rule. 



drinking. 





Drunken- known many hard drinkers live to a great age ; and 

 _" is _ y that if spirituous liquors be a poison, as physicians and 

 moralists tell them that they are, they must indeed be 

 a very slow poison, for such a person of their acquaint- 

 ance has now attained his 80th year, for example, and 

 Long lived yet has drunk hard all his life. This, however, is a 

 very gross and most pernicious deception, much resem- 

 ^ bling the lists of remarkable cures said to be perform- 

 !,, ed by quacks. You hear of those that have survived 



their prescriptions, but nothing of those who have pe- 

 rished. And from the nature of the thing itself, though 

 we had nothing else to go upon, we might conclude 

 even a priori, that such excess of stimulation must wear 

 out the system, and hasten its decay. But we have 

 other evidence, we have the test of experience to shew 

 that it actually does so, and that long-lived drunkards 

 are only exceptions to a general rule. " On compa- 

 ring," says Dr Willan in his Report of the Diseases of 

 Lmdam, " my own observations with the bills of mor- 

 tality, I am convinced, that considerably more than 

 one-eighth of all the deaths that take place in persons 

 above twenty years old, happen prematurely through 

 excess in drinking spirits." 



But it is not drinking always to the point of intoxi- 

 cation that is necessary to constitute intemperance. 

 The health, as well as the mental faculties, may be ruin- 

 ed by a regular course of what some consider as sober 

 drinking. Half a bottle or more of wine, for example, 

 taken every clay, is thought by many to do no harm. 

 But perhaps the degree of constant excitement thus 

 kept up, is more trying to the system, and ultimately 

 more pernicious, than getting completely drunk would 

 be at longer intervals. Dr Gregory, in his Lectures, 

 Lnve* it as his opinion, that of the two, a man had bet- 

 In- di ink no wine during the month, and then make 

 himself completely drunk at the end of it, than swal- 

 low half a bottle of port every day, though he mav never 

 seem to be thereby intoxicated" at all. Derail s<"> in the 

 former case the system has time to recover itself from 

 the shock given it before it receives another ; whereas 

 in the latter case, it is constantly as it were kept upon 

 the stretch. 



Wine, however, and other alcoholic liquors, we do 

 not proscribe altogether. It is only their abuse that 

 we condemn. A certain dvsc, if we may so speak, of 

 any of them, will frequently be attended with good ef- 

 fects, or will at least do no "harm. But then it belongs 

 to the prudence and judgment of a wise man, to regu- 

 late the quantity he uses, as much as it belongs to him 

 M regulate the quantity of common food he takes ; for 

 by excessive indulgence in this as well as in the other 

 he will most certainly impair his health. It is impoattble 

 to give a general rule for the quantity of wine or spirits 

 t may be safely employed in a given time. But we 

 lunk that three or four glasses of wine, or one of sni 

 s much dilutee! with water, daily, is as much as can 

 aken by most men without producing more or less 

 injury to the system. We do not deny that many perl 

 on* can use a great deal more than this without its 

 d effects being for a long while sensibly felt We 

 only say that for the most part it will do rather harm 

 The quantity of spirituous liquor that can 

 e swallowed undiluted at one tin,,, without endan ff er- 

 ile, is not very great. But the writer of this arti 

 nee knew a countryman of twenty-two years of 

 who, tor a wager of one guinea, swallowed at'/ur, 

 **'* a quart bottle of proof spirit mm, and after 

 he had ,lone so, walked a mile home to his own house 



VOL. VUJ. PART U 



DRUNKENNESS. 



161 



How much 



;..!. 



Vomiting then came on, and he recovered after a pret- Drunken- 

 ty severe shock to his constitution. ness. 



Wine is an excellent remedy for some diseases ; but V ""V"" 1 *' 

 why take physic when in good health ? In the latter 

 stage of typhus it is the best remedy we know ; and as 

 old age is considered by many as a disease also, it is Wineia o!d 

 (we do not say, a remedy,) bat a palliative for it too. a e - 

 No person, however, Dr Trotter thinks, if in good 

 health, " can need wine till he be forty. He may then 

 begin with two glasses a day : at firfy he may add two 

 more ; and at sixty he may go the length of six, but 

 not to exceed that quantity, though he should live to 

 an hundred." Such is a good rule for the abstemious, 

 who have not early indulged in wine. Others may re- 

 quire more. 



Not only poets, but physicians even of no less name Wine dos 

 than Haller and Hoffman, have represented wine as fa- no' contri- 

 vourable to mental vigour. This, however, is certain- bute * 

 ly a mistake. All those persons who have made the 



mental vi ' 

 8 ur " 



greatest improvements in works of genius, have been 

 of sober and temperate habits. 



We shall here put down a few of the most curious Drunken 

 instances of mental hallucination, that have been ascer- hallucina- 

 tained to proceed from excess in drinking. Athenams tions. 

 tells us, that a drunken crew at Agrigentum in Sicily, 

 hearing the winds roar on the hous,c in whicii they hap- 

 pened to be, became so fully persuaded that they were 

 on board a ship, and in danger of suffering shipwreck, 

 that they threw all the furniture out of the windows, 

 under the idea that they were lightening the ship. A 

 drunken man has been known to whip a post, because it 

 would not move out of his way ; and an old gentleman 

 of eighty, when intoxicated, once took a lamp-post for 

 a lady, and addressed her in all the impassioned and 

 flattering language of love. " I have myself," says 

 Junius, in his Character of Drunkards, " seen a scho- 

 lar and a witty man, somewhat gone in drink, take 

 up a sand barrel instead of a bowl of beer, in a gro- 

 cer's shop, and having said, ' Here, cousin, to all our 

 friends,' hold it to his mouth till a great part of the sand 

 ran in between his teeth." He mentions another drunk 

 man who was stopped in his progress by the shadow of 

 a sign-post, which he thought it impossible to get over ; 

 and a third, who, seeing the moon shine through a small 

 hole in the wall, attempted to light his candle at it. 

 Another, he says, fell down drunk in Fleet Street, and 

 when people offered to help him up, he exclaimed, 

 '' What, can't I be quiet in my own room?" 



Alcohol not only intoxicates, it also acts chemically r , . 

 on the human body. It constringes the dead animal solid, S'of 

 and retards putrefaction. It coagulates the serum of drinking. 

 the blood, and most of the animal fluids, and undoubt- 

 edly, in some measure, deoxygenates the blood. 



S uissure junior has shewn, that alcohol contains a. 

 bout 15 per cent, of hydrogen. Now that this gas, in 

 the inebriate, is sent off in a disengaged state from the 

 lungs, is evident from the factor of the breath. Indeed, 

 it is sometimes so pure, that the breath of the dram 

 drinker will inflame on the approach of a candle. 



It is well known that there are on record many cases 

 of the actual combustion of the human body, produced 

 by the Jong and immoderate use of alcohol. These 

 have l>een collected in a curious memoir by Pierre 

 Aime Lair in the Journal de Physique, Pluviose, year 

 otii. 



The reader who wishes for more information on this 

 strange subject, we must beg leave to refer to the above 

 document. It has been copied by Dr Trotter into his 



