5. Terror. A number of young merchants, who had drunken together, in a compting-house, on James river, above thirty years ago, until they were intoxicated, were carried away by a sudden rise of the river, from an immense fall of rain. They floated several miles with the current, in their little cabin, half filled with water. An island in the river arrested it. When they reached the shore that saved their lives, they were all sober. It is probable terror assisted in the cure of the persons who fell into the water at Baltimore.
6. The excitement of a fit of anger. The late Dr. Witherspoon used to tell a story of a man in Scotland, who was always cured of a fit of drunkenness, by being made angry. The means chosen for that purpose, was a singular one. It was talking against religion.
7. A severe whipping. This remedy acts by exciting a revulsion of the blood from the brain, to the external parts of the body.
8. Profuse sweats. By means of this evacuation, nature sometimes cures a fit of drunkenness. Their good effects are obvious in labourers, whom quarts of spirits taken in a day, will seldom intoxicate, while they sweat freely. If the patient be unable to swallow warm drinks, in order to produce sweats, they may be excited by putting him in a warm bath, or wrapping his body in blankets, under which should be placed half a dozen hot bricks, or bottles filled with hot water.
9. Bleeding. This remedy should always be used, when the former ones have been prescribed to no purpose, or where there is reason to fear from the long duration of the disease, a material injury may be done to the brain.
It is hardly necessary to add, that each of the above remedies, should be regulated by the grade of drunkenness, and the greater or less degree, in which the intellects are affected in it.
II. The remedies which are proper to prevent the recurrence of fits of drunkenness, and to destroy the desire for ardent spirits, are religious, metaphysical, and medical. I shall briefly mention them.
1. Many hundred drunkards have been cured of their desire for ardent spirits, by a practical belief in the doctrines of the christian religion. Examples of the divine efficacy of christianity for this purpose, have lately occurred in many parts of the United States.
2. A sudden sense of the guilt contracted by drunkenness, and of its punishment in a future world. It once cured a gentleman in Philadelphia, who, in a fit of drunkenness, attempted to murder a wife whom he loved. Upon being told of it when he was sober, he was so struck with the enormity of the crime he had nearly committed, that he never tasted spiritous liquors afterwards.
3. A sudden sense of shame. Of the efficacy of this deep seated principle in the human bosom, in curing drunkenness, I shall relate three remarkable instances.