IT CURSES THE SOUL.
The physical disasters that follow the continued use of intoxicating
beverages are sad enough, and terrible enough; but the surely attendant
mental, moral and spiritual disasters are sadder and more terrible
still. If you disturb the healthy condition of the brain, which is the
physical organ through which the mind acts, you disturb the mind. It
will not have the same clearness of perception as before; nor have the
same rational control over the impulses and passions.
In what manner alcohol deteriorates the body and brain has been shown in
the two preceding chapters. In this one we purpose showing how the curse
goes deeper than the body and brain, and involves the whole man--morally
and spiritually, as well as physically.
HEAVENLY ORDER IN THE BODY.
In order to understand a subject clearly, certain general laws, or
principles, must be seen and admitted. And here we assume, as a general
truth, that health in the human body is normal heavenly order on the
physical plane of life, and that any disturbance of that order exposes
the man to destructive influences, which are evil and infernal in their
character. Above the natural and physical plane, and resting upon it,
while man lives in this world, is the mental and spiritual plane, or
degree of life. This degree is in heavenly order when the reason is
clear, and the appetites and passions under its wise control. But, if,
through any cause, this fine equipoise is disturbed, or lost, then a way
is opened for the influx of more subtle evil influences than such as
invade the body, because they have power to act upon the reason and the
passions, obscuring the one and inflaming the others.
MENTAL DISTURBANCES.
We know how surely the loss of bodily health results in mental
disturbance. If the seat of disease be remote from the brain, the
disturbance is usually slight; but it increases as the trouble comes
nearer and nearer to that organ, and shows itself in multiform ways
according to character, temperament or inherited disposition; but almost
always in a predominance of what is evil instead of good. There will be
fretfulness, or ill-nature, or selfish exactions, or mental obscurity,
or unreasoning demands, or, it may be, vicious and cruel propensities,
where, when the brain was undisturbed by disease, reason held rule with
patience and loving kindness. If the disease which has attacked the
brain goes on increasing, the mental disease which follows as a
consequence of organic disturbance or deterioration, will have
increased also, until insanity may be established in some one or more of
its many sad and varied forms.
INSANITY.
It is, therefore, a very serious thing for a man to take into his body
any substance which, on reaching that wonderfully delicate organ--the
brain, sets up therein a diseased action; for, diseased mental action is
sure to follow, and there is only one true name for mental disease, and
that is _insanity_. A fever is a fever, whether it be light or intensely
burning; and so any disturbance of the mind's rational equipoise is
insanity, whether it be in the simplest form of temporary obscurity, or
in the midnight of a totally darkened intellect.
We are not writing in the interest of any special theory, nor in the
spirit of partisanship; but with an earnest desire to make the truth
appear. The reader must not accept anything simply because we say it,
but because he sees it to be true. Now, as to this matter of insanity,
let him think calmly. The word is one that gives us a shock; and, as we
hear it, we almost involuntarily thank God for the good gift of a
well-balanced mind. What, if from any cause this beautiful equipoise
should be disturbed and the mind lose its power to think clearly, or to
hold the lower passions in due control? Shall we exceed the truth if we
say that the man in whom this takes place is insane just in the degree
that he has lost his rational self-control; and that he is restored
when he regains that control?
In this view, the question as to the hurtfulness of alcoholic drinks
assumes a new and graver aspect. Do they disturb the brain when they
come in contact with its substance; and deteriorate it if the contact be
long continued? Fact, observation, experience and scientific
investigation all emphatically say yes; and we know that if the brain be
disordered the mind, will be disordered, likewise; and a disordered mind
is an insane mind. Clearly, then, in the degree that a man impairs or
hurts his brain--temporarily or continuously--in that degree his mind is
unbalanced; in that degree he is not a truly rational and sane man.
We are holding the reader's thought just here that he may have time to
think, and to look at the question in the light of reason and common
sense. So far as he does this, will he be able to feel the force of such
evidence as we shall educe in what follows, and to comprehend its true
meaning.
NO SUBSTANCE AFFECTS THE BRAIN LIKE ALCOHOL.
Other substances besides alcohol act injuriously on the brain; but there
is none that compares with this in the extent, variety and diabolical
aspect of the mental aberrations which follow its use. We are not
speaking thoughtlessly or wildly; but simply uttering a truth well-known
to every man of observation, and which every man, and especially those
who take this substance in any form, should, lay deeply to heart. Why
it is that such awful and destructive forms of insanity should follow,
as they do, the use of alcohol it is not for us to say. That they do
follow it, we know, and we hold, up the fact in solemn warning.
INHERITED LATENT EVIL FORCES.
Another consideration, which should have weight with every one, is this,
that no man can tell what may be the character of the legacy he has
received from his ancestors. He may have an inheritance of latent evil
forces, transmitted through many generations, which only await some
favoring opportunity to spring into life and action. So long as he
maintains a rational self-control, and the healthy order of his life be
not disturbed, they may continue quiescent; but if his brain loses its
equipoise, or is hurt or impaired, then a diseased psychical condition
may be induced and the latent evil forces be quickened into life.
No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, when it reaches the
brain, such power to induce
MENTAL AND MORAL CHANGES OF A DISASTROUS CHARACTER
as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, and often appalling. It
seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of
foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in
contact with the brain, are able to hold possession. Men of the kindest
nature when sober, act often like fiends when drunk. Crimes and outrages
are committed, which shock and shame the perpetrators when the
excitement of inebriation has passed away. Referring to this subject,
Dr. Henry Munroe says:
"It appears from the experience of Mr. Fletcher, who has paid much
attention to the cases of drunkards, from the remarks of Mr. Dunn, in
his 'Medical Psychology,' and from observations of my own, that there is
some analogy between our physical and psychical natures; for, as the
physical part of us, when its power is at a low ebb, becomes susceptible
of morbid influences which, in full vigor, would pass over it without
effect, so when the psychical (synonymous with the _moral_) part of the
brain has its healthy function disturbed and deranged by the
introduction of a morbid poison like alcohol, the individual so
circumstanced sinks in depravity, and
"BECOMES THE HELPLESS SUBJECT OF THE FORCES OF EVIL,
"which are powerless against a nature free from the morbid influences of
alcohol.
[Illustration: "TAKE WARNING BY MY CAREER."]
"Different persons are affected in different ways by the same poison.
Indulgence in alcoholic drinks may act upon one or more of the cerebral
organs; and, as its necessary consequence, the manifestations of
functional disturbance will follow in such of the mental powers as these
organs subserve. If the indulgence be continued, then, either from
deranged nutrition or organic lesion, manifestations formerly
developed only during a fit of intoxication may become _permanent_,
and terminate in insanity or dypso-mania. M. Flourens first pointed out
the fact that certain morbific agents, when introduced into the current
of the circulation, tend to act _primarily_ and _specially_ on one
nervous centre in preference to that of another, by virtue of some
special elective affinity between such morbific agents and certain
ganglia. Thus, in the tottering gait of the tipsy man, we see the
influence of alcohol upon the functions of the _cerebellum_ in the
impairment of its power of co-ordinating the muscles.
"Certain writers on diseases of the mind make especial allusion to that
form of insanity termed DYPSOMANIA, in which a person has an
unquenchable thirst for alcoholic drinks--a tendency as decidedly
maniacal as that of _homicidal mania_; or the uncontrollable desire to
burn, termed _pyromania_; or to steal, called _kleptomania_."
HOMICIDAL MANIA.
"The different tendencies of homicidal mania in different individuals
are often only nursed into action when the current of the blood has been
poisoned with alcohol. I had a case of a person who, whenever his brain
was so excited, told me that he experienced a most uncontrollable desire
to kill or injure some one; so much so, that he could at times hardly
restrain himself from the action, and was obliged to refrain from all
stimulants, lest, in an unlucky moment, he might commit himself.
Townley, who murdered the young lady of his affections, for which he was
sentenced to be imprisoned in a lunatic asylum for life, _poisoned his
brain with brandy_ and soda-water before he committed the rash act. The
brandy stimulated into action certain portions of the brain, which
acquired such a power as to subjugate his will, and hurry him to the
performance of a frightful deed, opposed alike to his better judgment
and his ordinary desires.
"As to _pyromania_, some years ago I knew a laboring man in a country
village, who, whenever he had had a few glasses of ale at the
public-house, would chuckle with delight at the thought of firing
certain gentlemen's stacks. Yet, when his brain was free from the
poison, a quieter, better-disposed man could not be. Unfortunately, he
became addicted to habits of intoxication; and, one night, under
alcoholic excitement, fired some stacks belonging to his employers, for
which, he was sentenced for fifteen years to a penal settlement, where
his brain would never again be alcoholically excited."
KLEPTOMANIA.
"Next, I will give an example of _kleptomania_. I knew, many years ago,
a very clever, industrious and talented young man, who told me that
whenever he had been drinking, he could hardly withstand, the temptation
of stealing anything that came in his way; but that these feelings never
troubled him at other times. One afternoon, after he had been indulging
with his fellow-workmen in drink, his will, unfortunately, was
overpowered, and he took from the mansion where he was working some
articles of worth, for which he was accused, and afterwards sentenced to
a term of imprisonment. When set at liberty he had the good fortune to
be placed among some kind-hearted persons, vulgarly called
_teetotallers_; and, from conscientious motives, signed the PLEDGE, now
above twenty years ago. From that time to the present moment he has
never experienced the overmastering desire which so often beset him in
his drinking days--to take that which was not his own. Moreover, no
pretext on earth could now entice him to taste of any liquor containing
alcohol, feeling that, under its influence, he might again fall its
victim. He holds an influential position in the town where he resides.
"I have known some ladies of good position in society, who, after a
dinner or supper-party, and after having taken sundry glasses of wine,
could not withstand the temptation of taking home any little article not
their own, when the opportunity offered; and who, in their sober
moments, have returned them, as if taken by mistake. We have many
instances recorded in our police reports of gentlemen of position, under
the influence of drink, committing thefts of the most paltry articles,
afterwards returned to the owners by their friends, which can only be
accounted for, psychologically, by the fact that the _will_ had been
for the time completely overpowered by the subtle influence of alcohol."
LOSS OF MENTAL CLEARNESS.
"That alcohol, whether taken in large or small doses, immediately
disturbs the natural functions of the mind and body, is now conceded by
the most eminent physiologists. Dr. Brinton says: 'Mental acuteness,
accuracy of conception, and delicacy of the senses, are all so far
opposed by the action of alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each
are _incompatible_ with the ingestion of any moderate quantity of
fermented liquid. Indeed, there is scarcely any calling which demands
skillful and exact effort of mind and body, or which requires the
balanced exercise of many faculties, that does not illustrate this rule.
The mathematician, the gambler, the metaphysician, the billiard-player,
the author, the artist, the physician, would, if they could analyze
their experience aright, generally concur in the statement, that _a
single glass will often suffice to take_, so to speak, _the edge off
both mind and body_, and to reduce their capacity to something below
what is relatively their perfection of work.'
"Not long ago, a railway train was driven carelessly into one of the
principal London stations, running into another train, killing, by the
collision, six or seven persons, and injuring many others. From the
evidence at the inquest, it appeared that the guard was reckoned sober,
_only he had had two glasses of ale_ with a friend at a previous
station. Now, reasoning psychologically, these two glasses of ale had
probably been instrumental in _taking off the edge_ from his perceptions
and prudence, and producing a carelessness or boldness of action which
would not have occurred under the cooling, temperate influence of a
beverage free from alcohol. Many persons have admitted to me that they
were not the same after taking even one glass of ale or wine that they
were before, and could not _thoroughly_ trust themselves after they had
taken this single glass."
IMPAIRMENT OF MEMORY.
An impairment of the memory is among the early symptoms of alcoholic
derangement.
"This," says Dr. Richardson, "extends even to forgetfulness of the
commonest things; to names of familiar persons, to dates, to duties of
daily life. Strangely, too," he adds, "this failure, like that which
indicates, in the aged, the era of second childishness and mere
oblivion, does not extend to the things of the past, but is confined to
events that are passing. On old memories the mind retains its power; on
new ones it requires constant prompting and sustainment."
In this failure of memory nature gives a solemn warning that imminent
peril is at hand. Well for the habitual drinker if he heed the warning.
Should he not do so, symptoms of a more serious character will, in
time, develop themselves, as the brain becomes more and more diseased,
ending, it may be, in permanent insanity.
MENTAL AND MORAL DISEASES.
Of the mental and moral diseases which too often follow the regular
drinking of alcohol, we have painful records in asylum reports, in
medical testimony and in our daily observation and experience. These are
so full and varied, and thrust so constantly on our attention, that the
wonder is that men are not afraid to run the terrible risks involved
even in what is called the moderate use of alcoholic beverages.
In 1872, a select committee of the House of Commons, appointed "to
consider the best plan for the control and management of habitual
drunkards," called upon some of the most eminent medical men in Great
Britain to give their testimony in answer to a large number of
questions, embracing every topic within the range of inquiry, from the
pathology of inebriation to the practical usefulness of prohibitory
laws. In this testimony much was said about the effect of alcoholic
stimulation on the mental condition and moral character. One physician,
Dr. James Crichton Brown, who, in ten years' experience as
superintendent of lunatic asylums, has paid special attention to the
relations of habitual drunkenness to insanity, having carefully examined
five hundred cases, testified that alcohol, taken in excess, produced
different forms of mental disease, of which he mentioned four classes:
1. _Mania a potu_, or alcoholic mania. 2. The monomania of suspicion. 3.
Chronic alcoholism, characterized by failure of the memory and power of
judgment, with partial paralysis--generally ending fatally. 4.
Dypsomania, or an _irresistible_ craving for alcoholic stimulants,
occuring very frequently, paroxysmally, and with constant liability to
periodical exacerbations, when the craving becomes altogether
uncontrollable. Of this latter form of disease, he says: "This is
invariably associated with a certain _impairment of the intellect, and
of the affections and the moral powers_."
Dr. Alexander Peddie, a physician of over thirty-seven years' practice
in Edinburgh, gave, in his evidence, many remarkable instances of the
moral perversions that followed continued drinking.
RELATION BETWEEN INSANITY AND DRUNKENNESS.
Dr. John Nugent said that his experience of twenty-six years among
lunatics, led him to believe that there is a very close relation between
the results of the abuse of alcohol and insanity. The population of
Ireland had decreased, he said, two millions in twenty-five years, but
there was the same amount of insanity now that there was before. He
attributed this, in a great measure, to indulgence in drink.
Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Commissioner of Lunacy for Scotland, testified that
the excessive use of alcohol caused a large amount of the lunacy, crime
and pauperism of that country. In some men, he said, habitual drinking
leads to other diseases than insanity, because the effect is always in
the direction of the proclivity, but it is certain that there are many
in whom there is a clear proclivity to insanity, _who would escape that
dreadful consummation but for drinking; excessive drinking in many
persons determining the insanity to which they are, at any rate,
predisposed_. The children of drunkards, he further said, are in a
larger proportion idiotic than other children, and in a larger
proportion become themselves drunkards; they are also in a larger
proportion liable to the ordinary forms of acquired insanity.
Dr. Winslow Forbes believed that in the habitual drunkard the whole
nervous structure, and the brain especially, became poisoned by alcohol.
All the mental symptoms which you see accompanying ordinary
intoxication, he remarks, result from the poisonous effects of alcohol
on the brain. It is the brain which is mainly effected. In temporary
drunkenness, the brain becomes in an abnormal state of alimentation, and
if this habit is persisted in for years, the nervous tissue itself
becomes permeated with alcohol, and organic changes take place in the
nervous tissues of the brain, producing _that frightful and dreadful
chronic insanity which we see in lunatic asylums, traceable entirely to
habits of intoxication_. A large percentage of frightful mental and
brain disturbances can, he declared, be traced to the drunkenness of
parents.
Dr. D.G. Dodge, late of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, who, with.
Dr. Joseph Parrish, gave testimony before the committee of the House of
Commons, said, in one of his answers: "With the excessive use of
alcohol, functional disorder will invariably appear, and no organ will
be more seriously affected, and possibly impaired, than the brain. _This
is shown in the inebriate by a weakened intellect, a general debility of
the mental faculties_, a partial or total loss of self-respect, and a
departure of the power of self-command; all of which, acting together,
place the victim at the mercy of a depraved and morbid appetite, and
make him utterly powerless, by his own unaided efforts, to secure his
recovery from the disease which is destroying him." And he adds: "I am
of opinion that there is a
"GREAT SIMILARITY BETWEEN INEBRIETY AND INSANITY.
"I am decidedly of opinion that the former has taken its place in the
family of diseases as prominently as its twin-brother insanity; and, in
my opinion, the day is not far distant when the pathology of the former
will be as fully understood and as successfully treated as the latter,
and even more successfully, since it is more within the reach and bounds
of human control, which, wisely exercised and scientifically
administered, may prevent curable inebriation from verging into possible
incurable insanity."
GENERAL IMPAIRMENT OF THE FACULTIES.
In a more recent lecture than the one from which we have quoted so
freely, Dr. Richardson, speaking of the action of alcohol on the mind,
gives the following sad picture of its ravages:
"An analysis of the condition of the mind induced and maintained by the
free daily use of alcohol as a drink, reveals a singular order of facts.
The manifestation fails altogether to reveal the exaltation of any
reasoning power in a useful or satisfactory direction. I have never met
with an instance in which such a claim for alcohol has been made. On the
contrary, confirmed alcoholics constantly say that for this or that
work, requiring thought and attention, it is necessary to forego some of
the usual potations in order to have a cool head for hard work.
"On the other side, the experience is overwhelmingly in favor of the
observation that the use of
"ALCOHOL SELLS THE REASONING POWERS,
"make weak men and women the easy prey of the wicked and strong, and
leads men and women who should know better into every grade of misery
and vice. * * * If, then, alcohol enfeebles the reason, what part of the
mental constitution does it exalt and excite? It excites and exalts
those animal, organic, emotional centres of mind which, in the dual
nature of man, so often cross and oppose that pure and abstract
reasoning nature which lifts man above the lower animals, and rightly
exercised, little lower than the angels.
IT EXCITES MAN'S WORST PASSIONS.
"Exciting these animal centres, it lets loose all the passions, and
gives them more or less of unlicensed dominion over the man. It excites
anger, and when it does not lead to this extreme, it keeps the mind
fretful, irritable, dissatisfied and captious.... And if I were to take
you through all the passions, love, hate, lust, envy, avarice and pride,
I should but show you that alcohol ministers to them all; that,
paralyzing the reason, it takes from off these passions that fine
adjustment of reason, which places man above the lower animals. From the
beginning to the end of its influence it subdues reason and sets the
passions free. The analogies, physical and mental, are perfect. That
which loosens the tension of the vessels which feed the body with due
order and precision, and, thereby, lets loose the heart to violent
excess and unbridled motion, loosens, also, the reason and lets loose
the passion. In both instances, heart and head are, for a time, out of
harmony; their balance broken. The man descends closer and closer to the
lower animals. From the angels he glides farther and farther away.
A SAD AND TERRIBLE PICTURE.
"The _destructive_ effects of alcohol on the human mind present,
finally, the saddest picture of its influence. The most æsthetic artist
can find no angel here. All is animal, and animal of the worst type.
Memory irretrievably lost, words and very elements of speech forgotten
or words displaced to have no meaning in them. Rage and anger persistent
and mischievous, or remittent and impotent. Fear at every corner of
life, distrust on every side, grief merged into blank despair,
hopelessness into permanent melancholy. Surely no Pandemonium that ever
poet dreamt of could equal that which would exist if all the drunkards
of the world were driven into one mortal sphere.
[Illustration: CRAZED BY DRINK. "God's rational offspring ... become a
brute."]
"As I have moved among those who are physically stricken with alcohol,
and have detected under the various disguises of name the fatal
diseases, the pains and penalties it imposes on the body, the picture
has been sufficiently cruel. But even that picture pales, as I conjure
up, without any stretch of imagination, the devastations which the same
agent inflicts on the mind. Forty per cent., the learned Superintendent
of Colney Hatch, Dr. Sheppard, tells us, of those who were brought into
that asylum in 1876, were so brought because of the direct or indirect
effects of alcohol. If the facts of all the asylums were collected with
equal care, the same tale would, I fear, be told. What need we further
to show the destructive action on the human mind? The Pandemonium of
drunkards; the grand transformation scene of that pantomime of drink
which commences with, moderation! Let it never more be forgotten by
those who love their fellow-men until, through their efforts, it is
closed forever."
We might go on, adding page after page of evidence, showing how alcohol
curses the souls, as well as the bodies, of men; but enough has been
educed to force conviction on the mind of every reader not already
satisfied of its poisonous and destructive quality.
How light are all evils flowing from intemperance compared with those
which it thus inflicts on man's higher nature. "What," says Dr. W.E.
Channing, "is the great essential evil of intemperance? The reply is
given, when I say, that intemperance is the
"VOLUNTARY EXTINCTION OF REASON.
"The great evil is inward or spiritual. The intemperate man divests
himself, for a time, of his rational and moral nature, casts from
himself self-consciousness and self-command, brings on frenzy, and by
repetition of this insanity, prostrates more and more his rational and
moral powers. He sins immediately and directly against the rational
nature, that Divine principle which, distinguishes between truth and
falsehood, between right and wrong action, which, distinguishes man from
the brute. This is the essence of the vice, what constitutes its
peculiar guilt and woe, and what should particularly impress and awaken
those who are laboring for its suppression. Other evils of intemperance
are light compared with this, and almost all flow from this; and it is
right, it is to be desired that all other evils should be joined with
and follow this. It is to be desired, when a man lifts a suicidal arm
against his higher life, when he quenches reason and conscience, that he
and all others should receive solemn, startling warning of the greatness
of his guilt; that terrible outward calamities should bear witness to
the inward ruin which he is working; that the handwriting of judgment
and woe on his countenance, form and whole condition, should declare
what a fearful thing it is for a man, "God's rational offspring, to
renounce his reason, and become a brute."