‘ 
18 THE VINE AND CIVILISATION. 
epochs, and always progressively, have drawn on the world 
towards the regions of a better civilisation, and if I succeed, I 
shall, I believe, have rendered to science one of those services 
which will permit me to say with the poet, 
‘Exegi monumentum ere perennis’— 
I have earned a monument of enduring bronze. 
‘** That which distinguishes wine from the deleterious drinks 
generally in use is its general action on the animal economy. 
Used in moderation it increases the energy of all the faculties ; 
the heart, the brain, the secreting organs, the muscular sys- 
tem, acquire by its use an augmentation of sensible vitality. 
Wine associates itself generally with all our functions. It 
strengthens and excites them harmoniously, whilst other liquors 
act like medicines that impart their activity to a single organ; 
far from increasing the general harmony of our system, they 
can only disarrange it. 
‘‘When wine is the predominating liquor I have little fear 
from the consequences of the usages of tea or coffee. In truth 
it is not there where the danger lies. That which threatens 
civilisation seriously is the use of narcotics. 
Topacco. 
‘* In fatal epochs, under the influence of caprice, by imitation, 
people give way to strange usages: they chew narcotic drugs 
that brutalize them; they smoke a stinking acrid plant that 
stupefies them; they introduce into their nostrils an ammonia- 
eal powder which renders them dirty and disgusting. We are 
in one of these epochs. 
‘* Let us take care. Tobacco is the most insidious of nar- 
cotics ; it is the opium of the Western nations; its smoke car- 
ries serious injuries to the mental faculties, which may not be 
