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* * * * *
SELECT TEMPERANCE TRACTS.
[Illustration: Scene in a bar-room]
PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Pages
EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS. By Dr. Rush 8 [A]
TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS. By Rev. Dr. Edwards 32 [B]
REWARDS OF DRUNKENNESS 4 [C]
THE WELL-CONDUCTED FARM 12 [D]
KITTREDGE'S ADDRESS ON EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS 24 [E]
DICKINSON'S APPEAL TO YOUTH 8 [F]
ALARM TO DISTILLERS AND THEIR ALLIES 8 [G]
PUTNAM AND THE WOLF 24 [H]
HITCHCOCK ON THE MANUFACTURE OF ARDENT SPIRITS 28 [I]
M'ILVAINE'S ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN 24 [J]
WHO SLEW ALL THESE? 4 [K]
SEWALL ON INTEMPERANCE 24 [L]
BIBLE ARGUMENT FOR TEMPERANCE 12 [M]
FOUR REASONS AGAINST THE USE OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS 12 [N]
DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE ON ARDENT SPIRITS 16 [O]
BARNES ON TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS 24 [P]
THE FOOLS' PENCE 8 [Q]
THE POOR MAN'S HOUSE REPAIRED 12 [R]
JAMIE; OR A WORD FROM IRELAND FOR TEMPERANCE 16 [S]
THE WONDERFUL ESCAPE 4 [T]
THE EVENTFUL TWELVE HOURS 16 [U]
THE LOST MECHANIC RESTORED 4 [V]
REFORMATION OF DRUNKARDS 4 [W]
TOM STARBOARD AND JACK HALYARD 24 [X]
THE OX SERMON 8 [Y]
* * * * *
THE EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS
UPON THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND.
BY BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.
By ardent spirits, I mean those liquors only which are obtained by
distillation from fermented substances of any kind. To their effects
upon the bodies and minds of men, the following inquiry shall be
exclusively confined.
The effects of ardent spirits divide themselves into such as are of a
prompt, and such as are of a chronic nature. The former discover
themselves in drunkenness; and the latter in a numerous train of
diseases and vices of the body and mind.
I. I shall begin by briefly describing their prompt or immediate effects
in a fit of drunkenness.
This odious disease--for by that name it should be called--appears with
more or less of the following symptoms, and most commonly in the order
in which I shall enumerate them.
1. Unusual garrulity.
2. Unusual silence.
3. Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel.
4. Uncommon good-humor, and an insipid simpering, or laugh.
5. Profane swearing and cursing.
6. A disclosure of their own or other people's secrets.
7. A rude disposition to tell those persons in company whom they know,
their faults.
8. Certain immodest actions. I am sorry to say this sign of the first
stage of drunkenness sometimes appears in women, who, when sober, are
uniformly remarkable for chaste and decent manners.
9. A clipping of words.
10. Fighting; a black eye, or a swelled nose, often mark this grade of
drunkenness.
11. Certain extravagant acts which indicate a temporary fit of madness.
Those are singing, hallooing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute
animals, jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked, breaking glasses
and china, and dashing other articles of household furniture upon the
ground or floor. After a while the paroxysm of drunkenness is completely
formed. The face now becomes flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat
watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the under lip is
protruded--the head inclines a little to one shoulder--the jaw
falls--belchings and hiccough take place--the limbs totter--the whole
body staggers. The unfortunate subject of this history next falls on his
seat--he looks around him with a vacant countenance, and mutters
inarticulate sounds to himself--he attempts to rise and walk: in this
attempt he falls upon his side, from which he gradually turns upon his
back: he now closes his eyes and falls into a profound sleep, frequently
attended with snoring, and profuse sweats, and sometimes with such a
relaxation of the muscles which confine the bladder and the lower
bowels, as to produce a symptom which delicacy forbids me to mention. In
this condition he often lies from ten, twelve, and twenty-four hours, to
two, three, four, and five days, an object of pity and disgust to his
family and friends. His recovery from this fit of intoxication is marked
with several peculiar appearances. He opens his eyes and closes them
again--he gapes and stretches his limbs--he then coughs and pukes--his
voice is hoarse--he rises with difficulty, and staggers to a chair--his
eyes resemble balls of fire--his hands tremble--he loathes the sight of
food--he calls for a glass of spirits to compose his stomach--now and
then he emits a deep-fetched sigh, or groan, from a transient twinge of
conscience; but he more frequently scolds, and curses every thing around
him. In this stage of languor and stupidity he remains for two or three
days, before he is able to resume his former habits of business and
conversation.
Pythagoras, we are told, maintained that the souls of men after death
expiated the crimes committed by them in this world, by animating
certain brute animals; and that the souls of those animals, in their
turns, entered into men, and carried with them all their peculiar
qualities and vices. This doctrine of one of the wisest and best of the
Greek philosophers, was probably intended only to convey a lively idea
of the changes which are induced in the body and mind of man by a fit of
drunkenness. In folly, it causes him to resemble a calf--in stupidity,
an ass--in roaring, a mad bull--in quarrelling and fighting, a dog--in
cruelty, a tiger--in fetor, a skunk--in filthiness, a hog--and in
obscenity, a he-goat.
It belongs to the history of drunkenness to remark, that its paroxysms
occur, like the paroxysms of many diseases, at certain periods, and
after longer or shorter intervals. They often begin with annual, and
gradually increase in their frequency, until they appear in quarterly,
monthly, weekly, and quotidian or daily periods. Finally, they afford
scarcely any marks of remission, either during the day or the night.
There was a citizen of Philadelphia, many years ago, in whom drunkenness
appeared in this protracted form. In speaking of him to one of his
neighbors, I said, "Does he not _sometimes_ get drunk?" "You mean," said
his neighbor, "is he not _sometimes_ sober?"
It is further remarkable, that drunkenness resembles certain hereditary,
family, and contagious diseases. I have once known it to descend from a
father to four out of five of his children. I have seen three, and once
four brothers, who were born of sober ancestors, affected by it; and I
have heard of its spreading through a whole family composed of members
not originally related to each other. These facts are important, and
should not be overlooked by parents, in deciding upon the matrimonial
connections of their children.
II. Let us next attend to the chronic effects of ardent spirits upon the
body and mind. In the body they dispose to every form of acute disease;
they moreover _excite_ fevers in persons predisposed to them from other
causes. This has been remarked in all the yellow-fevers which have
visited the cities of the United States. Hard-drinkers seldom escape,
and rarely recover from them. The following diseases are the usual
consequences of the habitual use of ardent spirits:
1. A decay of appetite, sickness at stomach, and a puking of bile, or a
discharge of a frothy and viscid phlegm, by hawking, in the morning.
2. Obstructions of the liver. The fable of Prometheus, on whose liver a
vulture was said to prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing
fire from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful effects of
ardent spirits upon that organ of the body.
3. Jaundice, and dropsy of the belly and limbs, and finally of every
cavity in the body. A swelling in the feet and legs is so characteristic
a mark of habits of intemperance, that the merchants in Charleston, I
have been told, cease to trust the planters of South Carolina as soon as
they perceive it. They very naturally conclude industry and virtue to be
extinct in that man, in whom that symptom of disease has been produced
by the intemperate use of distilled spirits.
4. Hoarseness, and a husky cough, which often terminate in consumption,
and sometimes in an acute and fatal disease of the lungs.
5. Diabetes, that is, a frequent and weakening discharge of pale or
sweetish urine.
6. Redness, and eruptions on different parts of the body. They generally
begin on the nose, and after gradually extending all over the face,
sometimes descend to the limbs in the form of leprosy. They have been
called "rum-buds," when they appear in the face. In persons who have
occasionally survived these effects of ardent spirits on the skin, the
face after a while becomes bloated, and its redness is succeeded by a
death-like paleness. Thus, the same fire which produces a red color in
iron, when urged to a more intense degree, produces what has been called
a white-heat.
7. A fetid breath, composed of every thing that is offensive in putrid
animal matter.
8. Frequent and disgusting belchings. Dr. Haller relates the case of a
notorious drunkard having been suddenly destroyed, in consequence of the
vapor discharged from his stomach by belching, accidentally taking fire
by coming in contact with the flame of a candle.
9. Epilepsy.
10. Gout, in all its various forms of swelled limbs, colic, palsy, and
apoplexy.
11. Lastly, madness. The late Dr. Waters, while he acted as house-pupil
and apothecary of the Pennsylvania hospital, assured me, that in
one-third of the patients confined by this terrible disease, it had been
induced by ardent spirits.
Most of the diseases which have been enumerated are of a mortal nature.
They are more certainly induced, and terminate more speedily in death,
when spirits are taken in such quantities, and at such times, as to
produce frequent intoxication; but it may serve to remove an error with
which some intemperate people console themselves, to remark, that ardent
spirits often bring on fatal diseases without producing drunkenness. I
have known many persons destroyed by them who were never completely
intoxicated during the whole course of their lives. The solitary
instances of longevity which are now and then met with in hard-drinkers,
no more disprove the deadly effects of ardent spirits, than the solitary
instances of recoveries from apparent death by drowning, prove that
there is no danger to life from a human body lying an hour or two under
water.
The body, after its death from the use of distilled spirits, exhibits,
by dissection, certain appearances which are of a peculiar nature. The
fibres of the stomach and bowels are contracted--abscesses, gangrene,
and schirri are found in the viscera. The bronchial vessels are
contracted--the bloodvessels and tendons in many parts of the body are
more or less ossified, and even the hair of the head possesses a
crispness which renders it less valuable to wig-makers than the hair of
sober people.
Not less destructive are the effects of ardent spirits upon the human
mind. They impair the memory, debilitate the understanding, and pervert
the moral faculties. It was probably from observing these effects of
intemperance in drinking upon the mind, that a law was formerly passed
in Spain which excluded drunkards from being witnesses in a court of
justice. But the demoralizing effects of distilled spirits do not stop
here. They produce not only falsehood, but fraud, theft, uncleanliness,
and murder. Like the demoniac mentioned in the New Testament, their name
is "Legion," for they convey into the soul a host of vices and crimes.
A more affecting spectacle cannot be exhibited than a person into whom
this infernal spirit, generated by habits of intemperance, has entered:
it is more or less affecting, according to the station the person fills
in a family, or in society, who is possessed by it. Is he a husband? How
deep the anguish which rends the bosom of his wife! Is she a wife? Who
can measure the shame and aversion which she excites in her husband? Is
he the father, or is she the mother of a family of children? See their
averted looks from their parent, and their blushing looks at each other.
Is he a magistrate? or has he been chosen to fill a high and respectable
station in the councils of his country? What humiliating fears of
corruption in the administration of the laws, and of the subversion of
public order and happiness, appear in the countenances of all who see
him. Is he a minister of the gospel? Here language fails me. If angels
weep, it is at such a sight.
In pointing out the evils produced by ardent spirits, let us not pass by
their effects upon the estates of the persons who are addicted to them.
Are they inhabitants of cities? Behold their houses stripped gradually
of their furniture, and pawned, or sold by a constable, to pay tavern
debts. See their names upon record in the dockets of every court, and
whole pages of newspapers filled with advertisements of their estates
for public sale. Are they inhabitants of country places? Behold their
houses with shattered windows--their barns with leaky roofs--their
gardens overrun with weeds--their fields with broken fences--their hogs
without yokes--their sheep without wool--their cattle and horses without
fat--and their children, filthy and half-clad, without manners,
principles, and morals. This picture of agricultural wretchedness is
seldom of long duration. The farms and property thus neglected and
depreciated, are seized and sold for the benefit of a group of
creditors. The children that were born with the prospect of inheriting
them, are bound out to service in the neighborhood; while their parents,
the unworthy authors of their misfortunes, ramble into new and distant
settlements, alternately fed on their way by the hand of charity, or a
little casual labor.
Thus we see poverty and misery, crimes and infamy, diseases and death,
are all the natural and usual consequences of the intemperate use of
ardent spirits.
I have classed death among the consequences of hard drinking. But it is
not death from the immediate hand of the Deity, nor from any of the
instruments of it which were created by him: it is death from _suicide_.
Yes, thou poor degraded creature who art daily lifting the poisoned bowl
to thy lips, cease to avoid the unhallowed ground in which the
self-murderer is interred, and wonder no longer that the sun should
shine, and the rain fall, and the grass look green upon his grave.
_Thou_ art perpetrating gradually, by the use of ardent spirits, what he
has effected suddenly by opium or a halter. Considering how many
circumstances from surprise, or derangement, may palliate his guilt, or
that, unlike yours, it was not preceded and accompanied by any other
crime, it is probable his condemnation will be less than yours at the
day of judgment.
I shall now take notice of the occasions and circumstances which are
supposed to render the use of ardent spirits necessary, and endeavor to
show that the arguments in favor of their use in such cases are founded
in error, and that in each of them ardent spirits, instead of affording
strength to the body, increase the evils they are intended to relieve.
1. They are said to be necessary in very cold weather. This is far from
being true, for the temporary warmth they produce is always succeeded by
a greater disposition in the body to be affected by cold. Warm dresses,
a plentiful meal just before exposure to the cold, and eating
occasionally a little gingerbread, or any other cordial food, is a much
more durable method of preserving the heat of the body in cold weather.
2. They are said to be necessary in very warm weather. Experience proves
that they increase, instead of lessening the effects of heat upon the
body, and thereby dispose to diseases of all kinds. Even in the warm
climate of the West Indies, Dr. Bell asserts this to be true. "Rum,"
says this author, "whether used habitually, moderately, or in excessive
quantities, in the West Indies, always diminishes the strength of the
body, and renders men more susceptible of disease, and unfit for any
service in which vigor or activity is required."[A] As well might we
throw oil into a house, the roof of which was on fire, in order to
prevent the flames from extending to its inside, as pour ardent spirits
into the stomach to lessen the effects of a hot sun upon the skin.
3. Nor do ardent spirits lessen the effects of hard labor upon the body.
Look at the horse, with every muscle of his body swelled from morning
till night in the plough, or a team; does he make signs for a draught of
toddy, or a glass of spirits, to enable him to cleave the ground, or to
climb a hill? No; he requires nothing but cool water and substantial
food. There is no nourishment in ardent spirits. The strength they
produce in labor is of a transient nature, and is always followed by a
sense of weakness and fatigue.
DANGER FROM ARDENT SPIRITS.
Every man is in danger of becoming a drunkard who is in the habit of
drinking ardent spirits--1. When he is warm. 2. When he is cold. 3. When
he is wet. 4. When he is dry. 5. When he is dull. 6. When he is lively.
7. When he travels. 8. When he is at home. 9. When he is in company. 10.
When he is alone. 11. When he is at work. 12. When he is idle. 13.
Before meals. 14. After meals. 15. When he gets up. 16. When he goes to
bed. 17. On holidays. 18. On public occasions. 19. On any day; or, 20.
On any occasion.
[Footnote A: See his "Inquiry into the Causes which Produce,
and the Means of Preventing Diseases among British Officers,
Soldiers, and others, in the West Indies."]
ON THE
TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRIT.
Ardent spirit is composed of alcohol and water, in nearly equal
proportions. Alcohol is composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, in the
proportion of about fourteen, fifty-two, and thirty-four parts to the
hundred. It is, in its nature, as manifested by its effects, a _poison_.
When taken in any quantity it disturbs healthy action in the human
system, and in large doses suddenly destroys life. It resembles opium in
its nature, and arsenic in its effects. And though when mixed with
water, as in ardent spirit, its evils are somewhat modified, they are by
no means prevented. Ardent spirit is an enemy to the human constitution,
and cannot be used as a drink without injury. Its ultimate tendency
invariably is, to produce weakness, not strength; sickness, not health;
death, not life.
Consequently, to use it is an immorality. It is a violation of the will
of God, and a sin in magnitude equal to all the evils, temporal and
eternal, which flow from it. Nor can the furnishing of ardent spirit for
the use of others be accounted a less sin, inasmuch as this tends to
produce evils greater than for an individual merely to drink it. And if
a man knows, or has the opportunity of knowing, the nature and effects
of the traffic in this article, and yet continues to be engaged in it,
he may justly be regarded as an immoral man; and for the following
reasons, viz.
Ardent spirit, as a drink, is _not needful_. All men lived without it,
and all the business of the world was conducted without it, for
thousands of years. It is not three hundred years since it began to be
generally used as a drink in Great Britain, nor one hundred years since
it became common in America. Of course it is not needful.
It is _not useful_. Those who do not use it are, other things being
equal, in all respects better than those who do. Nor does the fact that
persons have used it with more or less frequency, in a greater or
smaller quantity, for a longer or shorter time, render it either
needful, or useful, or harmless, or right for them to continue to use
it. More than a million of persons in this country, and multitudes in
other countries, who once did use it, and thought it needful, have,
within five years, ceased to use it, and they have found that they are
in all respects better without it. And this number is so great, of all
ages, and conditions, and employments, as to render it certain, should
the experiment be fairly made, that this would be the case with all. Of
course, ardent spirit, as a drink, is not useful.
It is _hurtful_. Its whole influence is injurious to the body and the
mind for this world and the world to come.
1. It forms an _unnecessary, artificial, and very dangerous appetite_;
which, by gratification, like the desire for sinning, in the man who
sins, tends continually to increase. No man can form this appetite
without increasing his danger of dying a drunkard, and exerting an
influence which tends to perpetuate drunkenness, and all its
abominations, to the end of the world. Its very formation, therefore, is
a violation of the will of God. It is, in its nature, an immorality, and
springs from an inordinate desire of a kind or degree of bodily
enjoyment--animal gratification, which God has shown to be inconsistent
with his glory, and the highest good of man. It shows that the person
who forms it is not satisfied with the proper gratification of those
appetites and passions which God has given him, or with that kind and
degree of bodily enjoyment which infinite wisdom and goodness have
prescribed as the utmost that can be possessed consistently with a
person's highest happiness and usefulness, the glory of his Maker, and
the good of the universe. That person covets more animal enjoyment; to
obtain it he forms a new appetite, and in doing this he rebels against
God.
That desire for increased animal enjoyment from which rebellion springs
is sin, and all the evils which follow in its train are only so many
voices by which Jehovah declares "the way of transgressors is hard." The
person who has formed an appetite for ardent spirit, and feels uneasy if
he does not gratify it, has violated the divine arrangement, disregarded
the divine will, and if he understands the nature of what he has done,
and approves of it, and continues in it, it will ruin him. He will show
that there is one thing in which he will not have God to reign over him.
And should he keep the whole law, and yet continue knowingly,
habitually, wilfully, and perseveringly to offend in that one point, he
will perish. Then, and then only, according to the Bible, can any man be
saved, when he has respect to all the known will of God, and is disposed
to be governed by it. He must carry out into practice, with regard to
the body and the soul, "Not my will, but thine be done." His grand
object must be, to know the will of God, and when he knows it, to be
governed by it, and with regard to all things. This, the man who is not
contented with that portion of animal enjoyment which the proper
gratification of the appetites and passions which God has given him will
afford, but forms an appetite for ardent spirit, or continues to gratify
it after it is formed, does not do. In this respect, if he understands
the nature and effects of his actions, he prefers his own will to the
known will of God, and is ripening to hear, from the lips of his Judge,
"Those mine enemies, that would not that I should _reign_ over them,
bring them hither and slay them before me." And the men who traffic in
this article, or furnish it as a drink for others, are tempting them to
sin, and thus uniting their influence with that of the devil for ever to
ruin them. This is an aggravated immorality, and the men who continue to
do it are immoral men.
2. The use of ardent spirit, to which the traffic is accessory, causes a
great and wicked _waste of property_. All that the users pay for this
article is to them lost, and worse than lost. Should the whole which
they use sink into the earth, or mingle with the ocean, it would be
better for them, and better for the community, than for them to drink
it. All which it takes to support the paupers, and prosecute the crimes
which ardent spirit occasions, is, to those who pay the money, utterly
lost. All the diminution of profitable labor which it occasions, through
improvidence, idleness, dissipation, intemperance, sickness, insanity,
and premature deaths, is to the community so much utterly lost. And
these items, as has often been shown, amount in the United States to
more than $100,000,000 a year. To this enormous and wicked waste of
property, those who traffic in the article are knowingly accessory.
A portion of what is thus lost by others, they obtain themselves; but
without rendering to others any valuable equivalent. This renders their
business palpably unjust; as really so as if they should obtain that
money by gambling; and it is as really immoral. It is also unjust in
another respect: it burdens the community with taxes both for the
support of pauperism, and for the prosecution of crimes, and without
rendering to that community any adequate compensation. These taxes, as
shown by facts, are four times as great as they would be if there were
no sellers of ardent spirit. All the profits, with the exception perhaps
of a mere pittance which he pays for license, the seller puts into his
own pocket, while the burdens are thrown upon the community. This is
palpably unjust, and utterly immoral. Of 1,969 paupers in different
almshouses in the United States, 1,790, according to the testimony of
the overseers of the poor, were made such by spirituous liquor. And of
1,764 criminals in different prisons, more than 1,300 were either
intemperate men, or were under the power of intoxicating liquor when the
crimes for which they were imprisoned were committed. And of 44 murders,
according to the testimony of those who prosecuted or conducted the
defence of the murderers, or witnessed their trials, 43 were committed
by intemperate men, or upon intemperate men, or those who at the time of
the murder were under the power of strong drink.
The Hon. Felix Grundy, United States senator from Tennessee, after
thirty years' extensive practice as a lawyer, gives it as his opinion
that four-fifths of all the crimes committed in the United States can be
traced to intemperance. A similar proportion is stated, from the highest
authority, to result from the same cause in Great Britain. And when it
is considered that more than 200 murders are committed, and more than
100,000 crimes are prosecuted in the United States in a year, and that
such a vast proportion of them are occasioned by ardent spirit, can a
doubt remain on the mind of any sober man, that the men who know these
facts, and yet continue to traffic in this article, are among the chief
causes of crime, and ought to be viewed and treated as immoral men? It
is as really immoral for a man, by doing wrong, to excite others to
commit crimes, as to commit them himself; and as really unjust
wrongfully to take another's property with his consent, as without it.
And though it might not be desirable to have such a law, yet no law in
the statute-book is more righteous than one which should require that
those who make paupers should support them, and those who excite others
to commit crimes, should pay the cost of their prosecution, and should,
with those who commit them, bear all the evils. And so long as this is
not the case they will be guilty, according to the divine law, of
defrauding, as well as tempting and corrupting their fellow-men. And
though such crimes cannot be prosecuted, and justice be awarded in human
courts, their perpetrators will be held to answer, and will meet with
full and awful retribution at the divine tribunal. And when judgment is
laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, they will appear as
they really are, criminals, and will be viewed and treated as such for
ever.
There is another view in which the traffic in ardent spirit is
manifestly highly immoral. It exposes the children of those who use it,
in an eminent degree, to dissipation and crime. Of 690 children
prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than 400 were from
intemperate families. Thus the venders of this liquor exert an influence
which tends strongly to ruin not only those who use it, but their
children; to render them far more liable to idleness, profligacy, and
ruin, than the children of those who do not use it; and through them to
extend these evils to others, and to perpetuate them to future
generations. This is a sin of which all who traffic in ardent spirit are
guilty. Often the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his
children, is lest, through the instrumentality of such men, they should
be ruined. And is it not horrible wickedness for them, by exposing for
sale one of the chief causes of this ruin, to tempt them in the way to
death? If he who takes money from others without an equivalent, or
wickedly destroys property, is an immoral man, what is he who destroys
character, who corrupts children and youth, and exerts an influence to
extend and perpetuate immorality and crime through future generations?
This every vender of ardent spirit does; and if he continues in this
business with a knowledge of the subject, it marks him as an habitual
and persevering violater of the will of God.
3. Ardent spirit _impairs_, and often _destroys reason_. Of 781 maniacs
in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their
own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink. And the physicians
who had the care of them gave it as their opinion, that this was the
case with many of the others. Those who have had extensive experience,
and the best opportunities for observation with regard to this malady,
have stated, that probably from one-half to three-fourths of the cases
of insanity, in many places, are occasioned in the same way. Ardent
spirit is a poison so diffusive and subtile that it is found, by actual
experiment, to penetrate even the brain.
Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man a few hours after death who died
in a fit of intoxication; and from the lateral ventricles of the brain
he took a fluid distinctly visible to the smell as whiskey; and when he
applied a candle to it in a spoon, it took fire and burnt blue; "the
lambent blue flame," he says, "characteristic of the poison, playing on
the surface of the spoon for some seconds."
It produces also, in the children of those who use it freely, a
predisposition to intemperance, insanity, and various diseases of both
body and mind, which, if the cause is continued, becomes hereditary, and
is transmitted from generation to generation; occasioning a diminution
of size, strength, and energy, a feebleness of vision, a feebleness and
imbecility of purpose, an obtuseness of intellect, a depravation of
moral taste, a premature old age, and a general deterioration of the
whole character. This is the case in every country, and in every age.
Instances are known where the first children of a family, who were born
when their parents were temperate, have been healthy, intelligent, and
active; while the last children, who were born after the parents had
become intemperate, were dwarfish and idiotic. A medical gentleman
writes, "I have no doubt that a disposition to nervous diseases of a
peculiar character is transmitted by drunken parents." Another gentleman
states that, in two families within his knowledge, the different stages
of intemperance in the parents seemed to be marked by a corresponding
deterioration in the bodies and minds of the children. In one case, the
eldest of the family is respectable, industrious, and accumulates
property; the next is inferior, disposed to be industrious, but spends
all he can earn in strong drink. The third is dwarfish in body and mind,
and, to use his own language, "a poor, miserable remnant of a man."
In another family of daughters, the first is a smart, active girl, with
an intelligent, well-balanced mind; the others are afflicted with
different degrees of mental weakness and imbecility, and the youngest is
an idiot. Another medical gentleman states, that the first child of a
family, who was born when the habits of the mother were good, was
healthy and promising; while the four last children, who were born after
the mother had become addicted to the habit of using opium, appeared to
be stupid; and all, at about the same age, sickened and died of a
disease apparently occasioned by the habits of the mother.
Another gentleman mentions a case more common, and more appalling still.
A respectable and influential man early in life adopted the habit of
using a little ardent spirit daily, because, as he thought, it did him
good. He and his six children, three sons and three daughters, are now
in the drunkard's grave, and the only surviving child is rapidly
following in the same way, to the same dismal end.
The best authorities attribute one-half the madness, three-fourths of
the pauperism, end four-fifths of the crimes and wretchedness in Great
Britain to the use of strong drink.
4. Ardent spirit increases the number, frequency, and violence of
_diseases_, and tends to bring those who use it to a premature grave. In
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of about 7,500 people, twenty-one persons
were killed by it in a year. In Salem, Massachusetts, of 181 deaths,
twenty were occasioned in the same way. Of ninety-one adults who died in
New Haven, Connecticut, in one year, thirty-two, according to the
testimony of the Medical Association, were occasioned, directly or
indirectly, by strong drink, and a similar proportion had been
occasioned by it in previous years. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, of
sixty-seven adult deaths in one year, more than one-third were caused by
intoxicating liquor. In Philadelphia, of 4,292 deaths, 700 were, in the
opinion of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, caused in the same
way. The physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, state that, of thirty-two
persons, male and female, who died in 1828, above eighteen years of age,
ten, or nearly one-third, died of diseases occasioned by intemperance;
that eighteen were males, and that of these, nine, or one-half, died of
intemperance. They also say, "When we recollect that even the temperate
use, as it is called, of ardent spirits, lays the foundation of a
numerous train of incurable maladies, we feel justified in expressing
the belief, that were the use of distilled liquors entirely
discontinued, the number of deaths among the male adults would be
diminished at least one-half."
Says an eminent physician, "Since our people generally have given up the
use of spirit, they have not had more than half as much sickness as they
had before; and I have no doubt, should all the people of the United
States cease to use it, that nearly half the sickness of the country
would cease." Says another, after forty years' extensive practice, "Half
the men every year who die of fevers might recover, had they not been in
the habit of using ardent spirit. Many a man, down for weeks with a
fever, had he not used ardent spirit, would not have been confined to
his house a day. He might have felt a slight headache, but a little
fasting would have removed the difficulty, and the man been well. And
many a man who was never intoxicated, when visited with a fever, might
be raised up as well as not, were it not for that state of the system
which daily moderate drinking occasions, who now, in spite of all that
can be done, sinks down and dies."
Nor are we to admit for a moment the popular reasoning, as applicable
here, "that the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use;" for,
in the language of the late Secretary of the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Philadelphia, Samuel Emlen, M. D., "All use of ardent
spirits," _i. e._ as a drink, "is an abuse. They are mischievous under
all circumstances." Their tendency, says Dr. Frank, when used even
moderately, is to induce disease, premature old age, and death. And Dr.
Trotter states, that no cause of disease has so wide a range, or so
large a share, as the use of spirituous liquors.
Dr. Harris states, that the _moderate_ use of spirituous liquors has
destroyed many who were never drunk; and Dr. Kirk gives it as his
opinion, that men who were never considered intemperate, by daily
drinking have often shortened life more than twenty years; and that the
respectable use of this poison kills more men than even drunkenness. Dr.
Wilson gives it as his opinion, that the use of spirit in large cities
causes more diseases than confined air, unwholesome exhalations, and the
combined influence of all other evils.
Dr. Cheyne, of Dublin, Ireland, after thirty years' practice and
observation, gives it as his opinion, that should ten young men begin at
twenty-one years of age to use but one glass of two ounces a day, and
never increase the quantity, nine out of ten would shorten life more
than ten years. But should moderate drinkers shorten life only five
years, and drunkards only ten, and should there be but four moderate
drinkers to one drunkard, it would in thirty years cut off in the United
States 32,400,000 years of human life. An aged physician in Maryland
states, that when the fever breaks out there, the men who do not use
ardent spirit are not half as likely as other men to have it; and that
if they do have it, they are ten times as likely to recover. In the
island of Key West, on the coast of Florida, after a great mortality, it
was found that every person who had died had been in the habit of using
ardent spirit. The quantity used was afterwards diminished more than
nine-tenths, and the inhabitants became remarkably healthy.
A gentleman of great respectability from the south, states, that those
who fall victims to southern climes, are almost invariably addicted to
the free use of ardent spirit. Dr. Mosely, after a long residence in the
West Indies, declares, "that persons who drink nothing but cold water,
or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by tropical
climates; that they undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience,
and are not so subject as others to dangerous diseases;" and Dr. Bell,
"that rum, when used even moderately, always diminishes the strength,
and renders men more susceptible of disease; and that we might as well
throw oil into a house, the roof of which is on fire, in order to
prevent the flames from extending to the inside, as to pour ardent
spirits into the stomach to prevent the effect of a hot sun upon the
skin."
Of seventy-seven persons found dead in different regions of country,
sixty-seven, according to the coroners' inquests, were occasioned by
strong drink. Nine-tenths of those who die suddenly after the drinking
of cold water, have been habitually addicted to the free use of ardent
spirit; and that draught of cold water, that effort, or fatigue, or
exposure to the sun, or disease, which a man who uses no ardent spirit
will bear without inconvenience or danger, will often kill those who use
it. Their liability to sickness and to death is often increased tenfold.
And to all these evils, those who continue to traffic in it, after all
the light which God in his providence has thrown upon the subject, are
knowingly accessory. Whether they deal in it by whole sale or retail, by
the cargo or the glass, they are, in their influence, drunkard-makers.
So are also those who furnish the materials; those who advertise the
liquors, and thus promote their circulation; those who lease their
tenements to be employed as dram-shops, or stores for the sale of ardent
spirit; and those also who purchase their groceries of spirit dealers
rather than of others, for the purpose of saving to the amount which the
sale of ardent spirit enables such men, without loss, to undersell their
neighbors. These are all accessory to the making of drunkards, and as
such will be held to answer at the divine tribunal. So are those men who
employ their shipping in transporting the liquors, or are in any way
knowingly aiding and abetting in perpetuating their use as a drink in
the community.
It is estimated that four-fifths of those who were swept away by the
late direful visitation of CHOLERA, were such as had been addicted to
the use of intoxicating drink. Dr. Bronson, of Albany, who spent some
time in Canada, and whose professional character and standing give great
weight to his opinions, says, "Intemperance of any species, but
particularly intemperance in the use of _distilled liquors_, has been a
more productive cause of cholera than any other, and indeed than all
others." And can men, for the sake of money, make it a business
knowingly and perseveringly to furnish the most productive cause of
cholera, and not be guilty of _blood_--not manifest a recklessness of
character which will brand the mark of vice and infamy on their
foreheads? "Drunkards and tipplers," he adds, "have been searched out
with such unerring certainty as to show that the arrows of death have
not been dealt out with indiscrimination. An indescribable terror has
spread through the ranks of this class of beings. They see the bolts of
destruction aimed at their heads, and every one calls himself a victim.
There seems to be a natural affinity between cholera and ardent
spirit." What, then, in days of exposure to this malady, is so great a
nuisance as the places which furnish this poison? Says Dr. Rhinelander,
who, with Dr. De Kay, was deputed from New York to visit Canada, "We may
be asked who are the victims of this disease? I answer, the intemperate
it invariably cuts off." In Montreal, after 1,200 had been attacked, a
Montreal paper states, that "not a drunkard who has been attacked has
recovered of the disease, and almost all the victims have been at least
_moderate_ drinkers." In Paris, the 30,000 victims were, with few
exceptions, those who freely used intoxicating liquors. Nine-tenths of
those who died of the cholera in Poland were of the same class.
In St. Petersburgh and Moscow, the average number of deaths in the bills
of mortality, during the prevalence of the cholera, when the people
ceased to drink brandy, was no greater than when they used it during the
usual months of health--showing that brandy, and attendant dissipation,
killed as many people in the same time as even the cholera itself, that
pestilence which has spread sackcloth over the nations. And shall the
men who know this, and yet continue to furnish it for all who can be
induced to buy, escape the execration of being the destroyers of their
race? Of more than 1,000 deaths in Montreal, it is stated that only two
were members of Temperance societies. It was also stated, that as far as
was known no members of Temperance societies in Ireland, Scotland, or
England, had yet fallen victims to that dreadful disease.
From Montreal, Dr. Bronson writes, "Cholera has stood up here, as it has
done everywhere, the advocate of Temperance. It has pleaded most
eloquently, and with tremendous effect. The disease has searched out the
haunt of the drunkard, and has seldom left it without bearing away its
victim. Even _moderate_ drinkers have been but little better off. Ardent
spirits, in any shape, and in all quantities, have been _highly_
detrimental. Some temperate men resorted to them during the prevalence
of the malady as a preventive, or to remove the feeling of uneasiness
about the stomach, or for the purpose of drowning their apprehensions,
but they did it at their peril."
Says the London Morning Herald, after stating that the cholera fastens
its deadly grasp upon this class of men, "The same preference for the
intemperate and uncleanly has characterized the cholera _everywhere_.
Intemperance is a qualification which it never overlooks. Often has it
passed harmless over a wide population of temperate country people, and
poured down, as an overflowing scourge, upon the drunkards of some
distant town." Says another English publication, "All experience, both
in Great Britain and elsewhere, has proved that those who have been
addicted to drinking spirituous liquors, and indulging in irregular
habits, have been the greatest sufferers from cholera. In some towns the
drunkards are all dead." Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor,
says, with regard to India, that people who do not take opium, or
spirits, do not take this disorder even when they are with those who
have it. Monsieur Huber, who saw 2,160 persons perish in twenty-five
days in one town in Russia, says, "It is a most remarkable circumstance,
that persons given to drinking have been swept away like flies. In
Tiflis, containing 20,000 inhabitants, every drunkard has fallen--all
are dead, not one remains."
Dr. Sewall, of Washington city, in a letter from New York, states, that
of 204 cases of cholera in the Park hospital, there were only six
temperate persons, and that those had recovered; while 122 of the
others, when he wrote, had died; and that the facts were similar in all
the other hospitals.
In Albany, a careful examination was made by respectable gentlemen into
the cases of those who died of the cholera in that city in 1832, over
sixteen years of age. The result was examined in detail by nine
physicians, members of the medical staff attached to the board of health
in that city--all who belong to it, except two, who were at that time
absent--and published at their request under the signature of the
Chancellor of the State, and the five distinguished gentlemen who
compose the Executive Committee of the New York State Temperance
Society, and is as follows: number of deaths, 366; viz. intemperate,
140; free drinkers, 55; moderate drinkers, mostly habitual, 131;
strictly temperate, who drank no ardent spirits, 5; members of
Temperance societies, 2; and when it is recollected that of more than
5,000 members of Temperance societies in the city of Albany, only two,
not one in 2,500, fell by this disease, while it cut off more than one
in fifty of the inhabitants of that city, we cannot but feel that men
who furnish ardent spirit as a drink for their fellow-men, are
manifestly inviting the ravages, and preparing the victims of this fatal
malady, and of numerous other mortal diseases; and when inquisition is
made for blood, and the effects of their employment are examined for the
purpose of rendering to them according to their work, they will be
found, should they continue, to be guilty of knowingly destroying their
fellow-men.
What right have men, by selling ardent spirit, to increase the danger,
extend the ravages, and augment and perpetuate the malignancy of the
cholera, and multiply upon the community numerous other mortal diseases?
Who cannot see that it is a foul, deep, and fatal injury inflicted on
society? that it is in a high degree cruel and unjust? that it scatters
the population of our cities, renders our business stagnant, and exposes
our sons and our daughters to premature and sudden death? So manifestly
is this the case, that the board of health of the city of Washington, on
the approach of the cholera, declared the vending of ardent spirit, _in
any quantity_, to be a _nuisance_; and, as such, ordered that it be
discontinued for the space of ninety days. This was done in
self-defence, to save the community from the sickness and death which
the vending of spirit is adapted to occasion. Nor is this tendency to
occasion disease and death confined to the time when the cholera is
raging.
By the statement of the physicians in Annapolis, Maryland, it appears
that the average number of deaths by intemperance for several years, has
been one to every 329 inhabitants; which would make in the United States
40,000 in a year. And it is the opinion of physicians, that as many more
die of diseases which are induced, or aggravated, and rendered mortal by
the use of ardent spirit. And to those results, all who make it, sell
it, or use it, are accessory.