164 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
take a little wine for the stomach’s sake is one of those lessons 
that comes from the deep recesses of human nature. I am not 
so obstinate as to deny this argument. There are times in the 
life of man when the heart is oppressed, when the resistance to 
its motion is excessive, and when blood flows languidly to the 
centres of life, nervous and muscular. In these moments 
alcohol cheers. It lets loose the heart from its oppression, it 
lets flow a brisker current of blood into the failing organs ; it 
aids nutritive changes, and altogether is of temporary service 
to man. So far alcohol is good, and if its use could be limited 
to this one action, this one purpose, it would be amongst the 
most excellent of the gifts of nature to mankind. Unhappily, 
the border line between this use and the abuse of it, the temp- 
tation to extend beyond the use. the habit to apply the use when 
it is not wanted as readily as when it is wanted, overbalance, in 
the multitude of men, the temporary value that attaches truly 
to alcohol as a physiological agent. Hence alcohol becomes a 
dangerous instrument even in the hands of the strong and wise* 
a murderous instrument in the hands of the foolish and weak. 
Used too frequently, used too excessively, the agent that in mo- 
deration cheers the failing body, relaxes its parts too extremely ; 
spoils vital organs ; makes the course of the circulation slow, 
imperfect, irregular; suggests the call for more stimulation; 
tempts to renewal of the evil, and ruins the mechanism of the 
healthy animal before its hour for ruin, by natural decay, should 
be at all near. 
6. It is assumed by most persons that alcohol gives strength, 
and we hear feeble persons saying daily that they are being 
kept up by stimulants. This means actually that they are 
being kept down, but the sensation they derive from the imme- 
diate action of the stimulant deceives them and leads them to 
attribute lasting good to what, in the large majority of cases, is 
persistent evil. The evidence is all-perfect that alcohol gives 
no potential power to brain or muscle. During the first stage 
of its action it may enable a wearied or feeble organism to 
do brisk work for a short time ; it may make the mind briefly 
brilliant ; it may excite muscle to quick action, but it does 
nothing at its own cost, fills up nothing it has destroyed as it 
leads to destruction. A fire makes a brilliant sight, but it leaves 
a desolation ; and thus with alcohol. 
On the muscular force the very slightest excess of alcoholic 
influence is injurious. I find by measuring the power of muscle 
for contraction in the natural state and under alcohol, that so 
soon as there is a distinct indication of muscular disturbance, 
there is also indication of muscular failure, and if I wished, by 
scientific experiment, to spoil for work the most perfect specimen 
of a working animal, say a horse, without inflicting mechanical 
