74 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



them the first glass is the most enjoyable ; but, as 

 they drink, their palates become cloyed, and at 

 length the finest wines no longer give pleasure 

 through the sense of taste. 



A third class of drinkers drink, not for the 

 satisfaction of thirst, nor for the gratification of the 

 palate, but to produce that mental effect which, in 

 its extreme forms, we call drunkenness. The 

 heated athlete — the cyclist, for example — who calls 

 for a quart of beer, and, after gulping it down, 

 departs satisfied, desires a pleasure evidently quite 

 different from that which moves the connoisseur, 

 toying with his rare wines. Both, again, desire 

 gratifications totally different in kind from that 

 which the drunkard seeks when he indulges to 

 excess in some potent intoxicant, which may 

 increase thirst and be of nauseous taste, as, for 

 example, methylated spirit. 



Men therefore drink alcoholic beverages, in the 

 first place, to satisfy thirst, an organic craving for 

 a necessary constituent of the body — water ; in the 

 second place, to gratify the sense of taste, in other 

 words, to produce a sensation of pleasure through 

 excitation of the peripheral nerve endings in the 

 mouth ; in the third place, to produce, by alcohol 

 circulating in the blood, and acting directly on the 

 brain, a stimulation, or what feels like a stimulation, 

 but which soon becomes a narcosis or paresis. But, 



