Tobacco and Alcohol

So much is to be inferred from the stimulant action of tobacco upon the medulla. Of all this complicated benefit, the brain receives perhaps the largest share. The brain receives one-fifth, or according to some authorities one-third, of all the blood that is pumped from the heart. More than any other organ it demands for its due nutrition a prompt supply of arterial blood; and more than any other organ it partakes of the advantages resulting from vigorous circulation.

The stimulant action of tobacco upon the spinal cord and the cerebral hemispheres is less conspicuous. Yet even here its familiar influence in stilling nervous tremour and allaying nocturnal wakefulness is good testimony to its essentially beneficent character. Wakefulness and tremour are alike symptoms of diminished vitality; and the agent which removes them is not to be called, as Mr. Parton in his mediæval language calls it, "hostile to the vital principle."

So much for the net results of the stimulant action of tobacco. So far we have travelled on firm ground, and we have not found much to countenance Mr. Parton's view of the subject. But now some curious inquirer may ask, what is this stimulant action? What is the physiological expression for it, reduced to its lowest terms? Here we must keep still, or else venture upon ground that is very unfamiliar and somewhat hypothetical. There is no help for it; for we cannot yet give the physiological expression for unstimulated nervous action, reduced to its lowest terms. We know what kind of work nerves perform, but how they perform it we can as yet only guess. Nor, as far as the practical bearings of our subject are concerned, does it matter whether this abstruse point be settled or not. Still, even upon this dark subject recent research has thrown some gleams of light. A nerve-centre is a place where force is liberated by the lapse of the chemically-unstable nerve-molecules into a state of relative stability.[22 - We fear that this explanation will be rather unintelligible to the general reader. But it is hardly practicable for us to insert here a disquisition on physiological chemistry. Those who are familiar with modern physiology will readily catch our meaning. Those who are not may skip, if they choose, this parenthetical paragraph.] To raise them to their previous unstable state, thereby enabling them to fall again and liberate more force, is the function of food. Now our own hypothesis is, that tobacco and other narcotic stimulants enable force to be liberated by the isomeric transformation of the highly complex nerve-molecules, which retain in the process their state of relative instability, and are thus left competent to send forth a second discharge of force without the aid of food.

In support of this hypothesis we have the well-known fact that tobacco, like tea, coffee, alcohol and coca, universally retards organic waste. These substances effect this result in all the tissues, and more especially may they be expected to accomplish it in nervous tissue, where their action is so conspicuously manifest.

Thus is explained the familiar action of narcotic-stimulants in relieving weariness. Weariness, in its origin, is either muscular or nervous. It implies a diminution – owing to failing nutrition – of the total amount of contractile or of nervous force in the organism; and it shows that the weary person must either go to sleep or eat something. Now every one knows how a cup of tea, a glass of wine, or a cigar, dispels weariness. Of the three agents, tobacco is perhaps the most efficacious, and it can produce its effect in only one way – namely, by economizing nervous force, and arresting the disintegration of tissue.

Thus also is explained the marvellous food-action of these substances. Tea and coffee enable a man to live on less beefsteak. The Peruvian mountaineer, chewing his coca-leaf, accomplishes incredibly long tramps without stopping to eat. And every hardy soldier, in spite of Mr. Parton, has that within him which tells him that he can better endure severe marches and wearisome picket-service if he now and then lights his pipe. The personal experience of any one man is, we are aware, not always conclusive; but our own, so far as it goes, bears out the general conclusion. It was when we were engaged in severe daily mental labour, that we first conceived the idea of employing tobacco as a means of husbanding our resources. Narcosis being steadily avoided, the experiment was completely, even unexpectedly, successful. Not only was the daily fatigue sensibly diminished, but the recurrent periods of headache, gloom, and nervous depression were absolutely and finally done away with. That this result was due to improved nutrition was shown by the fact that, during the first three months after the habit of smoking was adopted, the average weight of the body was increased by twenty-four pounds – an increase which has been permanent. No other dietetic or hygienic change was made at the time, by which the direct effects of the tobacco might have been complicated and obscured.

The statement that smoking increases the average weight of the body[23 - "Tobacco, when the food is sufficient to preserve the weight of the body, increases that weight, and when the food is not sufficient, and the body in consequence loses weight, tobacco restrains that loss." Hammond, Physiological Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco, Am. Journal of Medical Sciences, tom. XXXII. N.S., p. 319.] is not, however, universally true. We have here an excellent illustration of the impracticability of laying down sweeping rules in physiology. Many persons find their weight notably diminished by the use of tobacco; and we frequently hear it said that smoking will not do for thin people, although for those who are fleshy it may not be injurious. In this there is a very natural but very gross confusion of ideas, which a little reflection upon the subject will readily clear up. It is true that moderate smoking sometimes increases and sometimes diminishes the weight; and it is no less true that in each case the result is the index of heightened nutrition! This seems, of course, paradoxical. But physiology, quite as much as astronomy, is a science which is constantly obliging us to reconsider and rectify our crude off-hand conceptions.

It is by no means true that increase of the tissues in bulk and density is always a sign of improved health. We are accustomed to congratulate each other upon looking plump and rosy. But too much rosiness may be a symptom of ill-health; and, similarly with plumpness, there is a point beyond which obesity is a mere weariness to the spirit. Nor does a person need to become as rotund as Wouter Van Twiller in order to reach and pass this point. Many persons, who are not actually corpulent, would lose weight if their nutrition could be improved. And the explanation is quite simple.

Normal nutrition is not merely the repair of tissue: it is the repair of all the tissues in the body in due proportion. This is a very essential qualification. Fibrous and areolar tissue, muscle, nerve, and fat are daily and hourly wasting in various degrees; and the repair, whether great or small, must be nicely proportioned to the waste in each tissue. If a pound is added to the weight of the body, it makes all the difference in the world whether one ounce is muscle, another ounce nerve, a third ounce fat, and so on, or whether the whole pound is fat. When one tissue gets more than its fair share, the chances are that all the others must go a-begging. The co-ordinating, controlling power of the organism over its several parts is diminished, – which is the same as saying that nutrition is impaired. Evidence of this soon appears in the circumstance that the deposit of adipose tissue is no longer confined to the proper places. Fat begins to accumulate all over the body, in localities where little or no fat is wanted, and notably about the stomach and diaphragm, causing laborious movement of the thorax and wheezing respiration. When a man gets into this state, it is a sign that the ratio between the waste and the repair of his tissues has become seriously dislocated. You can relieve him of his fat only by improving his nutrition. The German who drinks his forty glasses of lager bier per diem is said to be bloated; and we have heard it gravely surmised that the ale, getting into his system, swells him up – as if the human body were a sort of bladder or balloon! The explanation is not quite so simple. But it is easy to see how this immense quantity of liquid, continually loading the stomach and intestines, and entailing extra labour upon all the excreting organs, should so damage the assimilative powers as to occasion an excessive deposit of coarse fat and of flabby, imperfectly-elaborated connective tissue, over the entire surface of the body. And the state of chronic, though mild, narcosis in which the guzzler keeps himself, by still further injuring his reparative powers, contributes to the general result.

There are consequently four ways in which tobacco may exhibit its effects upon the nutrition of the body.

I. In stimulant doses, by improving nutrition, it may increase the normal weight.

II. In stimulant doses, by improving nutrition, it may cause a diminution of weight abnormally produced.

III. In narcotic doses, by impairing nutrition, it may cause emaciation.

IV. In narcotic doses, by impairing nutrition, it may aggravate obesity instead of relieving it.[24 - In this exposition we have assumed that the tobacco is smoked and the saliva retained. If the saliva be frequently ejected, the case is entirely altered. Habitual spitting incites the salivary glands to excessive secretion, thereby weakening the system to a surprising extent, and probably lowering nutrition. Many temperate smokers, who think themselves hurt by tobacco, are probably hurt only because, though in all other respects gentlemen, they will persist in the filthy habit of spitting. There is no excuse for the habit, for with very little practice the desire to get rid of the saliva entirely ceases, and is never again felt. In chewing, the saliva is so impregnated with the nicotinous constituents of the leaf, that the choice lies far more narrowly between spitting and narcosis. Of the two evils we shall not venture to say which is the least. In snuffing, too, the question is complicated by the acute local irritation caused by the contact of the stimulant with the nasal membranes. This, no doubt, has its medicinal virtues. But for a healthy man it is probable that smoking is the only rational, as it is certainly the only decent, way in which to use tobacco.]

We may see, by this example, how much room is always left for fallacy in the empirical tracing of physiological effects to their causes. The phænomena are so complex that induction is of but little avail, unless supported and confirmed by deduction.[25 - Mill's System of Logic, 6th ed. vol. I. pp. 503-508.] In the case of tobacco, our conclusions are so confirmed. Deduction, supported by cautious induction, shows the stimulant action of tobacco to be of permanent benefit to the system; and hence the statements of those smokers who believe themselves injured by the habit must be received with due qualifications. Yielding unsuspiciously to the influence of a prejudice which originated in an absurd puritanical notion of "morality,"[26 - "The Puritans, from the earliest days of their 'plantation' among us, abhorred the fume of the pipe." Fairholt, Tobacco, its History, etc., p. 111.] many smokers are in the habit of reviling the practice which they nevertheless will not abandon. Having once begun to smoke, they persist in laying to the account of tobacco sundry aches and ails which in the hurry and turmoil of modern life no one can expect wholly to escape, and many of which are such as tobacco could not possibly give rise to. If their teeth, for instance, begin to decay, tobacco gets the blame, although it is notorious to dentists that tobacco preserves the enamel of the teeth as hardly anything else will. We have seen teeth which had been kept for months in a preparation of nicotine and were in excellent condition. Then the headache, due perhaps to an overdose of hot risen biscuit or viands cooked in pork-fat, is quite likely to be laid to the charge of the general scape-goat; although to produce a headache directly by means of tobacco requires a powerful narcotic dose.[27 - Smoking has also been charged with acting as a predisposing, or even as an exciting, cause of insanity, – a notion effectually disposed of by Dr. Bucknill, in the Lancet, Feb. 28th, 1857. Before leaving this subject, it may be well to allude to Mr. Parton's remarks (p. 35) about "pallid," "yellow," "sickly," and "cadaverous," tobacco-manufacturers. He evidently means to convey the impression that workers in tobacco are more unhealthy than other workmen. Upon this point we shall content ourselves with transcribing the following passage from Christison, On Poisons, p. 731: – "Writers on the diseases of artisans have made many vague statements on the supposed baneful effects of the manufacture of snuff on the workmen. It is said they are liable to bronchitis, dysentery, ophthalmia, carbuncles, and furuncles. At a meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, however, before which a memoir to this purport was lately read, the facts were contradicted by reference to the state of the workmen at the Royal Snuff Manufactory of Gros-Caillou, where 1000 people are constantly employed without detriment to their health. (Revue Médicale, 1827, tom. III. p. 168.) This subject has been since investigated with great care by Messrs. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet, who inquired minutely into the state of the workmen employed at all the great tobacco-manufactories of France, comprising a population of above 4000 persons; and the results at which they have arrived are, – that the workmen very easily become habituated to the atmosphere of the manufactory, – that they are not particularly subject either to special diseases, or to disease generally, – and that they live on an average quite as long as other tradesmen. These facts are derived from very accurate statistical returns. (Annales d'Hygiène, 1829, tom. I. p. 169.)" The reader may also consult an instructive notice in Hammond's Journal of Psychological Medicine, Oct. 1868, vol. II. p. 828.] One of the chief causes of ordinary headache is doubtless the use of the execrable anthracite which Pennsylvania protectionists force upon us by means of their unrighteous prohibitory tariff upon English coal.[28 - See Dr. Derby's pamphlet on Anthracite and Health, Boston, 1868; and an article by the present writer, in the World, April 11th, 1868.] We have even heard it alleged that smoking impairs the eyesight. Students smoke much, and are nearsighted, is the complacent argument – it being apparently forgotten that sailors smoke much and are far-sighted, and that in each case the result is due to the way in which the eyes are used.

Before leaving this subject, it may be well to allude to Mr. Parton's remarks (p. 35) about "pallid," "yellow," "sickly," and "cadaverous," tobacco-manufacturers. He evidently means to convey the impression that workers in tobacco are more unhealthy than other workmen. Upon this point we shall content ourselves with transcribing the following passage from Christison, On Poisons, p. 731: – "Writers on the diseases of artisans have made many vague statements on the supposed baneful effects of the manufacture of snuff on the workmen. It is said they are liable to bronchitis, dysentery, ophthalmia, carbuncles, and furuncles. At a meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, however, before which a memoir to this purport was lately read, the facts were contradicted by reference to the state of the workmen at the Royal Snuff Manufactory of Gros-Caillou, where 1000 people are constantly employed without detriment to their health. (Revue Médicale, 1827, tom. III. p. 168.) This subject has been since investigated with great care by Messrs. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet, who inquired minutely into the state of the workmen employed at all the great tobacco-manufactories of France, comprising a population of above 4000 persons; and the results at which they have arrived are, – that the workmen very easily become habituated to the atmosphere of the manufactory, – that they are not particularly subject either to special diseases, or to disease generally, – and that they live on an average quite as long as other tradesmen. These facts are derived from very accurate statistical returns. (Annales d'Hygiène, 1829, tom. I. p. 169.)" The reader may also consult an instructive notice in Hammond's Journal of Psychological Medicine, Oct. 1868, vol. II. p. 828.

These examples show with what well-meaning recklessness people find fault with anything which they are at all events bound to condemn. It is not to be denied, however, that many persons are continually hurting themselves by the flagrant abuse of tobacco. Many men are doubtless in a state of chronic tobacco-narcosis; just as many men and women keep themselves in a state of chronic narcosis from the abuse of tea and coffee. Probably three-fourths of the ill-health which afflicts the community is due to barbarous neglect of the plainest principles of dietetics. When a thing tickles the palate, or refreshes the nervous system, people do not seem to be as yet sufficiently civilized to let it go until they have made themselves miserable with it. Half the inhabitants of the United States, says Mr. Parton, violate the laws of nature every time they go to the dinner-table. He might safely have put the figure higher. Owing to the shortcomings of our present methods of education, we rarely get taught physiology at school or college, we never thoroughly learn the principles of hygiene, or if we acquire some of them by hearsay, we seldom realize them in such a way as to shape our behaviour accordingly. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that people eat imprudently and smoke imprudently. They smoke just before dinner, they smoke rank, badly-cured tobacco, they smoke much, and they smoke fast, thus narcotizing instead of stimulating their nervous systems. A plum-pudding is good and nourishing, but it would hardly be wise to eat it before meat, or to eat it to the verge of nausea.

This lesson of dosage is one which cannot be learned too thoroughly. The would-be reformer says, "Touch not the unclean thing;" but the reply is, "No hurt has ever yet come to me from smoking: I will therefore smoke all the more, to confute these idle crotchets." This is the very crudity of undisciplined inference. In physiology we cannot go by the rule of three. Doctors can tell us how they prescribe brandy for epilepsy: exulting in his signal relief, the patient persists in taking a second dose, and – brings on another fit! Stimulation gives way to narcosis. In delirium tremens the stimulus of opium is often found to be of great service. But sometimes the unscientific physician, wishing to increase the beneficial effect, keeps on until he has administered a narcotic dose; when lo! all is undone, the enfeebled nerves, needing nothing but stimulus, have received the final shock, the medulla is paralyzed, and the heart ceases to beat. Let no one imagine, then, that this distinction between large and small quantities is trivial or wire-drawn. In therapeutics it is often the one all-important distinction. In dealing with narcotics, it is the root of the whole matter.

And now the question arises, what is a stimulant dose? How much tobacco can a man take daily with benefit to himself? The reply is obvious, that no universal rule can be given. In dealing with the science of life, to indulge in sweeping statements and glittering generalities is the surest mark of a charlatan. Mr. Parton says, with reference to alcohol, that he devoutly wishes the thing could be proved to be, always, everywhere, under any circumstances, and in any quantities, injurious, (p. 59.) If this could be proved, alcohol would be shown to be a substance all but unique in nature. So much as this cannot be said of arsenic, prussic acid, or strychnine. Science cannot be made to harmonize with the exaggerations of radicalism. With regard to tobacco, every man, moderately endowed with common sense, can soon tell how much he ought to take. The muscular tremour of narcosis is unmistakable, and a depressed or fluttering pulse is easily detected. When a man has smoked until these symptoms are awakened, let him stop short, – he has gone too far already. Let him take good care never to repeat the dose. The true Epicurean, to whom μηδεν ἂγαν has become second nature, who knows how to live, and who is instinctively disgusted by vulgar excess, will not be likely to oversmoke himself more than once. So much we say, in view of the impossibility of laying down universal rules. But it is well for the smoker to bear in mind that the more gradually the nicotine is absorbed into his circulating system, the better. For this reason a pipe, with porous bowl and long porous stem, is better than a cigar,[29 - The cigar is, however, usually made of milder tobacco. And an old pipe, saturated with nicotinous oil, may become far stronger than any ordinary cigar.] which is besides liable by direct contact to irritate the tongue and lips. And, likewise, it is better to smoke mild tobacco for an hour than strong tobacco for half an hour. Probably four or five pipes daily are enough for most healthy persons; but no such rule can be quoted as inflexible or infallible. Some persons, as we have said, are never stimulated by tobacco, and therefore ought never to smoke at all. Others can take relatively large quantities with little risk of narcosis. Dr. Parr would smoke twenty pipes in a single evening. The illustrious Hobbes sat always wrapped in a dense cloud of smoke, while he wrote his immortal works; yet he lived, hale and hearty, to the age of ninety-two.

We have spoken of persons who are incapable of deriving stimulus from the use of tobacco, but are always narcotized by it. We doubt if perfectly healthy persons are ever affected in this way. In a considerable number of cases we have observed that this incapacity occurs in people who are troubled with some chronic abnormal action or inaction of the liver; but we have as yet been unable to make any generalization which might serve to connect the two phænomena. In the great majority of cases, however, the incapacity has been probably induced by chronic narcosis resulting from the long-continued abuse of tobacco. Recent researches have shown that confirmed drunkards have after a while modified the molecular structure of their nervous systems to such an extent that they can never for the rest of their lives touch an alcoholic drink with safety. For such poor creatures, teetotalism is the only hygienic rule. It is fair to suppose that under the continuous influence of tobacco-narcosis the nervous system becomes metamorphosed in some analogous manner, so that after a while tobacco ceases to be of any use and becomes simply noxious. This is likely to be the case with those who begin to chew or smoke when they are half-grown boys, and keep on taking enormous doses of the narcotic until they have arrived at middle age. As Mr. Parton seems to find a difficulty in realizing that any one who smokes at all can smoke less than from ten to twenty large cigars daily, (for he always uses these figures when he has occasion to allude to the subject), we presume this to be about the ration which he used to allow himself. If so, no wonder that he found it did not pay to smoke. He probably did the wisest thing he could do when he gave up the habit; and his mistake has been in endeavouring to erect the limitations of his own experience into objective laws of the universe.

To sum up the physiological argument: we have endeavoured, as precisely as possible in the present state of knowledge, to answer the question, Does it pay to smoke? From the outset we have found it necessary to a clear understanding of the problem to keep steadily in mind the generic difference between the effects of tobacco when taken in narcotic quantities and its effects when taken in stimulant quantities. The first class of effects we have seen to be always and necessarily bad; though not so extremely and variously bad as hygienic reformers appear to believe.[30 - Tobacco, as we have said, may, in an adequate dose, produce well-developed paralysis. Whether the ordinary excessive use of it ever does cause paralysis, is, to say the least, extremely doubtful. Dr. D. W. Cheever says, "The minor, rarely the graver, affections of the nervous system do follow the use of tobacco in excess… Numerous cases of paralysis among tobacco-takers in France were traced to the lead in which the preparation was enveloped." Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1860. Another instance of the great care needful in correctly tracing the causes of any disease or ailment. Lead-poisoning, when chronic, brings about structural degeneration of the nerve-centres.] With regard to the second class of effects, we have seen reason to believe that they are almost always good. We have seen reason to believe that, in the first place, the stimulant dose of tobacco retards waste; and, in the second place, that it facilitates repair: —

I. By its action on the sympathetic ganglia, aiding digestion, —

II. By its action on the medulla oblongata, aiding the circulation, —

III. By its action on the interstitial nerve-fibres, aiding the general assimilation of prepared material.

And lastly, we have witnessed the evidence of its effect upon the increased nutrition of the brain and spinal cord, in its alleviation of abnormal wakefulness and tremour. These are legitimate scientific inferences; and if they are to be overturned, it must be by scientific argument. They are not to be shaken by all of Mr. Parton's clamour about the Coming Man, and people who keep themselves "well-groomed," and ladies who write for the press. So far as our present knowledge of physiology goes for anything, it thus goes to exhibit tobacco, rightly used, as the great economizer of vital force, the aider of nervous co-ordination, and one of the ablest co-workers in normal and vigorous nutrition. And, as we have said before, it is the difference in the rate of nutrition which is probably the most fundamental difference between strength and feebleness, vigour and sluggishness, health and disease. It was because of rapid nutrition that Napoleon and Humboldt performed their prodigious tasks, and yet needed almost incredibly little sleep. It is the difference between fast and slow nutrition which makes one soldier's wound heal, while another's gangrenes; which enables one young girl to throw off a chest-cold with ease, while another is dragged into the grave by it. Waste and repair – these are the essential correlatives; and the agent which checks the former while hastening the latter can hardly be other than a friend to health, long life, and vigour.

We conclude with an inductive argument which an eminent physician has recently in conversation urged upon our attention. Throughout the whole world, probably nine men out of every ten use tobacco.[31 - Paraguay tea is used by 10,000,000 of people; coca by 10,000,000; chicory by 40,000,000; cocoa by 50,000,000; coffee by 100,000,000; betel by 100,000,000; haschisch by 300,000,000; opium by 400,000,000; Chinese tea by 500,000,000; tobacco by 800,000,000; the population of the world being probably not much over one thousand million. See Von Bibra, Die Narkotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch, Preface.] Throughout the civilized world, women, as a general rule, abstain from the use of tobacco. Here we have an experiment, on an immense scale, ready-made for us. These three hundred million civilized men and women are subjected to the same varieties of climatic, dietetic, and social influences; their environments are the same; their inherited organic proclivities will average about the same; but the men smoke and the women do not. Now, if all that our hygienic reformers say about tobacco were true, the men in civilized countries should be afflicted with numerous constitutional diseases which do not afflict the women; or should be more liable to the diseases common to the two sexes; or, finally, should be shorter lived than the women. But statistics show that men are, on the whole, just as healthy and long-lived as women. In point of the average number of diseases[32 - Omitting, of course, from the comparison, the class of diseases to which woman is peculiarly subject, as a child-bearer.] to which they are subject; in point of liability to disease; and in point of longevity; the two sexes are in all civilized countries, exactly on a par with each other. During the two hundred years in which tobacco has been in common use, it has made no appreciable difference in the health or longevity of those who have used it. This is a rough experiment, in which no account is taken of dosage, and in which the results are only general averages. But to our mind, it is very significant. Taken alone, it shows conclusively that since tobacco first began to be used, its bad effects must have been at least fully balanced by its good effects. Taken in connection with our physiological argument, it shows quite conclusively that the current notion about the banefulness of tobacco is, as we remarked above, simply a popular delusion.

To prove that tobacco, rightly used, is harmless, is to prove that it does pay to smoke. Every smoker, who has not vitiated his nervous system by raw excess, knows that there is no physical pleasure in the long run comparable with that which is afforded by tobacco. If such pleasure is to be obtained without detriment to the organism, who but the grimmest ascetic can say that here is not a gain? But, if, as we have every reason to believe, the stimulant action of tobacco upon the human system is not only harmless but very decidedly beneficial, then it is doubly proved that it does pay to smoke.

II.

The Coming Man will Drink Wine

Mr. Parton treats alcohol much more respectfully than he treats tobacco. Though equally hostile to it, he apparently considers it a more formidable enemy. Instead of taking for granted from the outset that which it is his business to prove, he now condescends to employ something which to the unpractised eye may look like scientific argument. He has taken pains to collect such evidence as may be made to support his view of the case. And he frequently endeavours to assume an attitude of apparent impartiality by alluding to himself as a drinker of "these seductive liquids," – although, in point of fact, his whole essay is conceived in the narrowest spirit of radical teetotalism. As for tobacco, it does not seem to occur to him that any one can be found, so obstinate or so deluded as seriously to maintain that there is any good in it; and he therefore writes upon that subject with all the exaggeration of unterrified confidence. But in dealing with alcohol, his violence of statement is evidently due to an uneasy consciousness that there is a vast body of current opinion and of scientific doctrine which may be arrayed in the lists against him. He brushes away, with a contemptuous sneer, (p. 56) the opinions of the medical profession; but he is, nevertheless, unable wholly to ignore them. Propositions of the sort which he formerly alluded to as if no one could think of doubting them, he now thinks it necessary to state at length. The poisonous nature of tobacco could be taken for granted in a subordinate clause; but the poisonous nature of alcohol needs to be asserted in an independent sentence. "Pure alcohol, though a product of highly nutritive substances, is a mere poison, – an absolute poison, – the mortal foe of life in every one of its forms, animal and vegetable." (p. 64.)

This is the way in which the advocates of total abstinence like to begin. A good round assertion about "poison" is calculated to demoralize the inexperienced reader, and to scare him into half giving up the case at once. But it is not all barking dogs that bite. Morphia is a deadly poison; but opium, which contains it, is not "the mortal foe of life in all its forms," – it is sometimes the only thing which will keep soul and body together.[33 - Opium, as used in moderation by Orientals, has not been proved to exercise any deleterious effects. Very likely it is a healthful stimulant; but it does not appear to agree with the constitutions of the Western races. See Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 364. Probably tea, tobacco and alcohol are the only stimulants adapted alike to all races, and to nearly all kinds of people.] Theine is no doubt a deadly poison, but we manage to drink it with tolerable safety in our tea and coffee. Lactucin is probably a poison, yet people may eat a lettuce-salad and live. Chlorine is eminently a poison, yet we are all the time taking it into our systems, combined with sodium, in the shape of table-salt. Therefore over the verbal question whether a teaspoonful of pure alcohol is a poison, we do not care to wrangle. People do not drink pure alcohol, as a general thing. And as for the beverages into the composition of which alcohol enters, the reader will have no difficulty in understanding that they are poisons in just the same sense in which common salt and oxygen are poisons; i. e., if you take enough of them, they will kill you. This point was sufficiently cleared up in our first chapter.

Mr. Parton's hostility to this "mortal foe of life in all its forms" has taken shape in six definite propositions. Concerning alcoholic liquor of any kind and in any quantity, he asserts, and attempts to prove, that it does not nourish, that it does not aid digestion, that it does not warm, that it does not strengthen, that it undergoes no chemical change in the system, and that it always injuriously affects the brain. Beginning with the last of these propositions, let us first see what Mr. Parton has to say for it.

"If I, at this ten A.M., full of interest in this subject, and eager to get my view of it upon paper, were to drink a glass of the best port, Madeira, or sherry, or even a glass of lager-bier, I should lose the power to continue in three minutes; or, if I persisted in going on, I should be pretty sure to utter paradox and spurts of extravagance, which would not bear the cold review of to-morrow morning. Any one can try this experiment. Take two glasses of wine, and then immediately apply yourself to the hardest task your mind ever has to perform, and you will find you cannot do it. Let any student, just before he sits down to his mathematics, drink a pint of the purest beer, and he will be painfully conscious of loss of power." Did it ever dimly occur to Mr. Parton that all men may not be constructed on exactly the same plan with himself?

We wonder how many drops of "seductive fluid," unwisely taken at the wrong time of day, are to be held responsible for the following "spurt" of extravagance: "The time, I hope, is at hand, when an audience in a theatre, who catch a manager cheating them out of their fair allowance of fresh air, will not sit and gasp, and inhale destruction till eleven P.M., and then rush wildly to the street for relief. They will stop the play; they will tear up the benches, if necessary; they will throw things on the stage; they will knock a hole in the wall; they will have the means of breathing, or perish in the struggle." Is this the way in which "well-groomed" people are expected to behave? Fancy an audience following this precious bit of advice. When Mlle. Janauschek, for instance, is finishing the third act of "Medea" or the second act of "Deborah," amid the tragic solemnity of the scene, fancy the audience, because of bad air in the theatre, getting up and flinging their canes and opera-glasses on the stage, in the heroic struggle for oxygen or death! Fancy four or five hundred grown-up, educated people behaving in this way! If these are to be the manners of the Coming Man, we trust it will be long before he comes.

Such is one of the "spurts of extravagance" which Mr. Parton apparently thinks will "bear the cold review of to-morrow morning." Having survived this, we may philosophically resign ourselves to the infliction of another, more nearly akin to our subject. "How we all wondered that England should think so erroneously, and adhere to its errors so obstinately, during our late war! Mr. Gladstone has in part explained the mystery. The adults of England, he said, in his famous wine-speech, drink, on an average, three hundred quarts of beer each per annum!" Another choice bit of radical philosophy: if your neighbour happens not to agree with your most cherished opinions, he must be idiotic, immoral, or drugged! The English failed to sympathize with us, because they are such beer-drinkers! What a rare faculty of disentangling causal relations! We believe that the working people, who drink the most beer, were just those who, as a class, were most ready to sympathize with us in the time of need. But Mr. Parton has "grounds" for his opinion. "It is physically impossible for a human brain, muddled every day with a quart of beer, to correctly hold correct opinions, or appropriate pure knowledge." "The receptive, the curious, the candid, the trustworthy brains, – those that do not take things for granted, and yet are ever open to conviction, – such heads are to be found on the shoulders of men who drink little or none of these seductive fluids." Mr. Parton has doubtless forgotten that the head of "the nearest approach to the complete human being that has yet appeared," the head of the "highly-groomed" Goethe – rested upon the shoulders of a man who drank his two or three bottles of wine daily.[34 - Lewes, Life of Goethe, vol. II. p. 267.] But we are now rapidly getting into the æthereal region of certainties. "Taking together all that science and observation teach and indicate, we have one certainty: that, to a person in good health and of good life, alcoholic liquors are not necessary, but are always in some degree hurtful." So it is not an open question, after all! Certainty has been arrived at, – by Mr. Parton, at least. And it is so difficult to suppose that any sane mind, after due investigation, can come to a different opinion, that all persons who mean to keep on using alcohol are advised in pathetic language never to look into the facts:

"If ignorance is bliss, 't is folly to be wise."

The candid reader must admit that Mr. Parton has not, so far, made out a very overwhelming case in support of his opinion that alcohol always injures the brain. A personal experience, a "spurt of extravagance," a "physical impossibility," and a "certainty," are, on the whole, not very rocky foundations upon which to build a scientific conclusion. But this is all Mr. Parton has to offer.

In attempting to describe the influence of alcohol upon the brain and nervous system, it will be well for us to keep steadily in mind the fundamental difference between stimulant and narcotic doses, which was described at some length in our chapter on Tobacco. It is hardly necessary to state that Mr. Parton neither recognizes, nor appears dimly to suspect, the existence of any such distinction. His is one of those minds in which there are no half-way stations. With him, to rise above zero is inevitably to fly to the boiling-water point. But without keeping in mind this all-important distinction, any inquiry into the physiological effects of alcohol must end in confusion and paradox. Remembering this, let us examine first the narcotic, and then the stimulant effects of alcohol upon the nervous system.

The narcotic effects of alcohol upon the entire human organism are so bad that even the teetotaler does not need to exaggerate them. The stomach is not only damaged, and the cerebrum ruined, but a slow molecular change takes place throughout the nervous system, which ends by destroying the power of self-control and utterly demoralizing the character. Far be it from us, therefore, to palliate the consequences which sooner or later are sure to follow the wretched habit of drinking narcotic quantities of alcohol; or to look without genuine sympathy upon the philanthropic, though usually misguided attempts which radical aquarians are continually making to diminish the evil. Their feelings are often as right as their science is wrong. But because we believe that for a book to be of any value whatever, it must be true, and that false science can never, in the long run, be of practical benefit, we are not therefore to be set down as lukewarm in our abhorrence of alcoholic intemperance. Those who keep their hearts in subjection to their heads are often supposed to have no hearts at all. Those who do not forthwith get angry and utter "spurts of extravagance" whenever any social evil is mentioned, are often thought to be in secret sympathy with it. But how could we, by writing reams of fervid declamation, more forcibly express our disapproval of drunkenness than by recording the cold scientific statement that the first narcotic symptom produced by alcohol is a symptom of incipient paralysis?

We allude to the flushing of the face, which is caused by paralysis of the cervical branch of the sympathetic. This symptom usually occurs some time before the conspicuous manifestation of the ordinary signs of intoxication, which result from paralysis of the cerebrum. Of these signs the most prominent is the weakening of the ordinary power of self-control. The ruling faculty of judgment is suspended, volition becomes less steady, and imagination, no longer guided by the higher faculties, runs riot in such a way as to appear to be stimulated. But it is not stimulated; it is simply let loose. There is no stimulation in drunkenness; there is only disorganization. One acquired or organic power of the mind no longer holds the others in check. Hence the uncalled-for friendliness, the fitful anger, the extravagant or misplaced generosity, the ludicrous dignity, the disgusting amorousness, or the garrulous vanity, of the drunken man. Wine is said to exhibit a man as he really is, with the conventionalities of society laid aside. This is only half true, but it suggests the true statement. Wine exhibits a man as he is when the organized effects of ancestral and contemporary civilization upon his character are temporarily obliterated. We need no better illustration of the truth that drunkenness is not stimulation but paralysis of the cerebrum, than the order in which, under the influence of alcohol, the powers of the mind become progressively suspended. As a general rule those are first suspended which are the most recent products of civilization, and which have consequently been developed by inheritance through the least number of generations. These are of course the mind's highest organic acquisitions. The sense of responsibility, for instance, is a product of a highly complicated state of civilization, and, when fully developed, is perhaps chief among the moral acquirements which distinguish the civilized man from the savage. In progressing intoxication, the feeling of responsibility is the first to be put in abeyance. A man need be but slightly tipsy in order to become quite careless as to the consequences of his actions.[35 - In illustration it may be noted that as soon as a man has just transgressed the physiological limit which divides stimulation from narcosis, he is liable to throw overboard all prudential considerations and drink until he is completely drunk. This is one of the chief dangers of convivial after-dinner drinking.] On the other hand, those qualities of the mind are the last to be overcome, which are the earliest inheritance of savagery, and which the civilized man possesses in common with savages and beasts. Then the animal nature of the man, no longer restrained by his higher faculties, manifests itself with a violence which causes it to seem abnormally stimulated in vigour. And in the stage immediately preceding stupor, it sometimes happens that the pupils are contracted,[36 - For the physiology of this pupil-change, not uncommon in various kinds of acute narcosis, see the Appendix to Anstie.] and the whites of the eyes enlarged, giving to the face a horrible brute-like expression.

One apparent exception to this generalization needs only to be explained in order to confirm the rule. Memory, which usually figures as a high intellectual faculty, is often, even in deep drunkenness, capable of performing marvellous feats. While in college we once heard a tipsy fellow-student repeat verbatim the whole of that satire of Horace which begins "Unde et quo, Catius?" – which he had read over the same day before going to recitation, but which, as we felt sure, he could never designedly have committed to memory. It appeared, however, that, in the literal though not in the idiomatic sense of the phrase, he had "committed it to memory" to some purpose, for as we, struck with amazement, took down our Horace and followed him, we found that he made not the slightest verbal error. This performance on his part was almost immediately followed by heavy comatose slumber. On afterward questioning him, it appeared that he remembered nothing either of the Satire or of his remarkable feat. Several analogous cases are cited by Dr. Anstie.[37 - Stimulants and Narcotics, pp. 174-178.]

This certainly looks like stimulation, but on comparing it with other instances of abnormal reminiscence differently caused, we shall find reason for believing that it is nothing of the kind. There is no doubt that insanity may in the most general way be described as a species of cerebral paralysis, yet in many kinds of insanity there is an abnormal quickening of memory. Likewise in idiocy, which differs from insanity as being due to arrested development rather than to degradation of the cerebrum, the same phænomenon is sometimes witnessed. We remember seeing a child who, though generally considered quite "foolish," could, as we were assured, accurately repeat large portions of each Sunday's sermon. Dr. Anstie mentions a boy, absolutely idiotic, who nevertheless "had a perfect memory for the history of all the farm animals in the neighbourhood, and could tell with unerring precision that this was So-and-so's sheep or pig among any number of other animals of the same kind." Similar phænomena have been observed in epileptic delirium, and in the delirium of fevers. Every one has heard Coleridge's story of the sick servant-girl who repeated passages from Latin, Greek and Hebrew authors which she had years before heard recited by a clergyman in whose house she worked. A gentleman in India, after a sunstroke, utterly lost his command of the Hindustani language, recovering it only during the recurrent paroxysms of epileptic delirium to which he was afterward subject. Equally interesting is the case of the Countess de Laval, who in the ravings of puerperal delirium was heard by her Breton nurse talking baby-talk to herself in the Breton language, – a language which she had known in early infancy, but had since so entirely forgotten as not to distinguish it from gibberish when spoken before her.[38 - For this and parallel cases see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. XVIII.] A similar exaltation of memory not unfrequently precedes the coma produced by chloroform; and it has been known to occur in cases of acute poisoning by opium and haschisch. Finally it may be observed that drowning men are said to recall, as in a panoramic vision, all the events of their lives, even the most trivial.

We may conclude therefore that the extraordinary memory sometimes observed in drunken persons, however obscure the interpretation of it may at present be, is at all events a symptom, not of mental exaltation, but of mental disorganization consequent upon cerebral disease. We may search in vain among the phænomena of intoxication for any genuine evidences of that heightened mental activity which is said to be followed by a depressive recoil. There is no recoil; there is no stimulation; there is nothing but paralytic disorder from the moment that narcosis begins. From the outset the whole nervous system is lowered in tone, the even course of its nutrition disturbed, and the rhythmic discharge of its functions interfered with.

Another remarkable effect of alcoholic narcotism – the most hopelessly demoralizing of all – yet remains to be treated. We refer to the perpetual craving of the drinker for the repetition, and usually for the increase, of his dose. It is a familiar fact that the drunkard is urged to the gratification of his appetite by such an irresistible physical craving that his power of self-control becomes after a while completely destroyed. And it is often observed that those who begin drinking moderately go on, as if by a kind of fatality, drinking oftener and drinking larger quantities, until they have become confirmed inebriates. But in the current interpretation of these facts there is, as might be expected, a great deal of confusion. On the one hand, the teetotalers declare that the use of alcohol in any amount creates a physical craving and necessitates a progressive increase of the dose. On the other hand, the common sense of mankind, perceiving that nine persons out of ten are all their lives in the habit of using alcoholic drinks, while hardly one person out of ten ever becomes a drunkard,[39 - It has been asserted by teetotalers that the mortality from intemperance is 50,000 a year in the United States alone!! It is to be regretted that friends of temperance are to be found who will persist in injuring the cause by such wanton exaggerations. In the United States, in 1860, the whole number of deaths from all causes was a trifle less than 374,000: the whole number of deaths from intemperance was 931, – that is to say, less than one in 374. See the admirable pamphlet by the late Gov. Andrew, on The Errors of Prohibition, p. 112. In view of these facts, it appears to us many leagues within the bounds of probability to say that hardly one person in ten is a] declares that this physical craving is not produced save in peculiarly organized constitutions. We believe that neither of these opinions is correct. In all probability, the demand for an increased narcotic effect is due to a gradual alteration in the molecular structure of the nervous system caused by frequently repeated narcosis; and if narcosis be invariably avoided, in systems which are free from its inherited structural effects, the craving is never awakened. This point is so interesting and important as to call for some further elucidation.

Frequent intoxication with alcohol, opium, coca, or haschisch, brings about a structural degeneration of the nerve-material; the consequences of which are to be seen in delirium, softening of the brain, and other forms of general paralysis. "By degrees the nervous centres, especially those on which the particular narcotic used has the most powerful influence, become degraded in structure." A permanent pathological state is thus induced, in which the production of a given narcotic effect is not so easy as in the healthy organism. "A certain quantity of nervous tissue has in fact ceased to fill the rôle of nervous tissue, and there is less of impressible matter upon which the narcotic may operate, and hence it is that the confirmed drunkard, opium-eater, or coquero, requires more and more of his accustomed narcotic to produce the intoxication which he delights in. It is necessary now to saturate his blood to a high degree with the poison, and thus to insure an extensive contact of it with the nervous matter, if he is to enjoy once more the transition from the realities of life to the dreamland, or the pleasant vacuity of mind, which this or the other form of narcotism has hitherto afforded him."[40 - See Anstie, op. cit. pp. 215, 216, 218.] It is easy to see how this structural degeneration may be produced. It takes a certain time for the nervous system to recover from the effects of each separate narcotic dose; and if a fresh dose is taken before recovery is completed, it is obvious that the diseased condition will by and by be rendered permanent. The entire process of nutrition will adapt itself gradually to this new state of things; and no efficiency of repair will afterward make the nervous system what it was before. It is in this way that the narcotic craving for continually increased doses is originated and kept alive.

In the case of the milder narcotics – tea, coffee and tobacco – this craving, though the symptom of a depraved state of the organism, does not directly demoralize the character. But the moral injury wrought by alcohol, opium and haschisch is known to every one, and the effects of coca-drunkenness are said to be no less frightful. This is because the milder narcotics affect chiefly the medulla, the spinal cord and the sympathetic, while the fiercer ones chiefly affect the cerebrum. Tobacco may paralyze the brain sufficiently to cause nocturnal wakefulness; but it cannot impair one's self-control or one's sense of responsibility. It never transforms a man into a selfish brute, who will beat his wife, neglect his business, and allow his children to starve. Here then we arrive at a supremely interesting distinction. The craving for tobacco is principally a craving of those inferior nerve-centres which exert comparatively little direct influence upon the mental and moral life. But the craving for alcohol is a cerebral craving. The habitual indulgence of it involves a continual suppression of those loftier guiding qualities which, as we have seen, are the later effects of civilization upon the individual character; while the attributes of savagery, the lower sensual passions – our common inheritance from pre-social times – are allowed full play in supplying material for the imagination and in shaping the purposes of life. Mr. Parton's remark, therefore, which is absurd as applied to tobacco, is a profound physiological verity as applied to the narcotic action of alcohol, – it tends to make us think and act like barbarians, for it allies us psychologically with barbarians.

These considerations throw some light upon the way in which chronic narcosis, like other diseases entailing structural derangements, may be transmitted from father to son. As a matter of observation it is known that drunkenness may run through whole families, no less than gout or consumption. Or, like other diseases, it may skip one or two generations and then reappear. It is evident that the children of a drunkard, born after the establishment of nervous degeneration in the father's system, may inherit structural narcosis attended by a latent craving for alcohol. Some unfortunate persons thus seem to be born sots, as others are born lunatics or consumptives.

The hygienic rule in all cases of structural narcosis, whether acquired or inherited, is total abstinence once and always. These unfortunate creatures cannot be temperate, they must therefore be abstinent. As Sainte-Beuve profoundly remarks concerning that ferocious Duke of Burgundy for whom Fénelon wrote his "Télémaque," he was such a wretch that they could not make a man of him, they could only make him a saint: that is, he was got up on such wrong principles that, whether bad or good, he must be somewhat morally lop-sided and abnormal. Just so with those whose nervous systems are impaired by alcohol: we cannot make them healthy men who can take a stimulant glass and want no more, – we can only make them teetotalers.

Those too who have not got themselves into this predicament will do well to remember that there is extreme danger in the common practice of drinking as much as one likes, provided one does not get drunk. "Getting drunk" means paralysis of the cerebral hemispheres; but, as we have seen, paralysis of the cervical sympathetic, shown in flushed face and moist forehead, occurs some time before the more conspicuous symptom. It is a narcotic effect, and must be always avoided, if the narcotic craving is to be kept clear of. Therefore a man who wishes to enjoy alcohol, and reap benefit from it, and be ready at any time to do without it, like any other wholesome aliment, must always keep a long way this side of intoxication. If ten glasses of sherry will make him garrulous, he will do well never to drink more than four.

Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be well to note certain cases, collected by Theodore Parker, of consumptive families, in which those members who were topers did not die of consumption. It appeared that, in certain families whose histories he gave, nearly all those who did not die of consumption were rum-drinkers! And from these data Mr. Parker drew the inference that "intemperate habits (where the man drinks a pure, though coarse and fiery liquor like New England Rum) tend to check the consumptive tendency, though the drunkard, who himself escapes the consequences, may transmit the fatal seed to his children." Mr. Parton, who quotes this, thinks it poor comfort for topers. We doubt if there is any "comfort" to be found in it. It is contrary to all our present science to suppose that consumption can be prevented by narcosis. The prime cause of consumption is defective assimilation: the tissues, from lack of sufficient nerve-stimulus, are incapable of appropriating food. How absurd, therefore, to suppose that narcosis, which impairs the stimulating energy of the nerves, can check an existing tendency to consumption! What the consumptive person needs is stimulus, not paralysis. But it is easy to believe that the same impaired nutrition of the nerves which may in one person end in consumption, may in another person act as a predisposing cause of narcosis. Insanity, consumption, and drunkenness, are diseases which appear to go hand in hand. Dr. Maudsley, in his great work on the "Pathology of Mind," gives instructive tables which show that these three diseases may alternate with each other in the same family for several generations, culminating finally in epilepsy, idiocy, paralysis and impotence, when the family becomes happily extinct. This consanguinity of diseases appears more marked when we extend our view over a certain extensive locality. The figures cited by Gov. Andrew appear to show that both drunkenness and insanity are far more common in New England than in other parts of the Union; and consumption is proverbially the New England disease. We are inclined to suspect, therefore, that in the families mentioned by Mr. Parker, the children inherited structurally defective nervous systems, the consequent symptoms being in one case pulmonary and in another case cerebral.