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ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 
stimulants in the fluids we drink; for it would seem to he not 
more instinctive to man to cook his food than to discover in nature, 
or by more or less of art to manufacture, substances which are 
almost purely stimulating principles. The instinct of man, in his 
uncultured and uncivilised state, and in widely separated countries, 
has led him to discover just those four or five plants, which, even 
now so far as we know, are the only plants that, like the tea-plant, 
contain one and the same stimulant. Nearly everywhere, also, 
man’s needs seem to have led him to the process—a perfectly 
natural process, by the way; an accompaniment of the growth of 
the yeast-plant—by which sugar is converted into the stimulant 
termed alcohol . What is the use of such stimulants ? Taken in 
excess they are poisons more or less insidious and harmful. The 
theine of tea, coffee, mate, and guarana, is least liable to be taken 
in excess, and is least harmful. Alcohol is most likely to be taken 
in excess, and is, therefore, most harmful; or, in the epigrammatic 
words attributed to the Scythian prince Anarcharsis, “The first 
draught serveth for health ; the second for pleasure ; the third for 
shame ; and the fourth for madness.” If mankind, especially in 
civilised countries, would consent to live at a slower rate, the 
second draught would be unnecessary and probably even the first. 
But mankind cannot now thus live, apparently. 
“ Man’s life was spacious in the early world: 
It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled 
Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled.” 
Now, with civilisation has come the stimulation of alcohol or 
theine. The first draught and the second are taken by most of the 
youth and nearly all of the adult of both sexes, either as theine or 
alcohol; while, as alcohol, the third and the fourth are taken by 
sadly too many. Children do not need, and, indeed, rarely take, 
either alcohol or theine, nor, for that matter, either pepper or 
mustard with their food. These things are mere stimulants. They 
are not used in the early life of the individual, they were not used 
in the early life of the race. But swallowed in proper and mode¬ 
rate quantities, at proper times, in these days of civilisation, what 
office do stimulants fulfil in the system? “It would seem,” as 
stated elsewhere by the writer, “ that they do the important work 
of aiding the system, whenever necessary, to digest and to store up 
food, and to utilise its existing stores of fat and of flesh. A stimu¬ 
lant does some such work as this whether it belong to the tea class, 
like the powerful coca ; the alcoholic class, as, for example, brandy ; 
or the clear soup class, as, for example, beef-tea. In other words, 
the purpose of stimulants is, apparently, to stimulate the system the 
