PART I.
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. Fermented liquors contain so little spirit, and that so intimately combined with other matters, that they can seldom be drunken in sufficient quantities to produce intoxication, and its subsequent effects, without exciting a disrelish to their taste, or pain, from their distending the stomach. They are moreover, when taken in a moderate quantity, generally innocent, and often have a friendly influence upon health and life.
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 humour, 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. These 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 hiccup 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 state 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 neighbours, I said,
“Does he not sometimes get drunk?” “You mean,” said his neighbour, “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.
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, viz.
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 colour 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 vapour 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.
Lastly, 11. 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 blood-vessels 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 over-run 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 neighbourhood; 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 labour.
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 a sudden gust of passion, or from 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 endeavour to show that the arguments in favour 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 vigour or activity is required[63].” 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 labour 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 labour is of a transient nature, and is always followed by a sense of weakness and fatigue.
But are there no conditions of the human body in which ardent spirits may be given? I answer, there are. 1st. When the body has been suddenly exhausted of its strength, and a disposition to faintness has been induced. Here a few spoonsful, or a wine-glassful of spirits, with or without water, may be administered with safety and advantage. In this case we comply strictly with the advice of Solomon, who restricts the use of “strong drink” only “to him who is ready to perish.” 2dly. When the body has been exposed for a long time to wet weather, more especially if it be combined with cold. Here a moderate quantity of spirits is not only safe, but highly proper to obviate debility, and to prevent a fever. They will more certainly have those salutary effects, if the feet are at the same time bathed with them, or a half pint of them poured into the shoes or boots. These I believe are the only two cases in which distilled spirits are useful or necessary to persons in health.