34 



them has become very extensive in every condition of life. 

 Few subjects are, therefore, more worthy of consideration 

 than the influence of such potent agents as alcohol, opium, 

 and tobacco. 



The number of narcotic plants found everywhere is 

 very considerable, and chemistry has shown that fermented 

 liquors may be prepared from a great variety of vegetable 

 productions — two of the most common of the vegetable 

 proximate principles, viz., starch and sugar, being capable, 

 when subjected to a proper pi'ocess, of yielding, first, a 

 fermented, and afterwards a spirituous, liquor. 



Mankind in general, and especially savage nations, 

 become very easily habituated to the use of stimulants and 

 narcotics; but we find that considerable variety of taste, 

 probably dependent upon diversity of chmate or tempera- 

 ment, exists among different nations, so that some have 

 recourse to the narcotic stimulants, whilst others prefer the 

 alcoholic, or more purely exciting. We generally find that 

 nations inhabiting cold countries, as, for example, the 

 Norwegians, Russians, and Highlanders of Scotland, 

 prefer the most stimulating articles, such as distilled liquors, 

 whilst the Persians, the Turks, the Chinese, and the Malay 

 inhabitants of the Indian Archipelago, are fonder of the 

 less stimulating but more narcotic, such as opium, which 

 both stimulates and enlivens the powers of the imagination, 

 and at the same time products the repose of the body and 

 tranquillity of mind so congenial to the character of many 

 Eastern nations. 



Wine, the fermented juice of the grape, seems to have 

 been longer known than any other fermented liquor ; and 

 barley wine, or beer, orginated in Egypt at a very early 

 period. 



The ancient Greeks and Romans were altogether unac- 

 quainted with alcohol ; and the process of distillation 

 appears to have been discovered by the alchemists. Rhazes, 

 an Arabian physician, who flourished in the ninth century, 

 is the earliest medical writer who makes mention of the 

 spirit of wine, and a later Arabian physician, Avicenna, 

 particularly describes the method of conducting the process 

 of distillation. This art was regarded as a discovery of 

 immense importance to mankind, and the spirit of wine 

 was looked upon as the universal panacea which had been 

 so long sought for. For several centuries it was used only 

 as a medicine, the physicians in those early times calling it 

 aqua vita, and believing that it had the power of prolong- 

 ing life. 



