762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



after the first protest : nausea, gripes, nervous headaches, and gastric 

 spasms, warn us again and again. But we repeat the dose, and Nature, 

 true to her highest law of preserving existence at any price, and feel- 

 ing the hopelessness of the life-endangering struggle, finally chooses 

 the alternative of palliating an evil for which she has no remedy, and 

 adapts herself to the abnormal condition. The human body becomes 

 a poison-engine, an alcohol-machine, performing its vital functions 

 only under the spur of a specific stimulus. 



And only then the unnatural habit begets that craving which the 

 toper mistakes for the prompting of a healthy appetite a craving 

 which every gratification makes more exorbitant. For by-and-by the 

 jaded system fails to respond to the spur ; the poison-slave has to 

 resort to stronger stimulants ; rum and medicated brandy now mock 

 him with the hope of revived strength ; the gathering night still gives 

 way to an occasional flickering-up of the vital flame, till the nervous 

 exhaustion at last defies every remedy : the worshiper of alcohol must 

 consummate his self-sacrifice, the shadow of his doom has settled on 

 his soul, and all the strongest stimulants can now do for him is to 

 recall a momentary glimmering of that light which filled the unclouded 

 heaven of his childhood. 



In order to distinguish a poison-stimulant from a harmless and 

 nutritive substance, Nature has thus furnished us three infallible tests : 



1. The first taste of every poison is either insipid or repulsive. 



2. The persistent obtrusion of the noxious substance changes that 

 aversion into a specific craving. 



3. T7ie more or less pleasurable excitement produced by a gratifica- 

 tion of that craving is always followed by a depressing reaction. 



The first drop of a wholesome beverage (milk, cold water, cider 

 fresh from the press, etc.) is quite as pleasant as the last ; the indul- 

 gence in such pleasures is not followed by repentance, and never be- 

 gets a specific craving. Pancakes and honey we may eat with great 

 relish whenever we can get them, but, if we can't, we won't miss them 

 as long as we can satisfy our hunger with bread and butter. In mid- 

 winter, when apples advance to six dollars a barrel, it needs no lectures 

 and midnight prayers to substitute rice-pudding for apple-pie. A 

 Turk may breakfast for thirty years on figs and roasted chestnuts, 

 and yet be quite as comfortable in Switzerland, where they treat him 

 to milk and bread. Not so the dram-drinker : his " thirst " can not 

 be assuaged with water or milk, his enslaved appetite craves the 

 wonted tipple or else a stronger stimulant. Natural food has no effect 

 on the poison-hunger ; Nature has nothing to do with such appetites. 



The first choice of any particular stimulant seems to depend on 

 such altogether accidental circumstances as the accessibility or cheap- 

 ness of this or that special medium of intoxication. Orchard countries 

 use distilled or vinous tipples ; grain-lands waste their products on 

 malt-liquors. The pastoral Turkomans fuddle with koumiss, or fer- 



