any preterna-
 tural appearances whatever in the brain.  2d. the
 effects of spirits taken into the stomach in the last
 experiment were so instantaneous that it appears
 impossible that absorption should have taken place
 before they were produced.   Sd.  A  person who
 is intoxicated frequently becomes suddenly sober
 after vomiting.  4th.  In the experiments which I
 have just related, I  mixed  tincture  of rhubarb
 with the spirits, knowing from the experiments of
 Mr.  Home, and Mr. Brande, that this (rhubarb)
 when absorbed into  the  circulation, was readily
 separated from the blood by the kidneys, and that
 very small  quantities might  be  detected in the
 urine by the  addition of potash:  but  though I
never failed to find urine in the bladder, I never
detected rhubarb in it.'
  The contrary opinion however is maintained by
most writers on this subject, and indeed it seems
impossible to resist this  conclusion after a candid
 consideration  of the following  facts:  1st. The
blood of a drunkard  is darker than that of a com-
mon  man.  2d. His  breath and perspiration are
strongly marked with   the  smell of  alcoholic
liquors.  3d. His perspiration is said frequently
to be of the color of  his ordinary drink, as claret!
 port, &c; and even his  linen will occasionally be
 tinged by it. 
            ON  THE  CONSTITUTION.          121


  1. Effects of Ardent  Spirits on the Stomach.

  No organ of the body probably is so much de-
ranged by the  habitual use of alcoholic stimulants
as the stomach, while there is none the  healthy
state of which is so important to the regular ope-
rations of animal life.  Alcohol used constantly,
and in considerable quantities, causes inflamma-
tion of this delicate organ, which is generally of
the chronic kind.  This disease is insidious in its
character, and slow in its effects, but it invariably
advances while the noxious cause is continually
applied, until great induration, scirrhus,and some-
times cancers  are the deplorable consequences.
The  pyloric and  cardiac orifices become  occa-
sionally indurated and contracted, and when this
is the case  death soon puts an  end to the tanta-
lizing suffering of the wretched victim.
  This disordered state of the cardiac and pyloric
orifices, and the  organ generally, renders it very
difficult for the patient to retain  any food on the
stomach, it being ejected almost as soon as swal-
lowed.  And even the small quantity which does
remain  is imperfectly digested, and gives rise to
flatulency, pyrodinia, &c.  Obstinate costiveness,
or a profuse diarrhoea, is also a frequent attendant,
and emaciation to an  extreme degree rapidly fol-
lows.
  From the disordered  state of the stomach and
other chylopoietic viscera, dyspepsia, in its most
harassing and  peace-destroying  form, invariably
attends the drunkard.  An appetite for breakfast,
which is always considered indicative of health,
        11 
122            REMOTE EFFECTS           «

is a luxury unknown  to him.   The  loss of fi
appetite is perhaps the first step towards dyspepsia
and hypochondriacism.  The stomach from being
over-stimulated becomes torpid, and is disinclined
to the simple and  proper  lbod which  naturally
forms our breakfast.  The drunkard when he rises
in the morning is nervous, agitated, and distressed,
until  the bottle  is resorted to, to impart anew a
momentary life and activity.  He cannot endure
the sight of food before his stomach is goaded on
to fresh exertion and renewed efforts by potations
of his  favorite drink.  But  this excitement is of
necessity followed by greater depression, and then
cardialgia,  flatulency,  nausea, acidity,  all con-
spire  to increase the bitterness of his  situation,
and enhance the acute misery of his feelings.
  Towards the close of the drunkard's career the
powers of the stomach seem to become almost
exhausted, and although he still feels as keen a
relish as ever for the intoxicating bowl, he cannot
bear it as well  as  formerly.  A much smaller
quantity will intoxicate him.  This no  doubt
arises  from the weakness of this organ, owing to
the- long-continued excitement in which  it has
been  constantly  kept.   He  is also now harassed
with continual nausea and frequent vomiting. His
appetite deserts him,  and  he seems  to retain a
relish  for nothing, and to enjoy nothing but the
liquid fire which  has been so long undermining his
constitution, and consuming his very vitals.
  In  this wretched state  he resorts to bitters
mixed with ardent spirits.   But this last ati< mp;
to restore the wonted  energy of the stomach  i»
completely ineffectual.   Bitters, which so :  ; hk 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.         123
benefit dyspeptics from other causes, rather aggra-
vate the drunkard's wretchedness.

            2. Effects on the Liver.

  Next to the stomach the liver suffers most
severely from a long course of intemperance.  The
sudden  changes  of temperature to which  the
drunkard  is so much  exposed from  carelessness
and inattention, may have some effect in bringing
on inflammation of this organ: but the chief cause
is undoubtedly the alcoholic stimulus.
  Intoxicating liquors have been  known from the
earliest ages to affect this viscus:  and the story of
Prometheus is generally supposed to allude to the
effects of wine upon the human body,  and the
punishment to which he  was doomed of having
his liver devoured by a vulture, was  the penalty
for excessive indulgence in the pleasures of drink-
ing.   Other animals  besides  man suffer in the
same way.  Hogs which are kept upon the refuse
of breweries and distilleries have diseased livers.
 Dealers in fowls are likewise said to increase the
size of the livers in these animals, which are con-
 sidered a great delicacy, by mixing gin with their
 food.                                    ...
   As the liver is an organ of great insensibility,
it is frequently much diseased, and may even give
rise to serious attacks of indigestion without the
patient feeling pain, or being conscious of disease.
But a greater or less  derangement of this impor-
 tant part is the penalty which almost invariably
 attends the. excessive  and long-continued use of
 vinous or spirituous potations. 
124
REMOTE EFFECTS
  It sometimes becomes enlarged and tuberculated,
and  even wholly disorganized: and the conse-
quences  of this extensive state  of disease are
necessarily injurious to health, although the pa-
tient may not suffer much immediate pain.  The
bile will not be  secreted in its usual quantity, or
of proper quality, and  of couVse digestion is iin
paired.  The bowels, being deprived of their na-
tural stimulus,  are  torpid and costive, and  their
discharges  clay-colored.  Jaundice  follows, and
the skin becomes dry, rough, and yellow.
  Dropsy also is a consequence of diseased  liver
in the drunkard : or it arises from general debility
of the system, brought on by dram drinking.  In
the former case it will probably be confined to the
abdomen,  while in the latter it  will extend over
the whole body.


           3. Its Effects on the Brain.

  The brain likewise often suffers intensely from
excessive drinking.  Inflammation of this  organ
may arise immediately after a debauch, or accord-
ing to Dr. M'Nish,  it  may be caused secondarily
during the stage of debility, and even an abstrac-
tion of  stimulus, as by applying too much cold
water to the head, may bring it on in this  latter
state.
   The inflammation is  frequently of a chronic and
insidious nature. It is said to occur oftener after
forty years of age than before that period.   The
dura and pia mater  are thickened, and less trans-
parent than in  a state of health.  The substance 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.          125
of tne organ itself is  either preternaturally hard,
or morbidly soft.  Effusion also occurs in the dif-
ferent cavities.
  These manifestations of disease in this delicate
and important organ will account for the intellec-
tual degradation, the deranged memory, and  the
gradual extinction of the mental powers which
are so conspicuous in the confirmed drunkard.
   Having  shown  the effects of ardent  spirit on
some of the principal organs of the body, I  pro-
ceed  now  to  a consideration  of the  particular
diseases it occasions.

                1.  Ophthalmia.
   The eyes of drunkards are always or generally
in a  state of inflammation.  This did not escape
the observation of the wisest of men.  « Who hath
woe?  Who hath  sorrow?  Who  hath conten-
tions ?  Who hath babbling ?  Who hath wounds
without  cause?   Who  hath  redness  of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine: they that go to
seek mixed wine.'
   This delicate organ is so constructed that it
readily exhibits the  effects of  increased circula-
tion by the swollen vessels in the tunica adnata,
and hence no part of the body so soon betrays a
debauch as this.  Long-continued intemperance
not only brings on ophthalmia, but actually im-
pairs vision.  And the tunica adnata from frequent
inflammation finally loses its original  clearness
and transparency.*
   * Inflammation of the nostrils, and redness of the nose
 frequently attend upon the drunkard.  Shakspeare with
          hi 
126
REMOTE EFFECTS
                   2. Gout.

  This disease is one of the most painful in the
whole catalogue of human ills, and is  a penalty
almost invariably exacted by nature of the copious
wine-bibber.   It seems but seldom to attack the
drinker of ardent spirits, for his diseases are of a
more destructive and incurable character.
  Gout, perhaps, more than any other complaint,
is caused solely  by excessive indulgence in wine
and  malt liquors.  Doctor Garnet remarks,  'I
believe there  never was an instance of a person
having the gout who totally abstained from every
form of alcohol, however  he might live in other
respects; and I  doubt very much if the gout ever
returned  after a person had abstained from fer-
mented or spirituous liquors for two years.'
  This seems conclusively proved  by gout being
almost exclusively confined to  the  higher and
more luxurious classes, and never attacking the
industrious and laborious  poor.  It  is  a legacy
handed down from generation to generation by
the rich and noble as a portion of their  inheritance.
  Probably  in most  instances  nothing more is
needed to effect a radical  cure of this disease,
than to abstain in toto from alcohol in every form.
  The celebrated Sydenham remarks, ' if an em-
piric could give  small beer only to gouty patients
as a nostrum, and persuade them to drink no other

his usual discrimination has noticed this circumstance.
Falstaff.—Thou art our admiral: thou bearest the lan-
thorn in the poop : but 'tis in the nose of thee : thou art
the knight of the burning lamp. 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
127
spirituous fluids, he might  rescue thousands from
this disease, and acquire a fortune for his inge-
nuity.'
  Among the Persians the  gout  and stone are
scarcely known, because the use of wine is pro-
hibited by their religion, while both  are very fre-
quent among those people where wine abounds, as
the inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, the
Austrians, Italians, and others.
                3.  Corpulency.

  This uncomfortable and unnatural state of the
body is well known  to be an ordinary attendant
upon the excessive use of wine and malt liquors:
while the contrary and not less distressing extreme
is the consequence of drinking ardent spirits.
  The  excessive  protuberance  of wine-drinkers
is owing to the great accumulation of fat upon the
omentum and abdominal muscles: and it is a sin-
gular fact, that as this is the first part to become
enlarged, so it is the last to part with its supera-
bundance  of fat; and hence we  sometimes see
individuals with prodigious  stomachs while their
legs are no larger than spindles.
4. Epilepsy.
  Intemperance frequently brings  on attacks  of
this distressing malady; and there are some indi-
viduals so predisposed to it that a paroxysm is the
inevitable consequence of even a slight indulgence 
128
REMOTE EFFECTS.
in the use of ardent spirits.  These attacks seem
to be owing to the  increased  determination of
blood to the head, which  is the natural effect of
alcohol  stimulants.
  The unhappy victims are of course, during such
periods, doubly exposed to numerous and distres-
sing accidents.  Doctor Trotter relates that two
men in  this condition fell overboard ship and were
drowned.


                 5. Hysterics.

  Females,  who are  addicted  to  the  disgusting
vice of intemperance, are very frequently attacked
with hysterics during the  paroxysm.  There is a
delicacy of constitution, both mental and physi-
cal, in the female  sex which places them pecu-
liarly under the control of external excitements.
Hence the exhilaration produced  by wine  and
ardent spirits, not unfrequently ends in  a violent
hysteric fit.


            6. Perspiration Altered.

  The perspiration of a habitual  drunkard often
has a decided  alcoholic odor.   It is said by some
authors  occasionally to partake even of the color
of the liquor, upon which the debauch has been
committed;  as in the instance of claret and port
drinkers.* {

        • M'Nish's Anatomy of Drunkenness. 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
129
                  7. Ulcers.

  Nothing can exceed the loathsome and disgust-
ing condition of a drunkard's leg when covered,
as is often the case, with ulcers,   And every phy-
sician knows to his sorrow how difficult is  their
cure  and how obstinate their  nature.   A bruise
which on a healthy skin, would get well in a few
hours without medical aid, on a. drunkard's will
spread  into  a large,  foul,  ill-conditioned  sore,
which can with difficulty be healed in weeks.


              8. Gutta Rdsacea.

  Eruptions  of various stee  and  color  appear
about the face and various parts of the body of the
inebriate,  but more  especially  about  his nose.
Trotter  thinks that these  are to be attributed to
the chemical qualities of alcohol, probably by the
evolution of  hydrogen in the course of  the circu-
lation, and perhaps in part to the increased  flow
of blood to the head.
  This deformity is always disgusting, but  par-
ticularly in females.


          9. Change of Temperament.

  A long continued and excessive use of alcoholic
drinks gradually effects a change in the tempera-
ment or  nervous  system of the drunkard.  The
habits, as the practice continues, seem to be en- 
130
REMOTE EFFECTS
 tirely changed, and the victim becomes as it were
 a new man.  He is rendered fretful, nervous, and
 peevish; he is affected with  hypochondiiacism,
 and the whole  train of nervous diseases; and  a
 confirmed  nervous  temperament  is  not unfre-
 quently the consequence.


                 10.  Tremors.

  Every one has remarked the universal tremu-
 lousness of the sot.  His gait is tottering, and his
 whole frame is shaken.  His hand  trembles, and
 cannot without great difficulty carry the poisoned
 chalice toliis lips.  This is particularly the  case
 in the  nlorn'iHg when this  affection exists to so
 great a  degree,  that lintil  the potations are re-
 peated,  the  drunkard  is unfit and ashamed to
 appear  before his associates.   But he makes use
 6f a prescription unheard  of in any other case,
 viz : employing as a remedy the very means which
 have caused all the' mischief—drinking to remedy
 the effects of drinking;  and as might be expected
 he* is only  addirig fuel to the fire.


    11. Mania apotu, or Temporary Madness.

  This disease, with all its attendant horrors, is
the legitimate consequence  of  intemperance, and
is caused by it alone.  It is  of  the most ferocious
and intractable nature.  The  patient is violent
and outrageous,  attacks'every one around  him,
and can only be restrained by a strait-jacket.  The 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
131
fit is sometimes short-lived, continuing only a few
hours, or  a day or two-; while in other cases it
will last for two or three weeks, or even longer.
  It in general attacks confirmed drunkards only,
and usually comes on after a debauch of several
days' continuance. It sometimes commences with
loss of appetite, lassitude, and  frequent  rigors.
The pulse is feeble and increased in. frequency,
and the body is covered  with  a clammy sweat.
Sleep seldom blesses the unhappy victim with  its
presence, and where it does it is of a disturbed
and frightful character.   The,, most fantastic or
the most horrid dreams  disturb and affright him.
Muscat volitantes, oc objects still niore annoying,
and even terrific, are  constantly floating before
his disordered vision.' He is in the greatest afflic-
tion about his own affairs, which he thinks are in
the most chaotic disorder;  and he not unfre-
 quently imagines that those around him, and par-
 ticularly his most intimate friends, are engaged in
a conspiracy to defraud and ruin him.  AfteT con-
tinuing in this state for a period, which varies
 from a few hours to several days, the patient will
 frequently sink into a profound sleep, from which
 he will awake perfectly sane, and scarcely recol-
 lecting'any  thing that had occurred during  his

 ' iUometimes however proves fatal, and at others
 ends  in.permanent madness, or conficmed idiocy.

                12. Melancholy.

   No idea is a" more  mistaken one than  to ima-
 gine the drunkard a happy, or even a merry man, 
135              REMOTE EFFECTS
   I  mean taking the  average of the  twenty-four
   hours.   The  forced  and  unnatural  excitement
   which follows  the too free use of the  convivial
   glass, is succeeded by depression  and  misery
   which, to be fully understood, must be practically
   experienced.   The drunkard  is in  fact the most
   melancholy man in existence.'

      * The following anecdote will be found interesting, and
   not unaptly illustrates the depressing effects of inebriety,
   by whatever article it may be caused.
      An English  ambassador lately sent  to  a Mahometan
11  prince, was  conducted upon >his  arrival  at the palace
   through several richly decorated and spacious apartments
   crowded with  officers arrayed in superb dresses, to a
   room small in dimensions, but ornamented with the most
   splendid and costly furniture : the attendants withdrew.
   After a,short interval two persons of superior mien en«
   tered the saloon followed by state bearers, carrying under
   a lofty canopy a litter covered with delicate silks, and the
   richest cashmere shawls, upon which lay a human form,
   to all appearance dead, except that its head was dangling
   loosely from side to  side as the bearers moved into the
   room.  Two officers, holding rich fillagree salvers, car-
   ried each a chalice, and a vial containing a black fluid.
   The ambassador considering the spectacle to be connected
   with some court ceremony of mourning, endeavored to
   retire.  But he was soon undeceived by seeing the offi-
   cers hold up the head of the apparent corpse, and after
   gently chafing the throat, and returning the tongue which
   hung from a mouth relaxed and gaping, they  poured
   some of the black liquid into the throat and closed the
   jaws until it sank down the passage.  After «ix or seven
   times repeating the ceremony, the figure opened its ■ \  s
   and closed its mouth  voluntarily.   It then swallow  1  t
   large portion of  the, black fluid, and within the hour ;m
   animated being  sat on the couch with blood return! nu;
   into his lips,  and the feeble power of articulation.   In tin
   Persian language he addressed his visitor, and inqiiin  !
   the  particulars of his mission.   Within  two hours tins
   extraordinary person became alort, and his mind capalk 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
133
  Every thing wears a dismal and gloomy aspect
during his sober moments;  ' an aching void  is felt
which nothing can fill but a renewal of the cup,'
and every renewal  is   followed  by  additional
wretchedness.   Nothing can exceed the unuttera-
ble misery of the  drunkard's  morning hours—he
is a prey to remorse and the keenest anguish ari-
sing from  mispent time and wasted property, and
blasted expectations.  ' Brandy and  gin have not
the effect  of  the waters  of  Leth.


                  13. Madness.


   Sir John Sinclair remarks  that'the excessive
use of spirituous  liquors among the  lower ranks
of people  is justly considered a great cause of that
deplorable evil, insanity, to which they are liable,
as well  as those bilious and dropsical complaints

of arduous business.  The ambassador, after apologizing
for the liberty, ventured to inquire into the cause of the
scene he had just witnessed.
  •Sir,' said he, 'I am an inveterate opium taker ; I have
by slow degrees fallen into this melancholy excess.  Out
of the diurnal  twenty-four  periods of time, 1 continually
pass eighteen in this reverie. Unable to move, or to speak,
I am yet conscious, and the time  passes away amid the
phantoms of this pleasing imagination , nor should I ever
awake from the wanderings of this state had I not the
most faithful  and attached servants, whose regard and
religious duty  impel  them to watch my pulse.   As soon
as  my heart begins to falter, and ijy breathing m imper-
ceptible, except on a mirror, they immediately pour the
solution  of opium into my throat, as you have  seen.
Within four hours I shall have swallowed many ounces,
and much  time will not pass away ere I relapse into my
ordinary torpor.'    j,-. 
134            REMOTE EFFECTS
formerly so little known.'  Drunkenness itself is
a temporary madness;  but in  addition to this it
is one of the most  frequent causes of permanent
derangement, as is proved by the melancholy de-
tails of our insane asylums and hospitals.  And
indeed how can it be otherwise when,  as was
shown in a former section, the brain is so seriously
and constantly affected by intemperance ?  Wc
all  know that  there is  a mutual dependance be-
tween the  mind and the body, and that  the one
invariably sympathizes  with  the other.   But  In -
dependantly of organic lesion, caused  by  long-
continued  habits of inebriety, madness may be
brought on by the  sudden  and  outrageous excite-
ment of a violent debauch; and this derangement,
although thus  suddenly brought on, may be per-
manent.
  Shakspeare thus delineates it: ' O thou invisible
spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known
by, let  us call thee----Devil !   I remember a
mass of things, but nothing distinctly: a quarrel,
but nothing wherefore.   0 ! that men should put
an  enemy in  their mouths to steal  away  their
brains!  that we should  with joy, revel,  pleasure,
and applause, transform ourselves  into beasts !   I
will ask him for my place again: he shall tell me
I am a drunkard!  Had  I  as many mouths  as
hydra, such an answer  would stop them all.   To
be now a sensible man, by and  by  a fool, and pre-
sently a beast!  0, strange !  Every inordinate
cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil!' 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.         135
14. Effects of Inebriety on the Offspring of In-
              temperate Parents.

  There can be no doubt, for it is as well esta-
blished as any other fact in medicine, that the
temperament, general  degree of health,  habits,
predispositions, &c, of the parent are very apt to
descend to the child.   And if the  health of the
father or mother has  been impaired  by  a  long
course of inebriety, or their  intellectual power
much deteriorated, we  may expect to see its la-
mentable consequences in the  debilitated bodies
and enervated minds of  their unhappy progeny.
Probably this effect is more striking, and its results
more appalling, where the mother is a devotee of
this disgusting practice, than if the father only be
in the habit of it.  The influence of the mother's
habits over the physical as well as the moral and
intellectual character of the children seems to be
of a more decided nature than that of the father.
How doubly awful then does the guilt of this vice
appear when viewed in this two-fold aspect!
  In connexion with the influence of the mother's
habits upon the  health  and  constitution of the
child, we cannot too strongly reprobate the perni-
cious practice,  still but too common, of nursing
women employing habitually  brandy and other
alcoholic stimulants, in order, as is said, to afford
them strength to sustain  the  new call made upon
them.  To say nothing of the danger to the mo-
ther herself of  forming in  this way habits of
intemperance, is there not great danger of sen- 
136             REMOTE EFFECTS
 ously affecting the health of the child,* if not m
 early instilling  into it  a taste for ardent spirits :
 We all know that the  milk of the nurse is  not »
 little influenced by the  diet and  medicines  sli-
 may  use.  The infant can be purged by oil or
 calomel  taken  bv the nurse:  and have we not ;h
 much reason to fear that the constant employment
 of such powerful agents as brandy, cordials,    .,
 may exert an equally powerful influence upon tl
 tender and susceptible, and excitable frame  of ;,n
 infant?  "We  have all  seen these, deleterious  in-
 fluences, when the intemperate habits of the parens
 have  been carried to a very great extent, in  tl
 production of dropsy of the brain,  imbecility of
 mind, and a long train of physical and intellectual
 evils, which perhaps  at the time may have been
 attributed to hereditary predisposition, or to other
 causes.   There  cannot  be the least excuse for this
 indulgence on the part of the nurse, for it is  not
 only always useless, but positively injurious.!
  A  suitable  and nutritious  diet will be amply
 sufficient to sustain a woman while  nursing, and
 she may rest  assured will be much more condu-
 cive to  her own health and that of  her tender
 charge,  than the  artificial  stimulus  of  ardent
spirits can possibly be.

  * In pueritia lac, sensim dilutuis, rleinde aqua in robore
aetatis, in senectute vinum molle, edenlutum.—Boerhaave.
  f Doctor North  remarks, that children nursed by in-
temperate women  are peculiarly liable to derangements
of the digestive organs  and  convulsive affections ; and
that he has seen the latter almost instantly removed by the
 child being transferred to a temperate woman. 
ON THE CONSTITUTION.
137
           15. Premature Old Age.

  This is  an  universal and striking effect of in-
temperate habits.  The drunkard ' does not live
out half his days.'   Long before the winter of age
has come on we can see  in the inebriate the de-
structive effects of  his  beastly  habits—in  his
wrinkled face—his sunken eye—his  quivering
lip—his stammering tongue—his feeble and un-
certain and tottering  step—and his hoary head,
which looks as if bleached by the frosts of many
years.   Nor is the mind—'that  nobler part of
man'—less a wreck than the body.  Loss of me-
mory, deficiency of judgment, excess of timidity,
depression of spirits, want of energy, all indicate
a mind enervated and overthrown  by debauchery
and dissipation.
12* 
1S8            EFFECTS ON THE
                 CHATER VI.

          Effects on the Moral Character.

    The destructive—I may say the  awful effects
 of intemperance on  the moral character of man
 all admit, for all behold  them.  This branch of
 the subject it  is my intention to touch but curso-
 rily, leaving  it to the divine and the moralist to
 treat it as its overwhelming importance demands.
    'Intemperance!   Poverty!  Villany!  Deso-
 lation !  "What an assemblage is here !  how dread-
 ful and how real! can it be read without concern,
 or is it possible it should  be seen every day with
 indifference?'
    Ardent spirits, freely and habitually taken, as
 effectually weaken and destroy the moral  sense
 as they  debilitate and undermine the  physical
 constitution.
    Drunkenness seems to corrupt men, and lead
 them on  to villany  and  to crime, not  only by
 taking away the restraints which generally control
 and  overawe them, but also by adding the tempta-
 tions of poverty which are apt to be too powerful
 for persons of this description to  resist, whose
 views are usually limited by the desire of present
, gratification.
    Drunkenness is the parent of idleness, and idle-
 ness of poverty; and  poverty  too  frequently of
 vice, degradation, and crime. 
MORAL CHARACTER.
139
  The drunkard is apt to consider his situation as
desperate—that  his   character  is  irretrievably
|08t—that  all  respectable men despise and  dis-
trust him, and that  his circumstances in these
respects cannot possibly be worse.   These reflec-
tions are rapidly preparing  him for any act of
villany, however awful or appalling.   With these
feelings he meets his half-intoxicated companions,
whom a similar course of vice and folly has re-
duced to a  similar situation; and they readily
become associated in the highway robbery, or the
midnight murder.
  The following are some of  the moral evils  pro-
duced by intemperance.   1. The temper is always
sooner or later rendered peevish, fretful, and  iras-
cible.  The  least contradiction, or the  slightest
Inconvenience, throws the habitual drunkard  into
a violent passion.  He is continually disposed  to
quarrel and find fault with those around him, and
especially with his   nearest  relations  and  best
friends.  His wife and children it affords him pe-
culiar pleasure to contradict, harrass, perhaps  even
to beat.  Those slight vexations which  it is the
lot of humanity  continually to encounter, and
which a temperate man  would scarcely regard for
a moment, are  serious evils in the  view of the
drunkard, and effectually destroy his peace  of
mind for  hours.  His acquaintances are obliged
to be constantlv on their guard from fear of giving
offence, for he" frequently flies into  a  rage  at a
word or a look, when no offence was  intended or
imagined. 
140
EFFECTS ON THE
£. A regularly increasing Contempt for the restraints
             of Moral Obligation.

  This disregard of moral rectitude is a gradual
but almost invariable  attendant upon intempe-
rance.*  The drunkard  perhaps  first becomes
regardless  of his appointments or engagements.
He will break or neglect them without shame  or
remorse.  He will defer or refuse to pay his debts.
He forfeits his character as  a man of veracity.
His word cannot  be depended on even where  he
has no interest in falsifying.   From these devia-
tions from the path of moral rectitude he proceeds
with rapid strides to crimes of greater magnitude
and deeper dye.


 3. A total disregard for the happiness of others.

  The drunkard is eminently a selfish being. He
cares for no one but himself.   Give him his bottle
and gratify his  personal wishes; and family and
friends will form no object of solicitude or anxiety
to him.  His friends may be mortified—his pro-
 ertymay be wasting—his wife maybe unhappy—
 is children may be starving—but all—all will be
unheeded in his downward road to destruction.

  • The suitor, to whom  Philip had not done justice,
Mid, *I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.'
 
MORAL CHARACTER.
141
 4. A Contempt of the Good Opinion of the World.

   No man, whose moral  sense is delicate and
 refined,  can be  insensible to the  estimation in
 which he is held by  his  fellow men.   But the
 drunkard will sacrifice re^uti'Jion—character—all.
 that the wise and good  hold dear, rather than re-
 linquish the intoxicating bowl.   He is  heedless of
 the blast of infamy.   He  is regardless alike of
 the contempt and the admonitions of those around
 him.

        5.  Idleness and Prodigal Habits.

   These consequences never fail to follow in. the
 train of intemperance.  The drunkard is, we had
 almost said, necessarily a  spendthrift.   He not
 only expends Iris property in buying  the intoxi-
 cating draught, but he squanders it in  silly ex-
 penses,  or  wastes  it  by ridiculous and foolish
 bargains.   And indeed this latter circumstance,
 against which no drunkard can be secure, is often
 more destructive of his property  than idleness
 and the actual expense of the liquor combined.


 6. Intemperance leads to a neglect of, and contempt
       for  Religion and its Institutions*

  * ' I wept because I thought of my own condition—of
that there is no hope that it should ever change.  The
waters have gone over me.  But out of the black depths
could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have
but set a foot in the perilous flood.   Could the youth— 
 142    EFFECTS ON THE MORAL CHARACTER.

 to whom  the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the
 opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly.
 discovered paradise—look into my desolation, and  be
 made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man
 shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes
 and a passive will—to see his destruction  and have  no
 power to stop it, and yet  to feel it all the way emanating
 from  himself: to perceive all  goodness emptied out  of
 him, and yet not to be able to forget a time when it was
 otherwise  : to  bear about the  piteous spectacle  of his
 own self-ruin:—could he sec my fevered eye, feverish
 with last  night's drinking, and feverishly looking for-
ward to this night's repetition of the folly :  could he feel
the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with
feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered—it were enough
to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in
all the pride of its  mantling  temptation : to  make  him
clasp his teeth,

                         «And not undo 'em ;
     To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.'

                       ' Confessions of a Drunkard.' 
INTELLECTUAL EVILS.           143
               CHAPTER VII.

       Intellectual Evils of Intemperance.

  Although perhaps the intellectual are r.c>t so
 completely wrecked as the moral powers by intem-
 perance, yet they are beyond a doubt not a  little
 impaired  and  weakened.   Possibly  some of the
 lighter faculties of the  mind, as the imagination
 may in some rare cases, even be quickened by the
 exciting effects of alcohol, but this i^ only a tem-
 porary result,  while the permanent effect is de-
 cidedly injurious.
  The drunkard soon  loses  that  vivacity and
 sprightliness of intellect which is characteristic
 of mental  and corporeal health.   His mind be-
 comes clouded, his  perceptions are  obscure, and
 he is, so far  as his  intellectual powers are con-
 cerned, like one exhausted  by a long fit of sick-
 ness.   His judgment is impaired, and he loses the
 power  of weighing  and discriminating different
 motives which  may be presented to influence his
 conduct.  His memory also is affected.  He can-
 not recollect or relate distinctly any circumstance
 which requires a considerable exertion of this
 faculty.
  The inebriate also loses that method  and regu-
larity in his pursuits which perhaps distinguished
him in his sober days.  Every thing is  in confu- 
144
INTELLECTUAL evils
     sion.  Trouble,perplexity,doubt,and uncertain!
     are obvious in his whole course, of conduct: liU
     a man in  a confused and  ill-assorted dream, In
     never knows when he is doing a thing in its |.rn|>n
     place, or in the right manner.
       Another misfortune experienced  by the drunk-
     ard is the loss of all energy of character.   Miri-
     ness—which before was entered upon with pleasure
     and alacrity, and* pursued with zeal and niei-n-y—
     now terrifies and perplexes.  The  slightest obsta-
     cles, or  the most trifling embarrassments, over-
     come the drunkard, and induce him to relinquish
     in disgust and despair any plan however necessary
     or important.  Exertion of every kind is oppres-
     sive and distressing; and long-continued, perse-
    vering labor is entirely out of the question.
      Doctor South asks, ' who has a stupid intellect,
*   a broken memory, and a blasted wit; and, which
    is worse than all, a blind and benighted conscience,
    but the  intemperate and luxurious, the epicure
    and the smell-feast ?  So impossible  is it for a
    man to turn sot without  making himself a block-
    head too.'
      The human mind is susceptible  of excitement
    without  the application of  powerful stimulants;
    and we may  rank the comparative  talents of
    different individuals pretty nearly as they possess,
    or are destitute of this capability.
      How  revolting and  degrading  then  is  it for
    intellectual and immortal beings to resort to ardent
    spirits for  that stimulus and excitement which
    they should receive from a contemplation of the
    wonderful works of nature,  and from the exertion 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
145
of those Godlike mental powers with which their
Creator has endowed them !
  There  is not a single faculty of the mind but
what is sooner or later impaired and weakened by
intemperate habits.  Invention,  memory, judg-
ment, imagination, are all affected, and sometimes
almost destroyed.  The most profound and solid
judgment—the most brilliant and discursive ima-
gination—the most retentive and effective memory
—the  most pungent and  sarcastic wit  have all
been exhibited  in men remarkable for temperance
and  sobriety.  Milton,* Newton,  Franklin,  Sir
Wm. Jones, Washington, president Edwards, are
striking exemplifications of this truth.
  The inebriate loses all relish for the sublime in
nature, and the  beautiful in composition.  'The
noble  passages,' say the confessions of a drunk-
 ard, ' which formerly delighted  me in history, or
 poetic fiction,  now only draw a few weak tears
 allied to dotage.   My broken  and  dispirited  na-

  » The following is Milton's description of his morning

 0C«MyUmorning haunts are  where they should be,  at
 home!  Not sleeping or  concocting; the surfeits of an
 irregular feast, but up and stirring* in  winter  often eie
 the sound of any be 1 awake men p> labor, or to devo-
 Son Tsummer7 as oft with the bi/d that first rises  or
 not much tardier to read good authors, or cause thento
 be read, till attention be weary, or memory have its lull
 fcighT  then with useful and generous labor preserving
 Kody's health and hardiness, to render hgh some
 dear  and  not  lumpish, obedience to the mind, to the
 cauTe of reliSon and our country's liberty, when it shall
 reqSrefirmTearts in sound  bodies to stand  and cover
 SsUtions, rather than tofSee the: ruir.of our protest*
 tion, and the enforcement of a slavish 'life.
            15 
146   INTELLECTUAL f.vils of INTEMPERANCE.

ture seems to sink before any thing great or admi-
rable.  I perpetually catch myself in tears from
any cause  or none.  It is inexpressible how much
this infirmity  adds to a sense of shame,  and  a
general feeling of deterioration.' 
alcohol with intoxicating ARTICLES.  147
              CHAPTER VIII.

Effects of Alcohol influenced by  the intoxicating
                   article.

  The same quantity of alcohol drunk daily will
produce  very  different  effects on  the system,
according  to the  article which is made use of.
Thus a bottle of wine, althotfgh it may contain as
much alcohol as a pint of brandy, will  affect an
individual  very differently,  especially if habitu-
ally taken;  and even  rum,  gin, whiskey,.&c,
vary in their consequences from brandy, and from
each other; and malt liquors from all.
  It has been demonstrated that wines of the same
specific  gravity,  and of course containing the
same absolute proportion, of spirit, possess very
different intoxicating  powers : and hence it was
formerly supposed that alcohol must  necessarily
exist in  wine  in a very different condition from
that in which we  know it in  a  separate state—
that its elements only could be found in the vinous
liquor, and that  their union was caused, and of
course alcohol produced by the action of  distil-
lation.
  Rouelle maintained that alcohol was the product,
not the educt of distillation,  and  that it was not
completely  formed until the  temperature  was
raised to the point of distillation: this doctrine 
148
effects of alcohol
 was more  recently revived and promulgated by
 Fabbroni in the memoirs of the Florentine aca-
 demy.  Gay Lussac  however has  refuted  this
 opinion by separating the alcohol by distillation at
 the temperature  of 66 degrees Fahrenheit,  and
 by the aid of a vacuum it has since been effected
 at 56 degrees,  and besides it has been shown by
 precipitating the coloring water  and some of  the
 other elements of wine by sub-acetate of lead,
 and then saturating the clear liquor with sub-car-
 bonate of potass, that  the alcohol  may be com-
 pletely separated without any elevation of tem-
 perature, and in  this way  Mr. Brande  has been
 enabled to construct  a table exhibiting the pro-
 portions of combined  alcohol which exist in  the
 several  kinds of  wine.   No  reasonable  doubt
therefore can remain  upon this  subject, and  the
difference in the effect of  the  same quantity of
&fCohol  upon the human system in various states
 of combination is owing to the unintelligible power
 of chemical combination in modifying the activity
 of different substances.  'In the present instance
 the  alcohol is  so combined with  the extractive
 matter of the wine that it  is probably  incapable
 of exerting its  full   specific  effects  upon  the
 stomach before it becomes altered in its properties,
 or, in other words, digested; and this view of the
 subject may be  fairly urged in explanation  of the
 reason why the intoxicating effects of  the same
 wine are so liable to vary in degree in' the same
 individual,  from the peculiar state of his digestive
 organs at the time of his potation.   Hitherto we
 have only spoken of pure wino, but it is essential
 to state that  the stronger wines of Spain, Portu- 
WITH INTOXICATING ARTICLES.       149
gal, and Sicily, are rendered  remarkable in this
country by the.addition of brandy, and must con-
sequently  contain uncombincd alcohol, the pro-
portion of which however will not  necessarily
bear a ratio to the quantity added,  because at the
period of its admixture a renewed  fermentation is
produced  by the  scientific vintner,  which will
assimilate  and combine a certain  portion  of the
foreign spirit with the wine: this manipulation in
technical language is ca\\ed fretting-in.  The free
alcohol may, according to the experiments  of
Fabbroni, be immediately separated by saturating
the  vinous fluid  with sub-carbonate  of  potass,
while  the  combined portion  will  remain undis-
turbed: in  ascertaining the fabrication and salu-
brity of a wine, this  circumstance ought  always
to constitute a leading feature  in the inquiry; and
the tables of Mr. Brande would have been  greatly
enhanced in practical value had the relative pro-
portions of uncombined spirit been appreciated in
his experiments, since it is to  this, and not to the
combined alcohol that the injurious effects of wine
are to  be attributed.   It is well known, observes
Dr. Macculloch,  that diseases of the liver are the
most common, and the most  formidable of those
produced by the use of ardent spirits; it is equally
certain that no such disorders  follow the intempe-
rate use of pure wine, however long indulged in:
to the concealed  and unwitting consumption of
spirit, therefore, as  contained  in the wines  com-
monly drunk in   this country is to be attributed
the  excessive  prevalence of those hepatic affec-
tions which are comparatively  little known to our
continental  neighbors.  Thus  much  is  cerfein^
        IS* 
150
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL
that their ordinary wines  contain no alcohol but
what  is disarmed of its virulence by the prophy-
lactic energies of combination.'*
The following is Mr. Brande's		table of the alcoholic
strength of liquors :—		Proportion of Spirit per cent, per meauurc.
1. Lissa	.	- 26.47
Ditto -	.	- 24.35
Average	-v	----25.41
2. Raisin wine	. ,	- 26.40
Ditto	.	- 25.77
Ditto	.	- 23.20
Average	-	----25.12
3, Marsala	.	26.03
Ditto	.	- 25.05
Average	-	----25.09
4- Madeira	.	- 24.42
Ditto	.	- 23.93
Ditto (Sircial)	.	- 21.40
Ditto	.	- 19.41
Average	-	----22.27
5. Currant wine	.	- 20.55
6. Sherry	-	- 19.81,
Ditto	.	- 19.83
Ditto	.	- 18.79
Ditto	.	- 18.25
Average	.	----19.17
f. Teneriffe -	.	- 19.79
8. Colares	.	- 19.75
9. Lachryma Christi	.	- 19.70
10. Constantia (white)	-	- 19.75
11. Ditto (red)	.	- 18.92
12. Lisbon	.	- 18.94
13. Malaga (1666) -	.	- 18.94
14. Bucellas	.	- 18.49
15. Red Madeira	.	- 22.30
Ditto	.	- 18.40
Average	.	----20.35
l§. CapeMuschat	-	- 18-25
* Paris's pharmacologia, 
WITH INTOXICATING ARTICLES.      151
  We will now offer a few remarks on the pecu-
liar effects of the ordinary intoxicating drinks.
		Proportion of Spirit
		per cent, per measure.
17.	Cape Madeira	- 22 94
	Ditto	- 20.50
	Ditto	- 18.11
	Average	----20.51
18.	Grape wine	- 18.11
19.	Calcavella	- 19.20
	Ditto	• 18.10
	Average	----18.65
20.	Vidonia	- 19.25
21.	Alba Flora	- 17.26
22.	Malaga	- 17.26
23.	White Hermitage	- 17.43
24.	Rousillon	- 19.00
	Ditto	- 17.26
	Average	----18.13
25.	Claret	- 17.11
	Ditto	- 16.32
	Ditto	- 14.08
	Ditto	- 12.91
	Average	----15.10
26.	Malmsey Madeira	- 16.40
27.	Lunel - ,-	- 15.52
28.	Shiraz	- 15.52
29.	Syracuse - - •	- 15.28
30.	Sauterne	. ' - 14.22
31.	Burgundy	- 16.60
	Ditto	15.22
	Ditto	- 14.53
	Ditto	- 11.95
	Average	----14.57
32.	Hock	14.37
	Ditto	. 13.00
	Ditto (old in cask)	8.88
	Average	----12.08
33.		
34.	Barsac	.* 13.86
35.	Tent	. 13.30
 
152
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL
                 1. Ardent  Spirits.

  It is now well ascertained that although brandy,
rum, gin, whiskey, and cider spirits contain nearly
                                Proportion of Spirit
                              per cent, per measure
36. Champaign (still)     -     -    13.80
      Ditto (sparkling)   -   -    12.80
      Ditto (red)   -    -     -    12.56
      Ditto (ditto)     -   -   -    11.30
        Average   -    -     -    ----12 ol
37. Red Hermitage     -   -   -    12.32
38. Vin de Grave    -    -    -    13.94
        Ditto     -      -•     -    12.80
        Average   -    -     -    ----13.37
39. Frontignac"    -     -     -    12.79
40. Cote Rotie     -     -     -   12.32
41.  Gooseberry wine     -     -   11.84
42.  Orange wine—average of six
     samples made by a London
	manufacturer	11.26
43.	Tokay ....	9.88
44.	Elder wine ...	9.88
45.	Cider, highest average	9.87
	Ditto, lowest average ■*-	5.21
46.	Perry, average of four samples	7.26
47.	Mead - ...	7.32
48.	Ale (Burton)	8.88
	Ditto (Edinburgh)	6.20
	Ditto (Dorchester)	5.56
	Average	---- 6.87
49.	Brown stout	6.80
50.	London porter, average	4.20
51.	London small beer, average	1.28
52.	Brandy ....	53.39
53.		53.68
54.	Gin.....	51.60
55.	Scotch whisky	54.32
56.	Irish (ditto)	53.90
 
        WITH INTOXICATING ARTICLES.      153

the same proportion of alcohol, yet their  effects
on the human  system are considerably varied;
and from causes which are not yet  perfectly un-
derstood.  It was formerly supposed, that of these
brandy was  the  least prejudicial to health; but
Shannon, in his elaborate  and  useful  work on
brewery, contends  that brandy is the worst  form
in which alcohol can be taken ;  and in this opinion
he is  sustained by most of the late writers  on this
subject.
  I am inclined to think however that more stress
is laid upon this point than its importance justifies.
It is probable that, as  gin  and whiskey possess
considerable diuretic properties, this may in  some
measure diminish  their  injurious tendency, and
thus  render their  destructive effects less to  be
dreaded than those of brandy.  But their general
operation is unquestionably  very  similar:  their
immediate and  remote   consequences  are  alike
disastrous and appalling.
  Compared with wine and malt liquors their in-
fluence is more rapidly and decidedly  felt.   They
intoxicate sooner, and are more apt to give rise to
inflammatory complaints than the former.   They
are also vastly more  destructive of human life.
When taken in large quantities they cause imme-
diate prostration, coma, stupor, and even death.
   The drinker of ardent spirits may always be
known  by  his  wrinkled  and  dejected  visage,
bloated  and sallow countenance, inexpressive eye,
quivering lip,  and stammering tongue.
   If they be taken habitually, instead of  becom-
ing corpulent, the tippler almost invariably grows
emaciated—is harassed with dyspepsia-indurated 
154
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL
liver—dropsy—and  a  wretched  and  premature
old ao-e__or a miserable death soon overtakes him.
                   2.  J Vines.

  The exhilarating and intoxicating effect of wine,
like that of ardent spirits, is soon felt  upon the
system.   But its remote effects on the health  and
happiness of the individual when taken habitually
and in large quantities, although abundantly dele-
terious,  are much  less so than  those  of ardent
spirits.
  Unlike the brandy drinker, the wine bibber, with
Falstaff, can boast the «paunch  well  lined with
capon ;" and with this  superabundance of body
he is also blessed with  a full rotundity of face.
The diseases too which afflict the two races of
topers are,  in  a considerable degree,  different.
' Wine,' says Rush,' attacks the extremities, while
rum, like a bold invader, seizes at once upon the
vitals, and  takes the citadel  by storm.'  Wine
produces gout—brandy dyspepsia, scirrhous liver,
and  dropsy.

                3. Malt Liquors.

   Some authors  assert that the evil consequences
 resulting  from an  excessive  use of malt  liquors
 are even more to be dreaded than those of alcohol
 in other forms.  They contend  that  this is the
 case, because, in addition to the intoxicating prin-
 ciple, some poisonous ingredients are generally
 added  for  the  purpose of  preserving  them, and 
WITH INTOXICATING ARTICLES.        155
giving them  their bitter taste.  We have good
reason for believing, that occasionally the most
deadly narcotic poisons are actually employed for
this purpose, as opium, belladonna, cocculus Indi-
cus, hyosciamus,* lauro cerasus,-&c.


  * This plant was employed by the Assassin Prince, com-
monly called the ' old man of the Mountain,' to intoxicate
those whom he wished  to engage in his service.
  The following eloquent passage from a modern writer
will prove interesting :
  «There was at Alamoot, and  also at Masiat in Syria, a
 delicious garden encompassed with lofty walls, adorned
 with trees and flowers of every kind—with murmuring
  rooks and translucent lakes—with bovvers of roses and
 trellisses of the vine—airy balls  and splendid kiosks, fur-
 nished with carpets of Persia,  and silks of Byzantium.
 Beautiful maidens  and blooming  boys were the inhabi-
 tants  of this delicious spot,  which resounded  with the
 melody of birds, the murmur of streams,  and  the  tones
 and voices of instruments—all respired contentment and
 pleasure.  When the Chief had noticed any youth to be
 distinguished for strength and resolution, he invited him
 to a banquet, where he placed  him beside himself, con-
 versed with him on the happiness reserved for the faith-
 ful, and contrived  to  administer to him an intoxicating
 draught prepared from the hyosciamus.  While insensible
 he was conveved  to  the  garden of delight,  and there
 awakened by "the  application  of  vinegar.  On opening
 his eyes all paradise met his view ; the black-eyed and
 blue-robed houris surrounded him obedient to his wishes;
 sweet  music filled his  ears ,  the richest  viands  were
 served up in tlie  most costly  vessels, and  tlie choicest
  wines  sparkled in golden cups.  The fortunate youth
  believed himself really in the  paradise of the Prophet,
  and the language of his attendants confirmed this delusion.
  When he had had his fill of enjoyment, and nature was
  vieldineto exhaustion, the opiate was again administered,
  and the sleeper transported  back to the side of the Chief,
  to whom he communicated what had passed, and wfto
  assured him of the truth and reality of all he had experi- 
 156  ALCOHOL WITH  INTOXICATING AK1ICLKS.

   But this seems rather a forced view of the sub-
 ject, for although it cannot  be denied that these
 ingredients are occasionally made use of, yet this
 is certainly not the case generally.   And we have
 good reason for believing that malt liquors are the
 most innocent form in which alcohol can be taken,
 if we  except  perhaps  pure cider,  and  the light
 wines.   The  immoderate use  of  this  beverage
 however is attended with no little inconvenience,
 and sometimes even with danger.   The  porter
 drinker  becomes  immoderately fat—his intellect
 is rendered  stupid and  inert,  and  his eyes are
 heavy and destitute of expression.   His  circula-
 tion is slow and impeded, and his respiration ster-
 torous and difficult.
  He is in continual danger of apoplexy and palsy,
and  is often  carried  off by these fell  foes of the
drunkard.  The great  relief afforded by even  a
slight bleeding to  the clogged and heavy machine
of the  porter drinker,  sufficiently  indicates  the
excess of blood with  which he is loaded.

enced, telling him such was the bliss reserved  for the
obedient servants of the Imaum,  and enjoining at the
same time the strictest secrecy. Ever after the rapturous
vision possessed thcimagination of the deluded enthusiast,
and he panted when  the hour of death, received in obey-
ing the commands of his superior, should dismiss him to
the bowers of paradise.'—Von Hammer's History of the
Assassins 
COMBUSTION OF DRUNKARDS.       157
              CHAPTER  IX.

    Spontaneous Combustion of Drunkards.*

  It is now several  years  since  accounts of the
spontaneous  combustion of  habitual drunkards
were first published to the world.  But  the  facts
teemed so incredible—so  contrary  to the  ordi-
nary course of events, that the medical profession
and the  philosophic  public  were very  slow  in
giving credence to them.  At present  however
these  cases have multiplied  so much, and  have
been attested by such good authority, and in so
many different ways, that it  seems impossible to
doubt the reality of their existence.
  So far as I know, the earliest case on  record is
the  following, contained in the Journal  de  Phy-
sique  by Pierre Ame  Lair.  ' A  woman of the
lower class in Copenhagen in 1692, who had used
spirituous liquors to such extent that she would
take no other nourishment, having sat down one
evening on a straw chair to sleep, was consumed
in the night time, so that next morning no part of
her was found but the skull and the extreme joints
of the  fingers: all the rest of her  body, says  Jaco-
boeus,  was reduced to ashes.'
  The following striking case is related by Doctor
Peter  Schofield of the province of Upper Canada.

                * See Appendix.
          14 
158         SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

Speaking of cases of spontaneous combustion  in
drunkards  he says—;One  happened under  my
own observation.   It was the case of a young man
about twenty-five years of age :  he had been an
habitual drinker for many years.   I saw him about
nine o'clock in the evening on which it happened.
He was then, as usual, not drunk, but full of
liquor.  About eleven the same evening I wa*
called to see him.   1 found him  literally roasted
from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet
He was found in a blacksmith's shop just across
the way from where he had been.   The owner all
of a sudden discovered an extensive light in his
shop as though the whole building was in one
general flame.  He  ran with the greatest precipi-
tancy, and on flinging open the door discovered a
man standing erect in  the  midst  of  a widely
extended silver-colored blaze, bearing, as he de-
scribed  it, exactly the appearance of the wick of
a burning candle in the midst of its own flame.
He seized him by the shoulder and jerked him to
the door,  upon which the flame was instantly
extinguished.
  There was no fire in the shop, neither was there
any possibility of fire having been communicated
to him from any external  source.   It was purely
a case of spontaneous ignition.  A general slough-
ing soon came on, and his flesh was  consumed, or
removed in the dressing, leaving  the bones and a
few  of  the  larger  bloodvessels  standing.   The
blood nevertheless  rallied around the  heart, and
maintained the vital spark until the thirteenth day,
when he died, not only the  most loathsome, ill-
featured, and dreadful picture that was ever pre- 
OF DRUNKARDS.
159
gented to human  view, but his  shrieks, his cries,
and lamentations, were enough to rend a heart of
adamant.  He complained of no  pain  of body—
his flesh was gone.  He said he was suffering the
torments of hell; that he was just upon its thres-
hold, and should  soon enter its dismal caverns;
and in this frame of mind gave up the ghost.  0,
the death of a drunkard !   Well may it be said
to beggar all description.   I have seen  other
drunkards die, but never in a manner so awful
and affecting.  They usually go off senseless and
stupid as it regards a  future state!'
   This whole subject is one of great  interest to
the philosophic inquirer, and deserves further and
more scientific investigation than has yet  been
bestowed  upon  it.  Various theories have  been
 proposed to account for this singular phenomenon.
 Some have supposed it was owing to the formation
 of phosphuretted  hydrogen in the body.   This
 gas, it is well known, will take fire on  exposure to
 the air; but there seems no proof that (if found
 at all in the human system), it is produced in such
 quantities as to account for the combustion of the
 whole body. We must therefore content ourselves
 with declaring our ignorance  as to the causes of
 spontaneous combustion; although there can be
 nV doubt, after all  the  evidence  that has been
 adduced on this subject,  that such instances have
 actually occurred.*
   * I am indebted to Professor Silliman for the following
 remark—«The entire body having become saturatea
 S aTcohol absorbed into all its tissues. ^^X
 inflammable, as indicated by the vapor jluch£e*s <u°bt_
 the breath and lungs of a drunkard .  thi* vaporya
 less highly alcoholic, may take fire, and then  the   y
 slowly consume.' 
160         ALCOHOLIC STIMULANTS
                CHAPTER  X.

Do Alcoholic Stimulants Contribute to Strength ?

  This question has at different times given  rise
to no little discussion, but it seems at last irre-
versibly decided in the negative.  The idea which
formerly prevailed,  that alcoholic liquors contri-
bute permanently to strength, arose no doubt from
the temporary feelings of excitement and  appa-
rent strength  which they  occasion.  But these
illusions have long since vanished before  the rea-
sonings and observations of a  more correct phi-
losophy, and a more extended experience.
  Lord Bacon  has  somewhere remarked, that a
regimen which  conduces to the prolongation of
life maybe injurious to health; and that a regi-
men beneficial  to  health  may abridge life—but
although  this may in some instances be true, yet
as there is a close and intimate connexion  between
health  and permanent strength, we may suppose
that whatever conduces to the one will contribute
to the  other; and hence the best  way of ascer-
taining whether  alcoholic  stimulants   increase
strength is to inquire into their effects on health.
  The different degrees of debility, which may of
course vary from the slightest  degree of exhaus-
tion to almost total prostration, can be relieved by
two methods,  the  one gradual, the other rapid. 
AS REGARDS STRENGTH.
161
 The gradual mode consists in employing sleep,
 rest, and food, or in other words accumulating the
 vital principle :  the rapid mode is by the applica-
 tion of diffusible stimuli, i. e., calling into action
 the vital principle which remains; as in syncope
 we apply ammonia, or  any other pungent odor,
 to the nostrils.
   Now the question is, which of these modes, the
 rapid or the gradual, is most  likely to answer the
 purpose ?   No one can doubt a moment as to the
 answer.  The  one is the order  of  nature—the
 other is artificial—the one, although more dilatory
 in its operation, is unattended by any unpleasant
 consequences;  while the other is  sure  to  be fol-
 lowed  by lassitude  and depression  exactly pro-
 portioned to the amount of excitement and stimulus
 applied and felt.
 k In the beautiful  and  expressive  language of
'nother, the  stimulant restoratives may be com-
 pared to a 'stream which nourishes a plant upon
 its bank, and causes it to flourish and blossom to
 the sight, while  at the same moment  it  is  under-
 mining it at the root.'
   Rest, sleep, and food, are amply sufficient to re-
 pair the fatigue and restore the exhausted energy of
 all animated existence—* they are sufficient for the
 tribe in the branches of the forest, and for the deer
 which  range below, for the flock on the mountain's
 side, and for the herd in the pasture of  the valley.
 They are sufficient for the elephant, for the tiger,
 and the lion'—but man, poor deluded  man ! not
 satisfied with  nature's  ample provision  for the
 restoration of strength,  and  the  preservation of
 health, must have recourse to alcoholic stimulants.
         14* 
162
ALCOHOLIC  STIMULANTS
The absurdity of such a course  is  strongly de-
picted by Milton in speaking of Sampson.

  ' O madness ! to think use of strongest wines
  And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
  When God, with these forbidden, made choice to reap
  His mighty champion, strong above compare,
  Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.'

  Who would think of applying the whip or the
spur to a jaded  and exhausted horse, in order to
increase his strength, and restore  his accustomed
vigor ?  Yet such a course is not  more ridiculous
or absurd than  that man's who employs  brandy,
or rum, or gin to invigorate his enervated stomach
when disordered by improper diet, or long fasting,
or excessive fatigue—in both  instances, to be sure,
new life and fresh animation, and apparent strength
would  be imparted,  but we all  know that the
horse will eventually yield sooner than if a more
merciful and rational course had  been adopted;
and so it  is with the  wretched inebriate who re-
lies for aid on the stimulus of ardent spirits.
  It is an undoubted fact that some periods of life
can bear  the excitement of alcoholic stimulants
with less injury than others.   Probably the most
injurious time of administering spirituous  pota-
tions is in infancy and early youth.   At this tender
age the fibres are more  susceptible of excitement
and irritation, the functions are more easily disor-
dered, and the  foundation may be laid of future
disease which may then be incurable.  The intel-
lectual  and  moral faculties seem also  at this
period peculiarly liable to deterioration ;  and we
doubt not that  the literary  progress of many  a 
             AS REGARDS STRENGTH.         163

talented child has  been impeded, arid his moral
sense deadened by the early administration of
stimulating drinks.  How much then  is this ridi-
culous and disgusting  practice,  which unfortu-
nately is still by no means uncommon among  the
mothers of our country, to be deprecated !
  Indeed the absurdity of the notion that the con-
stant and  habitual use of alcoholic  stimulants
contributes to permanent  strength is made mani-
fest by daily observation, as well as all past expe-
rience.  The long anthrapid marches of the ancient
Greek and  Roman armies, and the privations and
labors they underwent, are  much greater  than
could be endured by any modern European sol-
diery ; and yet these men drank no ardent spirits.
Some of the native East India troops  in the em-
ployment of the British government  possess the
same power, and their religious ideas and customs
deny them  spirituous liquors.  Sir John Moore's
army were found to improve in health during their
distressing march to Corunna as soon  as the usual
 allowance  of ardent spirits was unattainable.
   It is related by Niger that he forbade the use
 of wine in his army, wishing the soldiers to accus-
 tom themselves to vinegar mixed with water, in
 conformity with the ancient regulation.  It may
 readily be  imagined that such a reform would give
 great.offence to the troops: but Niger was reso-
 lute : and some soldiers, who guarded the frontiers
 of Egypt,  having one  day asked  him'for some
 wine—' What do you  say,' replied he to them,
 'you have the Nile, and wine is  unnecessary for
 you.'  Upon another occasion, some of his troops,
 being conquered by the Saracens, excused them- 
164
ALCOHOLIC  STIMULANTS
selves  upon the  plea of weakness owing to this
regulation.  ' An excellent reason,' said he,' for
your conquerors drink nothing but water.'
  In what manner different stimulants when taken
into the stomach  act upon the system  is a ques-
tion of no little interest  to the pathologist and
physiologist; and yet is one which is still involved
in great obscurity.  The mode in which these sub-
stances act is  not perhaps absolutely incompre-
hensible, for  who will dare to set bounds to human
ingenuity, or to say that  there are any laws of
nature so obscure that  they may not yet yield to
human industry?
  But, however this may be, we are at least cer-
tain that the hypotheses which have hitherto been
proposed are far from being satisfactory upon this
point.
  Some substances when  taken into the stomach
increase the  activity and vigor of all the organs
of the body: this is the case with nourishing food
of all kinds with tonics, alcohol, opium, &c.  These
we  would call general stimulants.
  There are other  substances again which, when
taken into the stomach, increase the activity and
vigor of some particular  organ of the  body, as
tartar emetic, castor oil, &c.  These are  local
stimulants.
  Many articles belong to both these classes : but
all  stimulants  necessarily increase  action, the
effect being proportioned  to the nature of the arti-
cle, to the quantity taken, to the frequency of its
repetition, and to the circumstances under which
it is employed. 
AS REGARDS STRENGTH.         165
  There  is  a great difference, not only in the
manner,  but the rapidity with  which  different
stimulants act.   Some produce their effect as soon
as taken into the stomach, while others do not,
except after long and  frequent repetition.   The
former are generally highly diffusible,  and their
operations transitory—the latter cause more per-
manent changes, and effect  those changes by ob-
scure and almost imperceptible gradations.
  It would seem as if there were a certain amount
of activity and  of  motive power in the human
system which alone is consistent with  health, or
there is a particular proportion in the activity  of
the  different parts of the  living system which
must be maintained in order  to  preserve health.
When this proportion is deranged, or this activity
suddenly and rapidly increased, disease and sick-
ness  necessarily follow.  All  highly  diffusible
stimulants are therefore, from the very nature of
their action, detrimental to health, since this nice
proportion—this  delicately adjusted equilibrium,
is by their use destroyed.  If such stimulants  be
used but once, or but seldom repeated, the healthy
relation between the action of the different parts
of the bodv may be quickly restored:  but if they
be used habitually  and frequently, this  relation is
forever destroyed,  and the health of the wretched
victim irrecoverably undermined.
   But it does not follow from  these  principles
that stimulants  may not be beneficial  in disease
because  here this  relation is already lost, and
stimulating  articles may afford  the only remedy
by which the equilibrium can be restored.  Y\ e
may therefore lay it down as an  incontrovertible 
166      ALCOHOL AS REGARDS STRENGTH.
axiom* that  stimulants  are always  injurious  in
health, although they may be, and sometimes are,
beneficial in disease.

  • A distinguished surgeon made the following experi-
ment.  He selected two children  in perfect  healtli, and
gave every day after dinner to one  a larg-e  China orange,
and to the other a glass of wine.  The former continued
to enjoy good health,  while the latter exhibited decided
indications of fever—with  furred  tongue, high-colored
urine, accelerated pulse, &c. &c. 
CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.        167
               CHAPTER  XI.

           Causes of Intemperance.

  In order  to apply with judgment  and effect a
remedy for  the relief or cure  of a  disease, the
physician generally thinks  it important  to make
himself acquainted with its causes as well as with
its symptoms and results.   And perhaps on the
same principle it may do something towards stay-
ing the flood of dissipation  and  intemperance
which is desolating our land,  to point out the
causes, and trace the steps  by which so many
drunkards are made.
   The causes which operate remotely and imme-
diately, directly and indirectly in  the extension
and increase  of this greatest of curses, are  as
various  as  the characters of  the individuals who
are operated upon by them.  But although it will
be impossible to detail all the circumstances which
may aid in producing this result, yet we can point
out some of the most prominent.
   Beyond  all doubt the most  powerful cause of
intemperance is the force of custom, the  power of
fashion, and example.*

   * The following anecdote places in bold relief the ab-
surdity of the practice of drinking, as well as the ioiiy
of devotion to fashion.-'In traveling some years; since^l
met with a young foreigner who, having spent his winter 
168         CAUSE* (>1;  INTEMPERANCE.
   Man is emphatically a creature of fashion.   If
 the practice of drinking  ardent  spirits  in  any


 in London, was about  to return to his native land.   He
 descanted with some satire and considerable vivacity upon
 the  manners  and customs of England, • but of all cus-
 toms,' said he, ' the most  ridiculous appears to me to be
 the mode in which you drink healths : one  would think
 that drunkenness was a virtue, and that in order to incite
 men to it, it was  necessary to persuade  them to swallow
 large potations, by associating with the glass the friend
 we value, or the mistress we iove.  I arrived in  the great
 metropolis with a desire to profit  by the  sources of im-
 provement which it affords; and, in  order to acquire
 useful commercial information, I had many recommenda-
 tions to your first merchants, but the  cup of knowledge
 was for ever put from my  lips by the cup of Circe, and
 the morning's  wish to be a man was* fatally counteracted
 by the daily conspiracy  which invariably made me a beast
 It was in vain  that I  pleaded my dislike to wine, my ina-
 bility to understand the political sentiment which I was
 called upon to pledge,  or the toast, the name  of a man of
 whom 1 had never heard :  I was answered by some trite
 remark of compliance  with  custom; which was enforced
 by an adage of * doing  at Rome as others do :' this pro-
 verb is translated very  literally by an Englishman for the
 benefit of all foreigners, but he can never be made to un-
 derstand it in any country but his own.  Having survived
 a course of dinners, with much suffering of body  and
 mind, I saw an election impending, and felt  that I must
 retreat or  die.   I prepared for my departure,  not with-
 out many imprecations upon  the demon so falsely called
 hospitality—how unlike the household deity I had been
 wont  to worship !  It was  necessary, before I  left the
 country, that I should  entertain  in return.  My friends
were invited, and my friends came.  The dinner was pre-
pared  at one of their best  taverns, and my  orders were
observed,  for it was plentiful and profuse :—when that
silent satisfaction prevailed, which declares that every man
has eat as much as he possibly can, I addressed my guests
to the following purport :—
  'I am very sensible of your kindness to a  stranger : I 
CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.        I H9
md every form could  once  be rendered unfash-
ionable—could be denounced as ungentcel, much,
nay, we may say, every thing would  be done to-
wards banishing intemperance from our country—
the victorv would be won.  But so  long as it is
fashionable  to drink—so long as the nauseous
custom of  treating (as  the vulgar  phrase it) is
universal—so long as  the office-seeker deals out
whiskey and rum to the office-giver—so long as
the farmer  distributes  the bottle  to  his  laborers,
and the mechanic to his journeymen, and the ma-


do not see one man here who has not vied with his neigh-
bor in performing the rites of hospitality in pursuance ot
[rood old customs, and for the glory of England.  You
have taught me how to be kind, and I m  my way will
endeavor to requite you.'  Upon giving a signal  a large
Westphalia  ham was set upon the table, and each man
furnished with implements for eating.  Having cut a large
piece, and put it upon my fork, I  stood  up with much
Solemnity and said, "the King!"  My guests endeavored
to evade this : Gentlemen, said I, I call you to order : this
 is not a matter of choice, and I  shall fine every man a
 bumper of ham who does not eat to the glory of that vn-
 tuous monarch.   It was in vain that my friends repeat-
 edly assured me that they could not eat that they disliked
  very sort of swine's flesh! that they should be seriously
 ill i  God forbid that you should not be sick, sard I, my
 fear friends -which of vou ever  suffered  me to depart
 3 or\n my senses ?  I trust that I am not less hosp,-
 S oHess  aUve  to the merits  of the great man you
 have teught me to reverence.   Not an orator in either
 nouseX be forgotten, not an admiral, or a^eneraUhat
 shall not have his corresponding  p.ece of ham.   Why




 recollected with advantage when I am far from them.
           15 
 170       C.WSKS OF  INTEMPERA.VK.

 nufacturer to his workmen—so long as men of all
 classes  consider the proffer of ardent  spirits a9
 indicative of the spirit  of hospitality—just so long
 will intemperance be rife in our land, and we be
 a nation of drunkards.
   Another cause of intemperance is the deplora-
 ble practice of parents indulging and encouraging
 it in their children, by giving them ardent spirits
 on all occasions,  and  keeping  it continually on
 their sideboards within the  reach of all  in the
 house.  . Nothing  can  be  expected of  children
 where such a custom is  adopted, but  that they
 should be  confirmed drunkards.   It is  serving a
 regular apprenticeship  to intemperance.
   Another circumstance which, I  am persuaded,
 has not  a little influence, is the stimulating food,
 and  especially the alcoholic  medicines adminis-
 tered to children  during  infancy.  At a  period
 when the diet should be of the  most bland and
 unirritating nature,  how  frequently  do  we see
 nurses and mothers feeding  the little sufferer
 with toddy in various forms, peppermint, and a
great variety of the most heating articles!  If the
 child,  from  overfeeding,  or  any  other  cause,
happens to have  pain in its stomach or bowels—
 nothing, says the skillful nurse, so good for colic
 as brandy toddy—it  removes the wind, and ena-
 bles the patient to digest his food !  If the stomach,
 after being loaded to excess, should  fortunately
 reject the heterogeneous mass with which it has
 been gorged, why nothing is so effectual  in reliev-
 ing nausea  as peppermint and gin !  If the infant
 should be  restless and cry,  paregoric, made of
 alcohol, spices, and opium, must be administered. 
CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.         1T1
  Thus  every indisposition, however trifling or
however caused, is made an excuse for crowding
down, in some form or other, alcohol and the most
stimulating articles which the materia medica fur-
nishes.  As if the nurse were making an  expe-
riment to see how much injury, moral, intellectual,
and physical  she could contrive to inflict on the
helpless being committed to her charge !   Is it not
a natural result from such a course, that the sto-
mach being  accustomed to a stimulating diet in
infancy when the system is susceptible to impres-
sions, and easily controlled by habit, should  at a
more mature age require a continuance  of the
same stimulus ?  The natural  delicacy  of the
mucous membrane  of the mouth and  stomach
being impaired  and  injured  by a long course of
stimulation—food of the  ordinary kind  becomes
insipid  and tasteless, and  recourse must be had to
bitters and tonics in order to supply the deficiency.
 I have no doubt that many a sot has been made by
 the injudicious use of alcoholic  medicines, and a
 stimulating regimen in infancy and early youth.
   Allied to this practice  is another  perhaps not
 less fatal—that of using spirituous tinctures and
 alcoholic bitters for  the cure of dyspepsia and its
 attendant evils. The unhappy victim is thus bed
 on blindfold to the very brink of destruction,  lie
 does not know  that, while he is thus endeavoring
 to relieve his dyspeptic evils, he is forming a habit,
 and creating a taste which will never desert him
 till they have wrought his ruin, and brought him
 to an  early and untimely grave.   Females are
 particularly exposed in this way to form intempe-
  ate habits, and I am inclined to believe that more 
17'2        CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.
female drunkards  ate made by this means than
by  any other.   They are peculiarly  subject to
dyspeptic and  nervous  diseases  from want  of
exercise in the open  air,  from keeping  late hours,
and other causes: and for the relief of these dis-
tressing  affections they are very apt to resort to
tinctures, stomachic elixirs, &c.  The  desire and
taste for alcoholic stimulants may thus be formed
and strengthened without the patient being aware
of the danger to which she is  exposed.  She is
only taking medicine, and this too  perhaps by the
advice of her physician !   Her conscience is paci-
fied, and she does  not know,  for she  does not
reflect, that she is drinking ardent spirit—the bare
idea of which would probably fill her with appre-
hension and alarm.   Every medical man assumes
a fearful  responsibility  whenever he  advises a
patient to take habitually an article which can by
possibility lead to habits of intemperance.  Alco-
holic  bitters are  never indispensable—seldom
desirable, and  if we can  get  along without them,
why should we  ever induce  our patients  to run
such tremendous risks in  taking them ?
  Idleness is not unfrequently  a remote cause of
intemperance.   We seem so constituted by nature
that excitement of some  kind is essential to our
happiness; and if this stimulus be not furnished
by intellectual or coporeal labor it  will  be sought
in other ways, and hence the idle man is peculiarly
exposed to the  formation of habits of dissipation
and inebriety.
  While upon this subject we cahnot forbear re-
ferring to the lamentable practice, formerly almost
universal, and still by far too common, of farmers
regularly furnishing ardent  spirits to the laborers 
CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.        173
in their employ.  The ration of whiskey, generally
to  the  amount of a  pint for each  individual,  is
measured out in the  morning with as much punc-
tuality as his meals.   If the object particularly in
view had been to form drunkards, a more effectual
mode than  this could hardly have been devised.
   It has often  been remarked that this destructive
vice not unfrequently prevails in particular fami-
lies, descending from parent to child for several
generations, but whether from the force of exam-
ple or from hereditary predisposition is a disputed
point, though  both  circumstances  probably exert
 some influence.                         ,  .
   The stimulus arising  from  ardent spirits is
 sometimes  resorted to by the timid and  feeble
 minded in order to drown the recollection of mis-
 fortune.  But no man of  energetic  character, or
 lofty intellect, or decided purpose, could ever be
 so weak and silly as to make use of ardent spir.ts
 for such an object.   He knows too well the tran-
 sient nature of the  relief afforded, as well  as  the
 tremendous evils which so certainly  follow in its
 train, ever to depend upon it to alleviate misfor-
 tune, or drive away care.  But unfortunate y there
 are men,  deficient  in  moral firmness and intel-
 lectual vigor, upon  whom  misfortunes in business,
 domestic "disquietudes, or the disappointments of
 ambition,  press  with so  heavy  a  weight ap  to.
 "luce then,  to frequent the bar-room and the, tp-
 ling shop for solace and relief   But alas  what
 wretched consolation for an afflicted mind !  *o-
 lin-is gained by  it but temporary relief, and for
 this are sacrificed for ever, health, reputation, hap-
  pines  and all that our nature holds most dear. 
174               METHOD OK
               CHAPTER XII.

  Method of Curing the Habit of Drunkenness.

  To break the chain of habit which  binds the
drunkard to his bottle,  like Prometheus to the
rock, is a labor of great, nay,  of almost insur-
mountable difficulty.
  There is  not perhaps a single habit within the
whole circle of human conduct which exerts so
powerful, we might say so uncontrollable an in-
fluence on the mind as that of intemperance—and
not one from which deliverance is so seldom ob-
tained.  So complete and absorbing is the drunk-
ard's devotion  to  his cups—^so bitter and over-
whelming is his wretchedness when deprived  of
this stimulus—that he will  sacrifice health, repu-
tation, friends,  family, every thing, to gratify this
all-powerful appetite.   In contending with the
habit of intemperance we have  a double war to
wage, for not only isv the body enslaved by this
vice, but the mind also is  carried captive and
debased; and thus those moral considerations, by
which we must chiefly  expect to operate upon the
inebriate, lose  much, and sometimes all  of their
influence.
  But although the difficulty of breaking up this
disasterous fascination by which the drunkard is 
CURING DRUNKENNESS.          175
hurried  onward in his course is very great, yet
we fortunately have learned from experience that
it is not always insuperable.
  The question has frequently been asked in re-
lation to this subject, whether it is better that the
intemperate should relinquish the inebriating cup
wholly at once or  by degrees?  It is contended
on the one hand that where the habit of drinking
is firmly fixed, and has been of long continuance,
that there will be no little danger to the health,
and perhaps the life of the individual if the prac-
tice be totally and suddenly abandoned—and that
the agony and suffering are so great on this plan
that we have little reason to suppose that men can
be  brought  voluntarily to undergo it.  On the
 other side it is asserted that all experience is in
 favor of  immediate  and total  abstinence—that
 there is no danger to life or health if  proper pre-
 caution be observed—that although the suffering
 from so entire a change in the habits maybe great,
 vet it is  not greater on  the whole than from the
 gradual  plan-and that we have good reason tor
 believing from all past experience that it is vastly
 more effectual, and  that  fewer relapses  into in-
 temperate habits occur, where immediate and total,
 than where gradual  abstinence is attempted.'

   . o-  »  4!,„„«• rnrlisle whose opinions deservedly carr>
   * Sir Anthony Cailisle, wnos   1 f u  j   observations
 with them grearweight makes  ^°     |,ence in my
 upon this subject.— Long-cm        .       BaMcu
 toans.tion from the  d^yerni^^^ ^^  Tlus 
176               MiTiion ok
  No one, in mv opinion, tan take an  extensive
view of the course of events in this  country lor
the  last few years in  relation  to intemperance
without being "convinced that total and immediate
abstinence from every species of alcoholic stimu-
lants is a course  perfectly safe  as it  regards the
health  of the individual, and  the only one which
can be depended on as ensuring a radical cure of
the  drinking mania.  The  adamantine chain of
habit is thus effectually sundered, and for ever too
—but  if from an apprehension of its effects upon
the  corporeal powers, the wretched  drunkard i.-i
allowed to take a little of the bewitching draught,
it will  still exercise its  magic influence over him,
and the power of the habit  will  be as  far as ever
from being broken.   The  best way to unloose the
gordian knot which binds  us to this pernicious
practice is boldly to cut it asunder.
  The  apprehension so frequently expressed that
the emaciated  and broken  down  frame  of the
drunkard will sink, if the stimulus so long and so
freely  applied be withdrawn, is  proved  by every
day's  experience and observation to  be utterly
groundless.  It is a well known fact, that in our
public  hospitals  men of the most intemperate
habits  are often admitted,  and  immediately de-
prived of the use of ardent spirits;  and yet  this
course, so  far  from  being injurious, is decidedlv
beneficial.  If this plea will answer for the debili-
tated and diseased inmates of a hospital, we might
argue,  a fortiori, that it would  do still better for

because I  am assured from extensive observation that
whenever fermented liquors decidedly produce or keep
gp disorder, every small quantity of  them is poisonous,' 
CURING DRUNKENNESS.          177
those who are in comparative health.  ' In a public
hospital,' remarks a distinguished British surgeon,
'to which 1 have  been one of the surgeons for
twenty years, it has been my practice in all cases
of desperate operations and dangerous accidents
to debar  the patient  instantly from all  strong
liquors,  although very often the  previous habits
of such  unhappy persons were most  notoriously
intemperate, and I am assured of the advantage
of such practice, and in general of the consequent
<rreat benefit to their, constitutions.'
b Dr. Cheyne expresses  the  same opinion.   He
remarks—' Nothing is more  ridiculous than  the
common  plea for  continuing on drinking large
 quantities  of spirituous liquors, viz.: because
 they had been accustomed so  to do,and they think
 it dangerous to leave off all of a sudden.  It were
 as reasonable for him that is fallen into  the fire or
 water to lie there,  because of the danger of re-
 iving him suddenly.'   Our  own Rush also gives
 the weight of his powerful testimony in favor of
  vis course.  In order to effect a reformation in
  lrunkard9 he remarks, 'they must leave off'sud-
  Z!-and entirely:  ; No man was ever gMy
  reformed from drinking spirits.'   He mus  not
  o^ly avoid tasting, but even  -ellingthe^, uiiti
  long habits of abstinence have subdued his aftec
  tion for them.'                       iU  ft   be
    There is no doubt  that this couisc ^m «
    1 nereis no                ,  meQtal suffenn?i
  productive of g eatJ          firmness is
  and  that  no ?  ^ ^^ividual to endure the
  requisite to enable the  ind             on  guch 
If8                METHOD OF

of short  duration, are constantly becoming less
intense, and will  soon cease  entirely.  It Mould
probably be advisable in  these cases to make mse
of some stimulating articles of diet for a few days
in the place of the  liquid fire which the patient
has been  in  the  habit of employing, and which
relieve and obviate the sense of sinking  that  so
much oppresses him.  Black, and cayenne pepper.
ginger, infusion of camomile  flowers, and other
tonic  bitters, preparations of steel,  &c, may  be
advantageously employed for this purpose.  These
remedial agents, when judiciously directed, com-
municate an agreeable glow and  excitement to the
stomach, increase the appetite, and tend to lessen
and  alleviate those  nervous  feelings  which  so
greatly harass the reforming drunkard. Congress,
and other mineral waters may also be used for the
same purpose, and with a similar effect.  In those
case's where great restlessness  and  depression
occur, with sleepless nights, a  little opium may
with propriety be resorted to.
   Of course, in all that has been said in  relation
to the cure of the habit of drunkenness, it is taken
for granted that the consent  and concurrence  of
the individual concerned  have  been obtained.
Without this probably a permanent reformation
has seldom if ever taken place.   To deprive the
drunkard by force of the intoxicating cup would,
in all probability, only irritate him, and increase  his
desire to obtain it.*  It  has  been sometimes  re-

   * The following occurrence  illustrates the overpower-
ing attachment of the drunkard to  his drink :—' A few
years ago a tipler was put into an almshouse in a popu- 
CURING DRUNKENNESS.         179
commended  however  when  the conduct  of the
drunkard could be legally controlled, as  in the
case of minors, to confine him for a  length of
time, or to send him to sea, with strict injunctions
to those who have charge of him, not to allow him
any ardent spirits.  Such a course might perhaps
be advisable where the restriction could be kept
up  for a length of time, and where all other means
had failed ; and at any rate it would be worth the
trial as a last resort.  It is possible that the mor-
bid association  might be thus controlled, and the
memory  might cease to recur to scenes of de-
bauchery and dissipation; and  the drunkard  for-
get the spell which bound him to his cups.   We
have no reason to suppose,  however, either from
the nature of the case or from past  experience,
that  a restriction or confinement of a few days
 would be of any advantage.   Generally speaking,
 we can expect to accomplish little with the drunk-
 ard except from moral considerations.  But, alas.
 how often are  even the most  powerful of these
 insufficient to restrain him in his downward career.
 When the reflection of his own degradation and

 lous town of Massachusetts.  Within  a few days he had
 devised various expedients to procure rum Jbut failed.
 Atlemrth however he hit  upon one which P™vedsue
 ^If,?l   He  went  into the wood-yard of  the estabhsh-





 then raising the bowl to h» :mouth  drank freely,
 ultingly exclaimed, 'now I am satisfied. 
180
.Vw.TIIOD OF
impending ruin in time and eternity—of  the ago-
nizing wretchedness  of wife  and children,  and
friends—of the  sacrifice of property, happiness,
and reputation:  if all these, and a thousand other
evils, when kindly, and powerfully, and earnestly
presented to his consideration by the  benevolence
of friendship, all fail, we need have little hope of
any amelioration
  Various articles of the materia medica have, at
different times, been  recommended  to  be taken
internally, mixed with the  drunkard's drink, for
the purpose of restraining the absorbing desire of
the inebriate for ardent spirits, and of breaking up
the morbid habit by which  he has been so long
controlled.  These articles have usually  been  of
a nauseous and disagreeable character, and their
reputation and success have been in  prettv exact
proportion to the preponderance of  this  quality.
Chamber's medicine, which  obtained  no little
repute in this country a few years  since, acted
entirely on this principle, and indeed was no doubt
composed principally of tartar  emetic, which pro-
duced almost immediately on being taken nausea
and vomiting.  Possibly some intemperate persons
might be cured of the desire for ardent spirits by
*he sickening effect of such articles  mixed with
their drink.  But instances of perfect reformation
by such means are certainly very rare, even when
the drunkard could be induced to adopt them, and
when he could not,  the attempt of course was
useless.   A similar plan however had  been recom-
mended and tried by Dr. Rush, and, as he thinks,
with occasional success.   Some caution is requi-
site in the administration of so violent a remedy 
CURING DRUNKENNESS.
181
as tartarized antimony to constitutions broken and
debilitated by long-continued debauchery; and it
is said that some fatal cases occurred from  the
indiscriminate employment of  Chambers' medi-
cine.
  Some men of weak minds and nervous temper-
ament have become addicted to habits of intem-
perance on account of domestic broils which have
driven them to the tavern and  the dram shop for
that social enjoyment which the capricious temper
of a wife  has  denied  them at their own fireside.
In  cases of this  description we can  expect to
accomplish but little  in  the way of reformation,
unless the cause  of the difficulty be previously
obviated.
  A feeling of opposition and perverseness which
generally exists to a powerful degree in the drunk-
ard will sometimes bring about a change of habits
when every other plan which could be imagined
had been tried without any amelioration.
  An eminent English physician was  once con-
 sulted by  a gentleman  whose wife was  grossly
addicted to this  propensity.   They sat down to
 deliberate on  the best means of inducing  a refor-
 mation, and the doctor listened with much patience
 to all the plans which the husband had adopted for
 accomplishing this desirable   object.   So many
 schemes had  been tried, and so many expedients
 attempted in vain, that the physician declared that
 it was useless to  attempt any thing farther, except
 to  place a hogshead of brandy  before her and let
 her drink till it proved fatal!   Fortunately for all
 concerned, the lady suspecting ^eoljectof the
 consultation,  had concealed herself in the adjoin-
            16 
182    METHOD OF CURING DRUNKENNESS.

ing room, and overheard every word.  Her pride
was roused,  and her indignation excited to the
highest pitch; and  from  that moment  she re-
nounced for ever the use of ardent spirits!
  Sometimes  a  severe attack of sickness, which
may deprive the drunkard for weeks of his accus-
tomed potation, will so far break in upon the habit
he had previously formed as to enable him to re-
linquish  it with  comparative ease.  Disease may
thus become the greatest of blessings. •
  A change of air, of climate, of occupation, and
mode of life will greatly assist him, who is sin-
cerely anxious to subdue  this  debasing  appetite,
as it will present him  new  objects of interest to
excite his attention, and arouse the dormant and
enervated energies of his moral character.
.  Unfortunately however for the interests of hu-
manity and the  happiness of mankind, all these
means are but too often thrown away on the  con-
firmed drunkard.  Of him there is but little  hope
■—his  march  is  onward—deaf to entreaty—un-
awed by danger—unappalled by the devastation
around him—he rushes forward—he still drinks,
and drinks, until, on the altar of intemperance,

          ------'hehas sacrificed ease, peace,
    Truth, faith, integrity : good conscience, friends,
    Love, charity, benevolence, and all
    The sweet and tender sympathies of life :
    And to complete the horrid, murderous rite,
    And signalize his folly, offers up
    His soul and an eternity of bliss,
    To gain him—what ? an hour of dreaming joy,
    A feverish hour that hastens to be done,
    And leaves him in the bitterness of woe.' 
SUBSTITUTES FOR MEDICINE.        183
              CHAPTER XIII.

Substitutes for Ardent Spirits in the Practice of
                  Medicine.

  It cannot have escaped the observation of any
reflecting  man  that  the  medical use  of ardent
spirits has frequently been the immediate cause
of the  formation of  intemperate habits.  Many
an individual, who had little constitutional fond-
ness for the inebriating draught, and whose habits
were such as seemed peculiarly fitted to preserve
him from  this  fell destroyer, has made wreck of
every earthly prospect by being induced to resort
to the use of ardent  spirits for the relief  of per-
haps some trivial  complaint.  The talented, the
great, and the learned, as well  as the  degraded,
the humble, and the ignorant,  have thus fallen
beneath the withering touch of this  soul-destroy-
ing Moloch.  In more than one instance have  I
seen the able and hitherto faithful minister of the
gospel laboring under a slight attack of dyspepsia,
and  by the advice of his medical attendant, drink-
ing 'daily for weeks together a glass of brandy ami
water until he has gradually and.unconsciously
formed a taste, and acquired a relish for the fatal
liquor, which has increased in strength, and ac-
quired a  firmer and firmer grasp upon the ener-
vated mind until it has obtained complete mastery 
184
SUBSTITUTES IN THE
—and the wretched victim has made shipwreck
of conscience, reputation, friends, eternity.
  There are various other ways also in which the
medical use of ardent spirits may prove the fore-
runner  of drunkenness.   It is a very common
practice in some parts of our country for persons
to resort to bitter herbs, as wormwood, gentian,
chamomile, &c, steeped in ardent spirits, for the
relief of a slight degree of dyspepsia, to increase
their strength, and give them  an  appetite.  The
whole family partake of this bottle, and resort is
regularly had to it three or four times a  day.  I
defy any one to point out a mode more  exactly
fitted  to convert the most sober  and temperate
family in the world into sots than this.  The regu-
lar, habitual, daily use  of brandy  !  This is  pre-
cisely the way in which all drunkards have been
made.   They always  drink  temperately before
they drink intemperately.   True, they are all this
while  taking  bitters, and that  too perhaps by the
advice of their physician.   But does that alter the
case ?  Are they not also drinking ardent spirits ?
And will they not, in all probability, persevere in
their downward career  till ruin stares them in the
face ?   It is self-evident that such a course is not
one whit safer, so far as the  morals of the indi-
vidual are concerned, than if so much  undiluted
brandy had been taken.
  Is it not then the solemn duty  of every physi-
cian, as well of every christian, and every patriot,
to do all in  his power to dispense with an article
the use of which is surrounded and accompanied
by such tremendous dangers ?   Grant that in most
cases there is little risk of this becoming  so fixed 
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.          185
 a habit that the patient cannot at any moment lay
 it aside—grant that most men have sufficientfirm-
 ness of mind, and fixedness of purpose to resist,
 and sunder at their  pleasure, the iron chain of
 habit—yet, if only one individual in an age were
,' sacrificed  on  the altar of intemperance  by the
 medicinal use of ardent spirits, would not this of
 itself  be a sufficient reason for proscribing and
 banishing  it for ever ?
    But it  will  be asked,  how  is this risk  to be
  avoided ?   If ardent spirits are necessary for the
  cure of disease,  and the  preservation of health,
  shall we not use them ?  In reply I have  no hesi-
  tation in  asserting  that there is no state of the
  system, however exhausted or enfeebled—no spe-
  cies of  malady, however obstinate or unyielding-
  no case of disease,  however dangerous or appal-
  lino-, in which ardent spirit is indispensably neces-
   sary, and in which  a  substitute, perfectly equal
   to all the exigences of the  case, cannot easily be

     And I think that every medical man, who will
   carefully review the whole ground, will  come  to
   the same conclusion.'

     * It is trratifying to see Professor Chapman of Phila-
   delphia adding the weight of his great influence, m rela-
   tion to this subject, to the cause of sound morals and.true
   srience   In his  able work on the materia medica he

   reTtristh7sacred duty of every one exercising the pro-
   fession of medicine to unite  with the moralist, the divme,
   and the economist, in discouraging the consumption of
   thL baneful articles, and as the first step in the scheme
   of refoStion to discountenance the popular notion of
   their remedial efficacy.'
             16* 
 186          SUBSTITUTES IN THF.

   That stimulant articles are desirable, and even
 necessary in the practice of medicine, no one can
 doubt.  There are several states of the system in
 which this class of remedial agents is indispensa-
 ble.  Whenever the system  has  been exhausted
 by long-continued  disease, or any other  cause,
 and where no  fever exists, tonics and bitters, of
 various kinds, will do  much to  restore  the lost
 energy  of the stomach, and to  bring back the
 wonted vigor of the constitution.
   Among these stimulants and tonics ardent  spi-
 rits have long held a  high  rank, and have  fre-
 quently been resorted to, especially by the vulgar.
   It is admitted that there are  a few  extreme
cases  in which  ardent spirits are temporarily bene-
ficial: what is contended for is, that there is no
 case in which they are indispensable, and in which
an adequate substitute cannot readily be found.
   The  following are the principal  cases  where
ardent  spirits  are supposed  to be  beneficial, or
 necessary:—
   1. They are used when, from  any cause, dys-
 pepsia has prevailed, and the tone of the  stomach
 has been impaired.   This is a fruitful source of
 error  to the  practitioner,  and of  disease, misery,
 and ruin to the patient.  They are employed in
 this instance chiefly in combination with bitters.
   2. They are directed in low typhoid states of
 the system where the  strength has  been  much
 exhausted—and  powerful diffusible  stimuli  are
 required to keep alive the vital spark.
   S. Ardent spirits  are occasionally prescribed as
 an external astringent in cases of hemorrhage.
   4. Alcohol,  in some form or other, is frequently 
               PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.         187

  given to infants, to remove flatulency, relieve pain,
  make them sleep, &c.
    5. In cases of sudden emergency in which the
  vital powers  seem extinct, and  the  patient is  in
>  immediate danger of death, as when large quanti-
  ties of cold  water have been drunk.
    6. To remedy the  disagreeable  taste and the
  supposed  injurious qualities  of bad  or impure
  water, particularly in cities, and on ship-board.
    7. As an external application  when the surface
  requires vesication or stimulation.
    8. To enable laboring men the better to sustain
  the extremes of hot and cold  weather, and the
  vicissitudes  to which  they  are  exposed in their
  arduous avocations.


                  1.  In Dyspepsia.

    There  is  perhaps  scarcely one disease in the
  treatment of which the  patient more frequently
  commits mistakes than in this.  He feels languid
  and wretched—his food  is badly digested—flatu-
  lency continually harasses him—an uneasy  in-
  describable sensation of  oppression in the epigas-
  tric region, is a constant, companion—and to relieve
  these disagreeable feelings he has been taught  by
  those around him to resort to the stimulus of bit-
  ters  and ardent  spirits.  He  perhaps receives
  temporary relief, and he is encouraged to proceed
  —another and another, and another dose is taken,
  but the relief becomes more and more transient;
  and in order to obtain even this  he is compelled to
  increase his libations.  He will however very soon 
188
SUBSTITUTES IN THE
discover to his sorrow that his disease, instead of
being cured, is continually becoming worse.  In
short, he has mistaken  his  remedy—and this will
invariably be  the  result with  every  one who en-
deavors to break up such a disease by such means.
   Dyspepsia requires a very different treatment.
Where anything of a stimulant or tonic character
is required, the usual bitters, as Peruvian bark,*
camomile flowers, columba, quassia, gentian, &c,
or the preparations of steel will be amply sufficient.
There  cannot be the least doubt  that great, and
sometimes essential injury has been inflicted  on
the unhappy dyspeptic  by recommending alcohol


  * The sulphate of  quinine is a most excellent article
in cases of ianguor,  debility, and loss of appetite, and
might be employed advantageously much more frequently
than it is.  There is no bitter, 1 am inclined to think, in
the materia medica, whose effects are so prompt and de-
cided  as this—and which gives such immediate and com-
plete relief in those cases of simple debility which occur
so frequently during our warm summers—and  more espe-
cially  among men of sedentary habits—and females of
delicate constitution.   I have repeatedly seen ladies,
whose strength has been prostrated, and  their lives ren-
dered wretched by  the  languor consequent upon the
oppressive warmth  of the summer season, restored to
elasticity of spirits and perfect health, by a few doses of
this article repeated for three or four days.
  And I have also been  particularly gratified in  being
able occasionally to  prevail  upon the laboring man to
leave off his alcoholic bitters and resort to this pleasant
and efficient  stimulant, and always without a single ex-
ception has he declared himself pleased with the change.
lie would say that the quinine was much more efficient in
increasing his appetite, and dispelling that languor that
was so oppressive to his feelings—while it was never fol-
lowed by the headache and subsequent depression which
are such common attendants on the use of ardent spirits. 
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.         189
to strengthen his digestive powers, and increase
his appetite.  So delicate an organ as the stomach
cannot with safety be loaded with so powerful a
stimulus, and especially when in a state of suba-
cute inflammation,  as is frequently the case in
dyspepsia.   Independantly therefore of the immi-
nent danger of the  patient's becoming addicted
to habits  of intemperance, the  advice  too  fre-
quently given, I am afraid even by physicians, to
drink brandy and water cannot  be too  strongly
deprecated on account of its immediate effects on
the system itself.  Where any thing  in this  dis-
ease of  a  more stimulant nature than tonics  and
bitters is required, good  wine is much preferable
to ardent  spirits, and no doubt even this is  pre-
scribed much more frequently than is necessary.


     2.  In low Typhoid states of the System.

   Where the strength has  been exhausted, and  a
low typhoid state has come on, after a long-con-
tinued fever, it is a very general impression among
the profession that a stimulus of a different nature
from the ordinary tonics and bitters is required to
quiet the irritable and frequent pulse, to clear the
black and coated tongue, and  to resuscitate the
exhausted  energy of the body.   In this peculiar
state most medical  men have been in the habit of
using alcohol very freely in the  form of wine or
brandy.  But, surely, when we consider the great
number, and vast variety of stimulants furnished
by the materia medica, we can hardly believe that
amongst all these it would not be possible to select 
190
SUBSTITUTES IN THE
an article or articles which would be proper for
almost any form of this disease., and  every idio-
syncrasy of  constitution.  When we consider the
great and varied powers of the  Peruvian bark,
ammonia, camphor,  cayenne pepper, &c. &c, can
we doubt that resort need never be had to ardent
spirits where these can be obtained ?  But although
perhaps there are cases where wine cannot readily
be dispensed with,  yet I have no  hesitation in
asserting that there  never was an  instance where
there was the  least necessity for using  ardent
spirits in any  form  or  shape whatever.   Indeed,
the only, or the principal plea for the employment
of brandy or rum in these  cases is,  that  wine
sometimes disagrees with the stomach by turning
acid.   It is  rather  a favorite  notion with  some
practitioners that brandy is less apt to disagree in
this respect than wine, but I must say that 1 have
never found the least difficulty where the wine
was of a good quality, and the proper kind had
been selected.   Sometimes one kind of wine will
suit better than another, and some little judgment
is required to select that which is best adapted to
the peculiarities of the constitution and the disease.
Should  there however-be a  case in which wine
could not be taken, good  porter or ale could still
be resorted to, and would be more suitable and
advantageous than ardent spirits.
  I have no hesitation then in repeating that there
are no cases of typhoid fever where ardent spirits
are ever desirable,  and very  few  if any in which
wine is absolutely indispensable. 
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.         191
  3.  As an External Application in  Cases of
                Hemorrhage.

  It  would be absurd to attempt a labored denial
of the importance  of  ardent spirits  in  this par-
ticular case, as probably not one sober medical
man  in  a hundred would  ever  think of resorting
to them for any such purpose.
4.  Alcohol  is frequently given, in some form or
  other,  to  infants to  remove flatulency, relieve
  pain, make them  sleep, 8rc.

  This idea has already been discussed in a pre-
vious part of our work (chapter XL),  and  what
was there remarked need not be repeated.  I will
only add, that there is not probably a single ima-
ginable state of the infant's system in which other
articles could not be used with  more  advantage
for these purposes than ardent spirits.


5. In cases of sudden emergency in Which the vital
   powers seem extinct, and tlie patient is in imme-
   diate danger of death—as when large quantities
   of cold water have been drunk.

   Where accidents of  this kind have taken place
nothing  is more common  than to see both practi-
tioner and the standers by pouring down brandy
or gin into the stomach of the unhappy victim—
not once reflecting that  in all probability he has 
192
SUBSTITUTES IN TH V.
already half a  pint of alcohol in his system, and
without which his alarming situation never would
have occurred.  Nothing is more certain, than that
in nine cases out of ten, where injury has been
suffered from drinking cold water in warm weather,
it  takes place in persons of intemperate habits,
the powers of  whose system have been prostrated
by previous indulgence, and which have not suffi-
cient energy to bear the sudden introduction of a
large quantity of cold water.   The  drinking of
cold  water by persons whose habits have been pre-
viously good, and whose health is perfect, is  sel-
dom, if ever, attended  by fatal Consequences, and
indeed generally by nothing more than slight and
transient pain.
   Is it not absurd then for us to prescribe, as a
remedy, an additional quantity of the very article
which has caused all the mischief?  Although no
doubt stimulants are the proper remedies in cases
of this kind, yet there  can  be  as  little doubt that
there are other articles much more efficacious and
suitable than ardent spirits.  Ammonia, cayenne
pepper, camphor, laudanum, together with exter-
nal applications of mustard, cantharides, turpen-
tine, heat, friction—all can be employed to much
greater advantage than alcohol in any form, and
will be amply sufficient for every possible  emer-
gency.

6. To remedy the disagreeable taste and the sup-
  posed injurious qualities of bad or impure water,
  particularly in cities, and on ship-board.

   Although this plea for the use of ardent spirits 
             PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.         193

cannot be sustained by a single rational argument,
yet I have  no doubt it has frequently been  the
means of inducing intemperate habits.  It is a very
common practice in our large cities, and  perhaps
still more common on board our ships, to plead this
excuse  in justification of the daily and habitual
use of alcoholic liquors.  But a moments conside-
ration would be sufficient to convince any reflect-
ing ntan that such a course is only making the evil
greater.   If the water be unwholesome, the mix-
ture with it of brandy, which is  itself injurious,
cannot  render it otherwise;  and if the object be
to disguise  its disagreeable taste, there is a great
variety  of other articles which could be employed
quite as  effectually for  this  purpose, and  which
are free from  every objection, either on the score
of morals or of health.

   7.  There are so many other things (as  tincture
of cantharides, spirits  of turpentine, mustard,
&c. &c.) which can  be used in this case, that not
a word  need be wasted on the subject.

8. The vulgar opinion, or rather what was the vul-
   gar opinion a few years since, that the laboring
   man  requires the stimulation of ardent spirits to
   enable him to perform his arduous duties,  and to
   defend him against the vicissitudes of our change-
   able climate, is wholly unfounded.
   It would be easy to prove this from a  philo-
sophical consideration of this subject,* but a  still

   * The reader will find some reflections upon this ques-
tion in chapter X.
         17 
194           SUBSTITUTES IN THE

more infallible guide (experience) puts it beyond
all controversy.   Since  the  formation of tempe-
rance societies it has been found by the experience
of thousands, ascertained in every possible way too,
that those laboring men who  abstain entirely from
the use of ardent spirits, can perform  more  labor,
and  are in less danger  from the vicissitudes  of
our climate than those who use them  habitually.
Within  the last  ten years,  thousands of  farms
have been cultivated, hundreds of ships have been
navigated, and every variety of manufacture car-
ried on without a drop of ardent spirits—and the
unanimous  and  decided testimony of the  indi-
viduals concerned has been,  not only that money
has been saved, and morals promoted, but that
lives have been  preserved, and  health benefited
by this abstemious course.
  On a dispassionate review  of this whole subject
then, I think it will be admitted by every candid and
reflecting medical man, that the use of ardent spirits
in the practice of medicine is never indispensable,
and seldom, if ever, even useful; and that in this
latter case there is a  great variety of remedies
which are amply sufficient as substitutes.  If this
be the case, what is the duty of every physician
in relation to this article, which  has spread  such
misery,  desolation, and ruin throughout this coun-
try and  the world ?  Shall not  physicians who
have always been pre-eminent in the  labors of
love  and the exertions of philanthropy—shall not
they do something for the promotion of the tem-
perance cause—that greatest and best  of the
benevolent enterprizes of this benevolent age ?
  And  in what way can this be done so effectu- 
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.         195
ally as by discouraging the medical use of ardent
spirits?  No one  can doubt that such  use  has
made many a drunkard, and filled many a drunk-
ard's grave: and shall we not then relinquish its
employment, and resort  to other articles equally
efficacious, and at the same time perfectly safe ?
The apathy which has so long been felt by the
medical profession in relation  to this important
subject—thanks to the Temperance Societies and
the reforming spirit of the age—is beginning to
disappear, and more enlarged views of professional
duty and professional responsibility are beginning
to be felt.
   Already has the seal of reprobation been put on
the medicinal  use of ardent spirits by numbers of
the most eminent of the medical faculty;  and
may we  not hope that this spirit will spread yet
more widely and extensively until every physician
shall  be brought under  its influence, and  shall
unite with the  patriot  and the  christian in the
expulsion from  its last strong  hold  of this  most
destructive of human vices, and  direst of human
foes? 
 
                                   APPENDIX.
A Table op the principal cases op  Spontaneous Combustion fhom the Dictionaibe de Medecine.
	Works in which they arc reported.	By whom.	Time.	Age.	Combustion Complete.	v Immediate Cause.	Habit of Life.	Situation of the Remains.
1	Actes de Co-penhague.	Jacobceus.	1692		Except a part of the skull and the last joints of the fingers.		Abuse of spirits for three years.	Upon a chair.
2	Anual Regis-ter.	Blanchinede Verone.	1763	62	Except the skull, a part of the face, and three fingers.	A lamp.	Frequent fomentations of camphor-ated spirits.	Upon the floor.
3	Anual Regis ter.	Wilmer.		50	Except the thigh and one leg.	A light upon a chair near the bed.	Having drunk for a length of time a pint of rum daily.	Upon the floor near the bed.
4	Encyc. Method.			50	Except a few bones.		Habitually drunken.	
5	Acta Medica.				Except the skull and fingers.		She drank brandy as her only drink.	"
6	Memoirs upon spon-taneous combus.	Lecat.	1744	60	Except a part of the head and limbs.	A pipe which she was smoking.	A drunkard.	Near the chimney
7 8	Ibid.	Ibid.	1745		Ibid.	A fire.	Habitually drunken.	Upon the hearth.
	Ibid.	Ibid.	1749	80	Except a black skeleton.	Fire of the hearth.	Drinking brandy only for many years.	Sitting upon a chair before the fire.
9	Jour, de Medecine.		1779		Except a few bones, a hand, and a foot.	A foot stove under her feet.	A drunkard.	
10	Ibid.		1782	60	Ibid.	A fire of the hearth.	Ibid.	Upon the hearth. In bed.
11	Revue Medicale.	Julia Fontenelle.	1820	90	Except the skulf and a portion of skin.	A candle.	Abuse of wine and eau de Cologne.	
12	Ibid.	■L'LIbid.	1830	66	Except the right leg.	Ibid.	w. Ibid.	In the same bed ; these two burnt together.
13		Gen. Wm. Kepland		very old.	Except a few parts of the body.	A lighted pipe.		Upon the floor.
14	Journal de Florence.	Joseph Battaylia.	1786		The skin of the right arm, and of the right thigh were burnt.	A lamp.		Upon the floor ; he lived foul days.
15	Revue Medicale	Robertson.	1799		Combustion incomplete.		Abuse of brandy.	Upon a bench.
								Cured.
16	Ibid.	M. Marchand.			Hand and thigh only burnt.			
17	Jour. hosp. Hamb.			17	One finger of the right hand burnt.	A candle.		Cured.
18 19	Die. de Med.	Alph. Deven-gee.	1829	51	The muscles of the trunk, thighs, superior extremities, burnt. Combustion almost general.	A foot stove. A foot stove.	Abuse of spirits.	Upon a chair.
							Ibid. 1	Upon the floor.
All of these were females except Nos. 14, 15,  16. 
I 
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