or prudence of adopting total abstinence principles, because of the
miseries which have been caused by undue indulgence--if A, B, and C,
who have no desire to make beasts of themselves, are to refrain from
the social glass because X, Y, and Z cannot content themselves till
they have taken half-a-dozen social glasses too many--society has an
additional reason to be angry with the drunkards, and with those
scarcely less pernicious members of the social body who either cannot
keep sober without blue ribbons or pledges, or, having no wish to
drink, want everyone to know it. I admit, of course, if it really is
the case that the healthy-minded must refrain from the innocent use of
such stimulants as suit them, in the interest of the diseased, it may
be very proper and desirable to do so: but only in the same way that
it might be very desirable to avoid in a lunatic asylum the rational
discussion of subjects about which the lunatics were astray. For
steady literary or scientific work, however, and throughout the hours
of work (or near them), it is certain that for most men something very
close to total abstinence from stimulants is the best policy."
_Knowledge_, July, 29, 1882.
"I have recently had rather interesting evidence of the real value of
the use of so-called stimulants. When lecturing daily, and also
travelling long distances, I always adopt a very light diet: tea, dry
toast, and an egg for breakfast; nothing then till six, when I take
tea, dry toast, and a chop; after lecturing I take a biscuit or so
with cheese, and a glass of whisky-and-water, 'cold without.' I tried
this season the effect of omitting the whisky. Result--sleeplessness
till one or two in the morning. No other harm, but weariness during
following day. Taking the whisky-and-water again, after trying this a
night or two, acted as the most perfect sedative."
_Knowledge_, Dec. 1, 1882.
DR. B. W. RICHARDSON, F. R. S.
"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 a 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 substantially, and fills up nothing it has
destroyed, as it leads to destruction. A fire makes a brilliant sight,
but leaves a desolation. It is the same with alcohol.... The true place
of alcohol is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage,
with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy
under its shadow. The civilised man, overburdened with mental labour,
or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after
all, in which in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires
from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my
mind, equivalent to the act of seeking for the sun in subterranean
gloom until all is night.... In respect to the influence of smoking
on the mental faculties, there need, I believe, be no obscurity. When
mental labour is being commenced, indulgence in a pipe produces in
most persons a heavy, dull condition, which impairs the processes of
digestion and assimilation, and suspends more or less that motion of
the tissues which constitutes vital activity. But if mental labour be
continued for a long time, until exhaustion be felt, then the resort
to a pipe gives to some _habitues_ a feeling of relief; it
soothes, it is said, and gives new impetus to thought. This is the
practical experience of almost all smokers, but few men become so
habituated to the pipe as to commence well a day of physical or mental
work on tobacco. Many try, but it almost invariably obtains that they
go through their labours with much less alacrity than other men who
are not so addicted. The majority of smokers feel that after a hard
day's labour, a pipe, supposing always that the indulgence of it is
moderately carried out, produces temporary relief from exhaustion."
_Diseases of Modern Life_.
"I gave up that which I thought warmed and helped me, and I can
declare, after considering the whole period in which I have subjected
myself to this ordeal, I never did more work; I never did more varied
work; I never did work with so much facility; I never did work with
such a complete sense of freedom from anxiety and worry, as I have
done during the period that I have abstained altogether."
Speech at Exeter Hall, Feb. 7, 1877.
MR. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.
"As to smoking stupefying a man's faculties or blunting his energy,
that allegation I take to be mainly nonsense. The greatest workers and
thinkers of modern times have been inveterate smokers. At the same
time, it is idle to deny that smoking to excess weakens the eyesight,
impairs the digestion, plays havoc with the nerves, and interferes
with the action of the heart. I have been a constant smoker for nearly
forty years; but had I my life to live over again I would never touch
tobacco in any shape or form. It is to the man who sits all day long
at a desk, poring over books and scribbling 'copy,' that smoking is
deleterious."
_Illustrated London News_, Sep. 30, 1882.
BISHOP TEMPLE.
"I can testify that since I have given up intoxicating liquors I have
felt less weariness in what I have to do. I have been busy ever since
I was a little boy, and I therefore know how much I can undertake, and
I certainly can testify that since I gave up intoxicating liquors--
although I did not like the giving them up, inasmuch as I rather
enjoyed them, when I used them, and inasmuch as I never felt the
slightest intention to exceed, nor am I at all among those who cannot
take one glass, and only one, but must go on to another--I have
certainly found that I am very much the better for it. Whatever
arguments I may hear about it, it is impossible for me to escape from
the memory of the fact that I have found myself very much better able
to work, to write, to read, to speak, and to do whatever I may have to
do, ever since I abstained totally and entirely from all intoxicating
liquor."
Speech at Torquay, Sept 10, 1882.
SIR HENRY THOMPSON, F. R. C. S.,
SURGEON-EXTRAORDINARY TO THE KING OF THE BELGIANS.
"I will tell you who can't take alcohol, and that is very important
in the present day. Of all the people I know who cannot stand
alcohol, it is the brain-workers; and you know it is the brain-workers
that are increasing in number, and that the people who do not use
their brains are going down, and that is a noteworthy incident in
relation to the future. I find that the men who live indoors, who have
sedentary habits, who work their nervous systems, and who get
irritable tempers, as such people always do, unless they take a large
balance of exercise to keep them right (which they rarely do), I say
that persons who are living in these fast days get nervous systems
more excitable and more irritable than their forefathers, and they
cannot bear alcohol so well."
Speech at Exeter Hall, Feb. 7, 1877.
MR. W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F. R. A. S., F. C. S.
"I have just read your quotations from the Abbe Moigno, and your own
comments thereon. I have tried experiments very similar to those you
describe, with exactly the same results; in fact, so far as
intellectual work is concerned, I might describe my own experience by
direct plagiarism of your words.
Besides these, I have tried other experiments which may be interesting
to those who, without any partizan fanaticism, are seeking for
practical guidance on this subject.
As many of your readers may know, I have been (when of smaller girth)
an energetic pedestrian, have walked over a large part of England,
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, crossed France twice on foot, done
Switzerland and the Tyrol pretty exhaustively; in one walk from Paris
taking in on the way the popular lions of the Alps, and then
proceeding, via, Milan and Genoa, to Florence, Rome, Naples, and
Calabria, then from Messina to Syracuse, and on to the East. All this,
excepting the East, on foot. At another time from Venice to Milan,
besides a multitude of minor tours, and my well-known walk through
Norway.
In the course of these, my usual average rate, when in fair training,
was 200 miles per week. The alcohol experiments consisted in doing a
fortnight at this rate on water, scrupulously abstaining from any
alcoholic drink whatever, and then a fortnight using the beverages of
the country in ordinary moderate quantity. I have thus used British
ales and porter, Bavarian beer, French wines, Italian wines, Hungarian
wine in the Tyrol, Christiania ol, &c., according to circumstances,
and the result has been the same, 'or with very little variation. With
the stimulant I have, of course, obtained a temporary exhilaration
that was pleasant enough while it lasted, but after the first week I
found myself dragging through the last few miles, and quite able to
appreciate the common habit of halting at a roadside "pub." or
wine-shop, for a drink on the way. No such inclination came upon me
when my only beverage was water, or water plus a cup of coffee for
breakfast _only_ (no afternoon tea). Then I came in fresh,
usually finishing at the best pace of the day, enjoying the brisk
exercise in cool evening air. Physical work of this kind admits of
accurate measurement, and I was careful to equalise the average of
these experimental comparative fortnights.
The result is a firm conviction that the only beverage for obtaining
the maximum work out of any piece of human machinery is water, as pure
as possible; that all other beverages (including even tea and coffee),
ginger-beer, and all such concoctions as the so-called "temperance
drinks," are prejudicial to anybody not under medical treatment. To a
sound-bodied man there is no danger in drinking any quantity of cold
water in the hottest weather, provided _it is swallowed slowly_.
I have drunk as much as a dozen quarts in the course of a stiff
mountain climb when perspiring profusely, and never suffered the
slightest inconvenience, but, on the contrary, have found that the
perspiration promoted by frequent and copious libations at the
mountain streams enabled me to vigorously enjoy the roasting beat of
sun-rays striking so freely and fiercely as they do through the thin
air on the southward slopes of a high mountain.
I am not a teetotaler, and enjoy a glass of light wine, but always
take it as I sucked lollypops when a child, not because "it is good
for my complaint," or any such humbug, but simply because I am so low
in the scale of creation, as imperfect, as far from angelic, as to be
capable of occasionally enjoying a certain amount of purely sensual
indulgence, and of doing so from nothing higher than purely sensual
motives.
If all would admit this, and freely confess that their drinking or
smoking, however moderate, is simply a folly or a vice, they would be
far less liable to go to excess than when they befool themselves by
inventing excuses that cover their weaknesses with a flimsy disguise
of medicinal necessity, or other pretended advantage. In all such
cases the physical mischief of the alcohol is supplemented by the
moral corruption of habitual hypocrisy."
_Knowledge_, August 18, 1882.
DR. BURNEY YEO, M. D.
"With regard to the effect of moderate doses of alcohol on mental
work much difference of opinion exists. Many students find that,
instead of helping them in their work, it hinders them. It dulls
their receptive faculties. Others, on the contrary, find real help in
moderate quantities of wine. These differences of effect would seem
to depend greatly on differences in constitutional temperament. It is
certainly capable, for a time, of calling some of the mental
faculties into increased activity. Some of the best things that have
ever been said have been said under the influence of wine. The
circulation through the brain is quickened, the nervous tissue
receives more nourishment, the imagination is stimulated, and ideas
flow more rapidly, but it is doubtful if the power of close reasoning
be not always diminished. It is useful for reviving mental power,
when from accidental circumstances, such as want of food, &c., it has
been exhausted, but it should never be relied upon as an aid to
continuous effort or close application."
_Fortnightly Review_. Vol. 21, p. 547.
CONCLUSION.
From a review of the 124 testimonies, including those which appear in
the Appendix, I find that 25 use wine at dinner only; 30 are
abstainers from all alcoholic liquors; 24 use tobacco, out of which
only 12 smoke whilst at work; one chews and one took snuff. Not one
resorts to alcohol for stimulus to thinking, and only two or three
defend its use under special circumstances--"useful at a pinch," under
"physical or mental exhaustion." "Not one resorts to alcohol" for
inspiration. This is an important discovery, and indicates the
existence of more enlightened views in reference to the value of
alcohol, since Burns sang the praise of whisky:--"It kindles wit and
weakens fear." That some literary men still "support" themselves by
alcoholic stimulants, is no doubt true; and, if M. Taine is not
mistaken, some of the leader writers of the London papers can write
their articles only by the aid of a bottle of champagne. When the
creative faculty flags, or the attention wanders, a writer, who is
working against time, is strongly tempted to fly to stimulants for
aid.
But leader writing, or any other kind of writing, done under the
influence of any kind of stimulants, is, remarks Blackie, unhealthy
work, and tends to no good. "It may safely be affirmed," thinks the
editor of the _Contemporary Review,_ "that no purely conscientious
writing was ever produced under stimulation from alcohol. Harriet
Martineau was one of those workers who could not write a paragraph without
asking herself, 'Is that wholly true? Is it a good thing to say it? Shall
I lead anyone astray by it? Had I better soften it down, or keep it back?
Is it as well as I can say it?' Writing like that of Wilson's 'Noctes,' or
Hoffman's madder stories, may be produced under the influence of wine,
but 'stuff of the conscience', not." The workman himself is injured, as
well as the quality of his work lessened. Mr. Hamerton says he has seen
terrible results from the use of stimulants at work; and anyone who has
read literary history, or who has had any experience of literary life in
London, knows that the rock upon which many men split is--drink.
Whatever journalists may gain from alcohol, other writers who have
tried it say nothing in its favour. Mr. Howells does not take wine at
all, because it weakens his work and his working force. To Mark Twain
wine is a clog to the pen, not an inspiration. "I have," he says,
"never seen the time when I could write to my satisfaction after
drinking even one glass of wine." Dr. Bain finds abstinence from
alcohol and the tea group essential to intellectual effort. They
induce, he says, a false excitement, not compatible with severe
application to problems of difficulty; and the experience of other
workers, whether literary or scientific, is precisely similar. But the
use of alcoholic stimulants at work is one thing; at dinner, another.
The former practice is absolutely injurious; and the highest medical
authorities have pronounced against the latter. Some of the most
vigorous thinkers and laborious workers, however, find that wine aids
digestion and conduces to their power of work. To Mr. Gladstone it is
"especially necessary at the time of greatest intellectual exertion."
As a rule, it is taken at the end of the day, when work is over; but
when he resumes literary composition the quality of a writer's work
seems deteriorated. One of the most esteemed novelists of the present
day informs Dr. Brunton that, although he can take a great deal of
wine without its having any apparent effect on him, yet a single glass
of sherry is enough to take the fine edge off his intellect. He is
able to write easily and fluently in the evening, after taking dinner
and wine, but what he then writes will not bear his own criticism next
morning, although curiously enough it may seem to him excellent at the
time of writing. The perception of the fingers, as well as the
perception of the mind, seems blunted by the use of alcohol. Dr.
Alfred Carpenter relates that a celebrated violin player, as he was
about to go on the platform, was asked if he would take a glass of
wine before he appeared, "Oh, no, thank you," he replied, "I shall
have it when I come off." This answer excited Mr. Carpenter's
curiosity, and he inquired of the violinist why he would have it when
he came off in preference to having it before his work commenced, and
the reply was, "If I take stimulants before I go to work, the
_perception of the fingers is blunted,_ and I don't feel that
nicety and delicacy of touch necessary to bring out the fine tones
requisite in this piece of music, and therefore I avoid them." "But to
touch these things is dangerous, "says Mr. Hubert Bancroft, though
less dangerous to touch them _after_ work than _before_
work. The most careful man is sometimes thrown off his guard, and
drinks more than his usual allowance. It is, Mr. Watts believes, an
admitted fact that even people who are considered strictly temperate
habitually take more than is good for them. What quantity _is_
good for every man, no one can say with certainty. So far as wine is
taken to aid digestion, Blackie, who considers that wine "may even be
necessary to stimulate digestion," holds that "healthy _young_
men can never require such a stimulus."
A belief exists that men who abstain from alcohol indulge to excess in
some other stimulant. There is some foundation for this belief.
Balzac, for instance, abstained from tobacco, which he declared
injured the body, attacked the intellect, and stupefied the nations;
but he drank great quantities of coffee, which produced the terrible
nervous disease which shortened his life. Goethe was a non-smoker,
but, according to Bayard Taylor, he drank fifty thousand bottles of
wine in his life-time. Niebuhr greatly disliked smoking, but took a
tremendous quantity of snuff. A great number of teetotalers "make up
for their abstinence from alcohol by excessive indulgence in tobacco,"
and abuse their more consistent brethren who venture to expostulate
with them. John Stuart Mill "believed that the giving up of wine would
be apt to be followed by taking more food than was necessary, merely
for the sake of stimulation." Sir Theodore Martin, also, thinks the
absence of alcohol likely to lead to increased eating, and to an
extent likely to cause derangement of the body. The power of alcohol
to arrest and preserve decomposition may, it is admitted by temperance
writers, retard to some extent the waste of animal tissue, and
diminish accordingly the appetite for food; but they contend that the
effete matter which has served its purpose and done for the body all
that it can do is retained in the body to its loss and damage. "The
question comes to be," says Professor Miller, "whether shall we take
alcohol, eat less, and be improperly nourished, or take no alcohol,
eat more, and be nourished well? Whether shall we thrive better on a
small quantity of new nutritive material with a great deal of what is
old and mouldy, or on a constant and fresh supply of new material? ...
The most perfect health and strength depend on frequent and complete
disintegration of tissue with a corresponding constant and complete
replacement of the effete parts by the formation of new material."
"This is not a question which can be settled by reasoning: it must be
decided entirely by experience. No one who has always been in the
habit of using stimulants can be heard on this point, because, having
had no experience of life without alcohol, such a person cannot draw a
comparison between life with and life without that agent." These are
the words of Dr. Buckle, of London, Ontario, and this practical way of
testing the question will commend itself to all. What is the
experience, then, of those who have tried both moderation and total
abstinence? The Rev. Canon Farrar found that "even a single glass of
wine, when engaged in laborious work, was rather injurious than
otherwise." Mr. A. J. Ellis did not find that wine increased his power
of work, and Professor Skeat says the less stimulant he takes the
better. Contrary to medical advice, Dr. Martineau reverted to
abstinence, and for twelve or fifteen years he has been practically a
total abstainer, and, at 77, he retains the power of mental
application. For many years, the Rev. Mark Pattison found great
advantage from giving up wine. Lieutenant-Colonel Butler finds that a
greater amount of _even_ mental work is to be obtained without
the use of alcohol. The belief that alcohol invigorated the body was
held by Mr. Cornelius Walford, but he now finds that it does not do
so, and believes that in sedentary occupations it is positively
injurious even when taken with meals. Professor Skeat has given up
beer with benefit to himself, and has almost given up wine. M.
Barthelemy St. Hilaire has abstained from wine for many years, indeed,
for nearly a life-time, with great advantage. Mr. Hamerton has
abstained for long periods from stimulants, feeling better without
them.
Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's practice approaches nearer to abstinence
as he grows older. The Bishop of Durham finds that, on the whole, he
can work for more consecutive hours, and with greater application,
than when he used stimulants. This, too, is the testimony of Bishop
Temple. The Rev. Stopford Brooke is enthusiastic in his praise of
total abstinence: it has enabled him to work better; it has increased
the pleasure of life; and it has banished depression. Sir Henry
Thompson declares himself better without wine, and better able to
accomplish his work. Dr. Richardson declares that he never did more
work, or more varied work; that he never did work with so much
facility, or with such a complete sense of freedom from anxiety and
worry as he has done during the period he has abstained from alcohol.
On the other hand, Sir Erskine May's experience of abstinence was that
it made him "dyspeptic and stupid;" and Dr. W. B. Carpenter "can get
on best, while in London, by taking with his dinner a couple of
glasses of very light claret, as an aid to digestion." But when on
holiday, he says, he does not need it. A _natural_ stimulant then
takes the place of an artificial one; and so long as a man is healthy,
eating well, and sleeping well, he is, Dr. Brunton declares, better
without alcohol.
Although there is no comparison between the evils of smoking and those
of drinking, most of the writers seem to attach more importance to the
question of smoking, and some regard the question of alcohol as of no
consequence. Mr. Cornelius Walford considers tobacco a more insidious
stimulant than alcoholic beverages. It can, he points out, be indulged
in constantly without visible degradation; but surely it saps the
mind. Mr. Hyde Clarke is of the same opinion, and remarks, "a man
knows when he is drunk, but he does not know when he has smoked too
much, until the effects of accumulation have made themselves
permanent." There is a growing conviction that tobacco does quite as
much harm to the nervous system as alcohol. [Footnote: There can be no
room to question the presumption that an excessive use of tobacco
_does_ occasionally deteriorate the moral character, as the
inordinate use of chloral or bromide of potassium may deprave the
mind, by lowering the tone of certain of the nervous centres, in
narcotising them and impairing their nutrition. Whether the nicotine
of the tobacco can act on nerve-cells as alcohol acts may be doubtful,
but the victim of excess in the use of tobacco certainly often very
closely resembles the habitual drinker of small drams--the tippler who
seldom becomes actually drunk--and he readily falls into the same
maudlin state as that which seems characteristic of the subject of
slow intoxication by chloral, or of the victim of bromide.--_The
Lancet_, Nov. 12, 1881.]