"Nothing like the simple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow."
The direful practice of spirit-drinking seems to have arrived at its
acme in the metropolis. Splendid mansions rear their _dazzling heads_
at almost every turning; and it appears as if Circe had fixed her
abode in these superb haunts. Happy are those who, like Ulysses of
old, will not partake of her deadly cup. If the unhappy dram-drinker
was merely to calculate the annual expense of two glasses of gin per
day, he would find a sum expended which would procure for him many
comforts, for the want of which he is continually grumbling. If this
sum is expended for only two glasses of spirits, what must be the
expense to the habitual and daily sot, who constantly haunts the
tap-room or the wretched bar? to say nothing of the loss of time,
health, and every comfort.
Dr. Willan says--"On comparing my own observations with the bills of
mortality, I am convinced that considerably more than one-eighth of
all the deaths which take place in persons above twenty years old,
happen prematurely, through excess in drinking spirits."
Spirits, like other poisons, if taken in a sufficient quantity, prove
immediately fatal. The newspapers frequently furnish us with examples
of almost instant death, occasioned by wantonly swallowing a pint or
other large quantity of spirits, for the sake of wager, or in boast.
Dr. Trotter says--"We daily see, in all parts of the world, men who,
by profligacy and hard-drinking, have brought themselves to a goal;
yet, if we consult the register of the prison, it does not appear that
any of these habitual drunkards die by being forced to lead sober
lives." And he contends, that "whatever debility of the constitution
exists, it is to be cured by the usual medicinal means which are
employed to restore weakened organs. But the great difficulty in these
attempts to cure inebriety is in satisfying the mind, and in whetting
the blunted resolutions of the patient; and this is, doubtless, more
easily accomplished by a gradual abstraction of his favourite
potations."
Dr. Lettsom mentions a person who usually drank twelve drams a day;
but being convinced of his approaching misery, took the resolution to
wean himself from this poison. He always drank out of one glass, into
which he daily let fall a drop of sealing-wax. By this means he had
twelve drops less of spirit every day, till at length, his glass being
filled with wax, his habit was cured.
"In the drunkard," says Dr. Willan, "the memory and the faculties
depending on it, being impaired, there takes place an indifference
towards usual occupations, and accustomed society or amusements. No
interest is taken in the concerns of others--no love, no sympathy
remain: even natural affection to nearest relatives is gradually
extinguished, and the moral sense obliterated. The wretched victims of
a fatal poison fall, at length, into a state of fatuity, and die with
the powers both of body and mind wholly exhausted. Some, after
repeated fits of derangement, expire in a sudden and violent phrenzy;
some are hurried out the world by apoplexies; others perish by the
slower process of jaundice, dropsy," &c.