immediate action of the alcoholic principle upon the highly sensible
membrane which lines the trachea, bronchial vessels, and air-cells of
the lungs, as poured out by the exhalants; and second, by the sympathy
which is called into action between the lungs and other organs already
in a state of disease, and more especially that of the stomach and
liver.
I have met with many cases in the course of my practice, of cough and
difficult breathing, which could be relieved only by regulating the
functions of the stomach, and which soon yielded, on the patient ceasing
to irritate this organ with ardent spirit. I have found the liver still
more frequently the source of this affection; and on restoring the organ
to its healthy condition, by laying aside the use of ardent spirit, all
the pulmonary symptoms have subsided.
On examining the lungs of the drunkard after death, they are frequently
found adhering to the walls of the chest; hepatized, or affected with
tubercles.
But time would fail me, were I to attempt an account of half the
pathology of drunkenness. _Dyspepsia_, _Jaundice_, _Emaciation_,
_Corpulence_, _Dropsy_, _Ulcers_, _Rheumatism_, _Gout_, _Tremors_,
_Palpitation_, _Hysteria_, _Epilepsy_, _Palsy_, _Lethargy_, _Apoplexy_,
_Melancholy_, _Madness_, _Delirium-tremens_, _and premature old age_,
compose but a small part of the catalogue of diseases produced by ardent
spirit. Indeed, there is scarcely a morbid affection to which the human
body is liable, that has not, in one way or another, been produced by
it; there is not a disease but it has aggravated, nor a predisposition
to disease, which it has not called into action; and although its
effects are in some degree modified by age and temperament, by habit and
occupation, by climate and season of the year, and even by the
intoxicating agent itself; yet, the general and ultimate consequences
are the same.
But I pass on to notice one state of the system, produced by ardent
spirit, too important and interesting to leave unexamined. It is that
_predisposition to disease and death_ which so strongly characterizes
the drunkard in every situation of life.
It is unquestionably true, that many of the surrounding objects in
nature are constantly tending to man's destruction. The excess of heat
and cold, humidity and dryness, noxious exhalations from the earth, the
floating atoms in the atmosphere, the poisonous vapors from decomposed
animal and vegetable matter, with many other invisible agents, are
exerting their deadly influence; and were it not that every part of his
system is endowed with a self-preserving power, a principle of
excitability, or, in other words, a vital principle, the operations of
the economy would cease, and a dissolution of his organic structure take
place. But this principle being implanted in the system, reaction takes
place, and thereby a vigorous contest is maintained with the warring
elements without, as well as with the principle of decay within.
It is thus that man is enabled to endure, from year to year, the toils
and fatigues of life, the variations of heat and cold, and the
vicissitudes of the seasons--that he is enabled to traverse every region
of the globe, and to live with almost equal ease under the equator and
in the frozen regions of the north. It is by this power that all his
functions are performed, from the commencement to the close of life.
The principle of excitability exists in the highest degree in the
infant, and diminishes at every succeeding period of life; and if man is
not cut down by disease or violence, he struggles on, and finally dies
a natural death--a death occasioned by the exhaustion of the principle
of excitability. In order to prevent the too rapid exhaustion of this
principle, nature has especially provided for its restoration by
establishing a period of sleep. After being awake for sixteen or
eighteen hours, a sensation of fatigue ensues, and all the functions are
performed with diminished precision and energy. Locomotion becomes
feeble and tottering, the voice harsh, the intellect obtuse and
powerless, and all the senses blunted. In this state the individual
anxiously retires from the light, and from the noise and bustle of
business, seeks that position which requires the least effort to sustain
it, and abandons himself to rest. The will ceases to act, and he loses
in succession all the senses; the muscles unbend themselves, and permit
the limbs to fall into the most easy and natural position; digestion,
respiration, circulation, secretion, and the other functions, go on with
diminished power and activity; and consequently the wasted excitability
is gradually restored. After a repose of six of eight hours, this
principle becomes accumulated to its full measure, and the individual
awakes and finds his system invigorated and refreshed. His muscular
power is augmented, his senses are acute and discriminating, his
intellect active and eager for labor, and all his functions move on with
renewed energy. But if the stomach be oppressed by food, or the system
excited by stimulating drinks, the sleep, though it may be profound, is
never tranquil and refreshing.
The system being raised to a state of feverish excitement, and its
healthy balance disturbed, its exhausted excitability is not restored.
The individual awakes, but finds himself fatigued rather than
invigorated. His muscles are relaxed, his senses obtuse, his intellect
impaired, and his whole system disordered; and it is not till he is
again under the influence of food and stimulus that he is fit for the
occupations of life. And thus he loses the benefits of this wise
provision of repose, designed for his own preservation.
Nothing, probably, tends more powerfully to produce premature old age,
than disturbed and unrefreshing sleep.
It is also true, that artificial stimulus, in whatever way applied,
tends constantly to exhaust the principle of excitability of the system,
and this in proportion to its intensity, and the freedom with which it
is applied.
But there is still another principle on which the use of ardent spirit
predisposes the drunkard to disease and death. It acts on the blood,
impairs its vitality, deprives it of its red color, and thereby renders
it unfit to stimulate the heart and other organs through which it
circulates; unfit, also, to supply the materials for the different
secretions, and to renovate the different tissues of the body, as well
as to sustain the energy of the brain--offices which it can perform only
while it retains the vermilion color, and other arterial properties. The
blood of the drunkard is several shades darker in its color than that of
temperate persons, and also coagulates less readily and firmly, and is
loaded with serum; appearances which indicate that it has exchanged its
arterial properties for those of the venous blood. This is the cause of
the livid complexion of the inebriate, which so strongly marks him in
the advanced stage of intemperance. Hence, too, all the functions of his
body are sluggish, irregular, and the whole system loses its tone and
its energy. If ardent spirit, when taken into the system, exhausts the
vital principle of the solids, it destroys the vital principle of the
blood also; and if taken in large quantities, produces sudden death; in
which case the blood, as in death produced by lightning, by opium, or by
violent and long continued exertion, does not coagulate.
The principles laid down are plain, and of easy application to the case
before us.
The inebriate having, by the habitual use of ardent spirit, exhausted to
a greater or lesser extent the principle of excitability in the
solids--the power of reaction--and the blood having become incapable of
performing its offices also, he is alike predisposed to every disease,
and rendered liable to the inroads of every invading foe. So far,
therefore, from protecting the system against disease, intemperance ever
constitutes one of its strongest predisposing causes.
Superadded to this, whenever disease does lay its grasp upon the
drunkard, the powers of life being already enfeebled by the stimulus of
ardent spirit, he unexpectedly sinks in the contest, and but too
frequently to the mortification of his physician, and the surprise and
grief of his friends. Indeed, inebriation so enfeebles the powers of
life, so modifies the character of disease, and so changes the operation
of medical agents, that unless the young physician has studied
thoroughly the constitution of the drunkard, he has but partially
learned his profession, and is not fit for a practitioner of the present
age.
These are the true reasons why the drunkard dies so easily, and from
such slight causes.
A sudden cold, a pleurisy, a fever, a fractured limb, or a slight wound
of the skin, is often more than his shattered powers can endure. Even a
little excess of exertion, an exposure to heat or cold, a hearty repast,
or a glass of cold water, not unfrequently extinguishes the small
remains of the vital principle.
In the season that has just closed upon us, we have had a melancholy
exhibition of the effects of intemperance in the tragical death of some
dozens of our fellow-citizens; and had the extreme heat which prevailed
for several days continued for as many weeks, we should hardly have had
a confirmed drunkard left among us.
Many of those deaths which came under my notice seemed almost
spontaneous, and some of them took place in less than one hour from the
first symptoms of indisposition. Some died apparently from a slight
excess of fatigue, some from a few hours' exposure to the sun, and some
from a small draught of cold water; causes quite inadequate to the
production of such effects in temperate persons.
* * * * *
Thus, fellow-citizens, I have endeavored to delineate the effects of
ardent spirit upon man, and more especially to portray its influence on
his moral, intellectual, and physical powers. And now let me mention a
few things which MUST BE DONE in order that the evil may be eradicated.
1. Let us keep in view the objects of the Temperance Society, and the
obligation imposed on us, _to use all proper measures to discourage the
use of ardent spirit in the social circle, at public meetings, on the
farm, in the mechanic shop, and in all other places_. It is not a mere
matter of formality that we have put our names to this society's
constitution; we have pledged ourselves to be bold, active, and
persevering in the cause; to proclaim the dangers of intemperance to our
fellow-citizens, and to do what we can to arrest its progress.
In view of these objects and of this pledge, then, let us, if indeed we
have not already done it, banish ardent spirit from our houses at once,
and for ever; and then we can act with decision and energy, and speak in
a tone of authority, and our voice will be heard, if precept be
sanctioned by example.
2. Let us use our utmost endeavors to lessen the number, and, if
possible, utterly exterminate from among us those establishments which
are the chief agents in propagating the evils of intemperance. I refer
to those shops which are licensed for _retailing ardent spirit_. Here is
the source of the evil. These are the agents that are sowing among us
the seeds of vice, and poverty, and wretchedness.
How preposterous, that an enlightened community, professing the highest
regard for morality and religion, making laws for the suppression and
punishment of vice, and the promotion of virtue and good order,
instituting societies to encourage industry, enlighten the ignorant,
reclaim the vicious, bring back the wanderer, protect the orphan, feed
the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the broken-hearted, and restore
domestic peace, should, at the same time, create and foster those very
means that carry idleness, and ignorance, and vice, and nakedness, and
starvation, and discord into all ranks of society; that make widows and
orphans, that sow the seeds of disease and death among us; that strike,
indeed, at the foundation of all that is good and great.
You create paupers, and lodge them in your alms house--orphans, and give
them a residence in your asylum--convicts, and send them to the
penitentiary. You seduce men to crime, and then arraign them at the bar
of justice--immure them in prison. With one hand you thrust the dagger
to the heart--with the other attempt to assuage the pain it causes.
We all remember to have heard, from the lips of our parents, the
narration of the fact, that in the early history of our country, the
tomahawk and scalping-knife were put into the hands of our savage
neighbors, by our enemies at war, and that a bounty was awarded for the
depredations they committed on the lives of our defenceless
fellow-citizens. Our feelings were shocked at the recital, and a
prejudice was created, as well to these poor wandering savages, as to
the nation that prompted them to the work, which neither time nor
education has eradicated. Yet, as merciless and savage as this practice
may appear to us, it was Christian, it was humane, compared with ours:
theirs sought only the life-blood, and that of their enemies; ours seeks
the blood of souls, and that of our own citizens, and friends, and
neighbors. Their avarice was satiated with a few inches of the scalp,
and the death inflicted was often a sudden and easy one; ours produces a
death that lingers: and not content with the lives of our
fellow-citizens, it rifles their pockets. It revels in rapine and
robbery; it sacks whole towns and villages; it lays waste fields and
vineyards; it riots on domestic peace, and virtue, and happiness; it
sets at variance the husband and the wife; it causes the parent to
forsake the child, and the child to curse the parent; it tears asunder
the strongest bonds of society; it severs the tenderest ties of nature.
And who is the author of all this; and where lies the responsibility? I
appeal to my fellow-citizens.
Are not we the authors? Does not the responsibility rest upon us? Is it
not so?
The power emanates from us; we delegate it to the constituted
authorities, and we say to them, "Go on; cast firebrands, arrows, and
death; and let the blood of those that perish be on us and on our
children." We put the tomahawk and scalping-knife into the hands of our
neighbors, and award to them a bounty. We do more; we share the plunder.
Let us arouse, my fellow-citizens, from our insensibility, and redeem
our character for consistency, humanity, and benevolence.
3. Let us not confine our views or limit our operations to the narrow
boundaries of our own city or district. Intemperance is a common enemy.
It exists everywhere, and everywhere is pursuing its victims to
destruction: while, therefore, we are actively engaged upon the subject
in our own city, let us endeavor to do something elsewhere; and much may
be done by spreading through our country correct information on the
subject of intemperance. To this end, every newspaper and every press
should be put in requisition. Circulate through the various avenues
suitable tracts, essays, and other documents, setting forth the causes
of intemperance, its evils, and its remedy, together with an account of
the cheering progress now making to eradicate it.
Do this, and you will find thousands starting up in different parts of
the country, to lend their influence, and give their money in support of
your cause; individuals who have hitherto been unconscious of the extent
and magnitude of the evil of intemperance. You will find some who have
been slumbering upon the very precipice of ruin, rallying round your
standard. Indeed, we have all been insensible, till the voice of alarm
was sounded, and the facts were set in array before us.
4. Appeal to _the medical profession_ of the country, and ask them to
correct the false idea which so extensively, I may say, almost
universally prevails, viz., that ardent spirit is sometimes necessary in
the treatment of disease. This opinion has slain its thousands and its
tens of thousands, and multitudes of dram-drinkers daily shelter
themselves under its delusive mask. One takes a little to raise his
desponding spirits, or to drown his sorrow; another, to sharpen his
appetite, or relieve his dyspepsia: one, to ease his gouty pains;
another, to supple his stiffened limbs, or calm his quivering muscles.
One drinks to overcome the heat; another, to ward off the cold; and all
this as a medicine. Appeal, then, to the medical profession, and they
will tell you--every independent, honest, sober, intelligent member of
it will tell you--that there is no case in which ardent spirit is
indispensable, and for which there is not an adequate substitute. And it
is time the profession should have an opportunity to exonerate itself
from the charge under which it has long rested, _of making drunkards_.
But I entreat my professional brethren not to be content with giving a
mere assent to this truth. You hold a station in society which gives you
a commanding influence on this subject; and if you will but raise your
voice and speak out boldly, you may exert an agency in this matter
which will bring down the blessings of unborn millions upon your
memory.
5. Much may be done by guarding the _rising generation_ from the
contagion of intemperance. It is especially with the children and youth
of our land, that we may expect our efforts to be permanently useful.
Let us, then, guard with peculiar vigilance the youthful mind, and with
all suitable measures, impress it with such sentiments of disgust and
horror of the vice of intemperance, as to cause it to shrink from its
very approach. Carry the subject into our infant and Sunday schools, and
call on the managers and teachers of those institutions to aid you, by
the circulation of suitable tracts, and by such other instructions as
may be deemed proper. Let the rising generation be protected but for a
few years, and the present race of drunkards will have disappeared from
among us, and there will be no new recruits to take their place.
6. Let intelligent and efficient agents be sent out into every portion
of our country, to spread abroad information upon the subject of
intemperance, to rouse up the people to a sense of their danger, and to
form temperance societies; and let there be such a system of
correspondence and cooperation established among these associations as
will convey information to each, and impart energy and efficiency to the
whole. "No great melioration of the human condition was ever achieved
without the concurrent effort of numbers; and no extended and
well-directed association of moral influence was ever made in vain."
7. Let all who regard the virtue, the honor, and the patriotism of their
country, withhold their suffrages from those candidates for office who
offer ardent spirit as a bribe to secure their elevation to power. It is
derogatory to the liberties of our country, that office can be obtained
by such corruption--be held by such a tenure.
8. Let the ministers of the Gospel, wherever called to labor, exert
their influence, by precept and example, in promoting the cause of
temperance. Many of them have already stepped forth, and with a noble
boldness have proclaimed the alarm, and have led on the work of
reformation; but many timid spirits still linger, and others seem not
deeply impressed with the importance of the subject, and with the
responsibility of their station. Ye venerated men, you are not only
called to stand forth as our moral beacons, and be unto us burning and
shining lights, but you are placed as watchmen upon our walls, to
announce to us the approach of danger. It is mainly through your example
and your labors that religion and virtue are so extensively disseminated
through our country--that this land is not now a moral waste. You have
ever exerted an important influence in society, and have held a high
place in the confidence and affections of the people. You are widely
spread over the country, and the scene of your personal labors will
furnish you with frequent opportunities to diffuse information upon the
subject of temperance, and to advance its progress. Let me then ask you,
one and all, to grant us your active and hearty cooperation.
9. Appeal to the _female sex_ of our country, and ask them to come to
your assistance; and if they will consent to steel their hearts against
the inebriate, to shut out from their society the man who visits the
tippling shop, their influence will be omnipotent. And by what power, ye
mothers, and wives, and daughters, shall I invoke your aid? Shall I
carry you to the house of the drunkard, and point you to his weeping and
broken-hearted wife, his suffering and degraded children, robed in rags,
and poverty, and vice? Shall I go with you to the almshouse, the orphan
asylum, and to the retreat for the insane, that your sensibility may be
roused? Shall I ask you to accompany me to the penitentiary and the
prison, that you may there behold the end of intemperance? Nay, shall I
draw back the curtain and disclose to you the scene of the drunkard's
death-bed? No--I will not demand of you a task so painful: rather let me
remind you that you are to become the mothers of our future heroes and
statesmen, philosophers and divines, lawyers and physicians; and shall
they be enfeebled in body, debauched in morals, disordered in intellect,
or healthy, pure, and full of mental energy? It is for you to decide
this question. You have the future destiny of our beloved country in
your hands. Let me entreat you, then, for your children's sake, and for
your country's sake, not to ally yourselves to the drunkard, nor to put
the cup to the mouth of your offspring, and thereby implant in them a
craving for ardent spirit, which, once produced, is seldom eradicated.
10. Call upon all public and private associations, religious, literary,
and scientific, to banish ardent spirit from their circle; call upon the
agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial establishments, to withhold
it from those engaged in their employment; call upon the legislatures of
the different states to cooperate by the enactment of such laws as will
discourage the vending of ardent spirit, and render licenses to sell it
unattainable; call upon the proper officers to banish from the army and
navy that article which, of all others, is most calculated to enfeeble
the physical energies, corrupt the morals, destroy the patriotism, and
damp the courage of our soldiers and sailors; call upon our national
legislature to impose such duties on the distillation and importation of
ardent spirit as will ultimately exclude it from the list of articles of
commerce, and eradicate it from our land.
Finally, call upon every sober man, woman, and child, to raise their
voices, their hearts, and their hands in this sacred cause, and never
hold their peace, never cease their prayers, never stay their exertions,
till intemperance shall be banished from our land and from the world.
BIBLE ARGUMENT
FOR
TEMPERANCE.
BY REV. AUSTIN DICKINSON.
The Bible requires us to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable unto God;" to "purify ourselves, even as he is pure;" to
"give no occasion of stumbling to any brother;" to "give no offence to
the church of God;" to "love our neighbor as ourselves;" to "do good to
all as we have opportunity;" to "abstain from all appearance of evil;"
to "use the world as not abusing it;" and, "whether we eat or drink, or
whatsoever we do, to do all to the glory of God."
A Being of infinite benevolence could not prescribe rules of action less
holy, and they are "the same that shall judge us in the last day." Any
indulgence, therefore, not consistent with these rules, is rebellion
against the great Lawgiver, and must disqualify us for "standing in the
judgment."
As honest men, then, let us try by these rules the common practice of
drinking or selling intoxicating liquor.