Read Ebook: The anatomy of drunkenness by Macnish Robert

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 431 lines and 62426 words, and 9 pages

PAGE

Preliminary Observations, 15

Causes of Drunkenness, 28

Phenomena of Drunkenness, 36

Drunkenness Modified by Temperament, 52

Drunkenness Modified by the Inebriating Agent, 61

Enumeration of the Less Common Intoxicating Agents, 98

Differences in the Action of Opium and Alcohol, 106

Physiology of Drunkenness, 111

Method of Curing the Fit of Drunkenness, 120

Pathology of Drunkenness, 132

Sleep of Drunkards, 170

Spontaneous Combustion of Drunkards, 175

Drunkenness Judicially Considered, 190

Method of Curing the Habit of Drunkenness, 197

Temperance Societies, 223

Advice to Inveterate Drunkards, 236

Effects of Intoxicating Agents on Nurses and Children, 241

Liquors not always Hurtful, 246

Excerpt from Paris' Pharmacologia, 257

Mr. Brande's Table of the Alcoholic Strength of Liquors, 260

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

Drunkenness is not, like some other vices, peculiar to modern times. It is handed down to us from "hoar antiquity;" and, if the records of the antediluvian era were more complete, we should probably find that it was not unknown to the remotest ages of the world. The cases of Noah and Lot, recorded in the sacred writings, are the earliest of which tradition or history has left any record; and both occurred in the infancy of society. Indeed, wherever the grape flourished, inebriation prevailed. The formation of wine from this fruit, was among the earliest discoveries of man, and the bad consequences thence resulting, seem to have been almost coeval with the discovery. Those regions whose ungenial latitudes indisposed them to yield the vine, gave birth to other products which served as substitutes; and the inhabitants rivalled or surpassed those of the south in all kinds of Bacchanalian indulgence--the pleasures of drinking constituting one of the most fertile themes of their poetry, in the same manner as, in other climates, they gave inspiration to the souls of Anacreon and Hafiz.

CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

The drunkard by necessity was never meant by nature to be dissipated. He is perhaps a person of amiable dispositions, whom misfortune has overtaken, and who, instead of bearing up manfully against it, endeavours to drown his sorrows in liquor. It is an excess of sensibility, a partial mental weakness, an absolute misery of the heart, which drives him on. Drunkenness, with him, is a consequence of misfortune; it is a solitary dissipation preying upon him in silence. Such a man frequently dies broken-hearted, even before his excesses have had time to destroy him by their own unassisted agency.

Some become drunkards from excess of indulgence in youth. There are parents who have a common custom of treating their children to wine, punch, and other intoxicating liquors. This, in reality, is regularly bringing them up in an apprenticeship to drunkenness. Others are taught the vice by frequenting drinking clubs and masonic lodges. These are the genuine academies of tippling. Two-thirds of the drunkards we meet with, have been there initiated in that love of intemperance and boisterous irregularity which distinguish their future lives. Men who are good singers are very apt to become drunkards, and, in truth, most of them are so, more or less, especially if they have naturally much joviality or warmth of temperament. A fine voice to such men is a fatal accomplishment.

Ebriety prevails to an alarming degree among the lower orders of society. It exists more in towns than in the country, and more among mechanics than husbandmen. Most of the misery to be observed among the working classes springs from this source. No persons are more addicted to the habit, and all its attendant vices, than the pampered servants of the great. Innkeepers, musicians, actors, and men who lead a rambling and eccentric life, are exposed to a similar hazard. Husbands sometimes teach their wives to be drunkards by indulging them in toddy, and such fluids, every time they themselves sit down to their libations.

Women frequently acquire the vice by drinking porter and ale while nursing. These stimulants are usually recommended to them, from well-meant but mistaken motives, by their female attendants. Many fine young women are ruined by this pernicious practice. Their persons become gross, their milk unhealthy, and a foundation is too often laid for future indulgence in liquor.

The frequent use of cordials, such as noyau, shrub, kirsch-wasser, cura?oa, and anissette, sometimes leads to the practice. The active principle of these liqueurs is neither more nor less than ardent spirits.

Among other causes, may be mentioned the excessive use of spirituous tinctures for the cure of hypochondria and indigestion. Persons who use strong tea, especially green, run the same risk. The latter species is singularly hurtful to the constitution, producing hysteria, heartburn, and general debility of the chylopoetic viscera. Some of these bad effects are relieved for a time by the use of spirits; and what was at first employed as a medicine, soon becomes an essential requisite.

Certain occupations have a tendency to induce drunkenness. Innkeepers, recruiting-sergeants, pugilists, &c., are all exposed in a great degree to temptation in this respect; and intemperance is a vice which may be very often justly charged against them. Commercial travellers, also, taken as a body, are open to the accusation of indulging too freely in the bottle, although I am not aware that they carry it to such excess as to entitle many of them to be ranked as drunkards. "Well fed, riding from town to town, and walking to the houses of the several tradesmen, they have an employment not only more agreeable, but more conducive to health than almost any other dependant on traffic. But they destroy their constitutions by intemperance; not generally by drunkenness, but by taking more liquor than nature requires. Dining at the traveller's table, each drinks his pint or bottle of wine; he then takes negus or spirit with several of his customers; and at night he must have a glass or two of brandy and water. Few commercial travellers bear the employ for thirty years--the majority not twenty."

Drunkenness appears to be in some measure hereditary. We frequently see it descending from parents to their children. This may undoubtedly often arise from bad example and imitation, but there can be little question that, in many instances at least, it exists as a family predisposition.

Men of genius are often unfortunately addicted to drinking. Nature, as she has gifted them with greater powers than their fellows, seems also to have mingled with their cup of life more bitterness. There is a melancholy which is apt to come like a cloud over the imaginations of such characters. Their minds possess a susceptibility and a delicacy of structure which unfit them for the gross atmosphere of human nature; wherefore, high talent has ever been distinguished for sadness and gloom. Genius lives in a world of its own: it is the essence of a superior nature--the loftier imaginings of the mind, clothed with a more spiritual and refined verdure. Few men endowed with such faculties enjoy the ordinary happiness of humanity. The stream of their lives runs harsh and broken. Melancholy thoughts sweep perpetually across their souls; and if these be heightened by misfortune, they are plunged into the deepest misery.

To relieve these feelings, many plans have been adopted. Dr. Johnson fled for years to wine under his habitual gloom. He found that the pangs were removed while its immediate influence lasted, but he also found that they returned with double force when that influence passed away. He saw the dangerous precipice on which he stood, and, by an unusual effort of volition, gave it over. In its stead he substituted tea; and to this milder stimulus had recourse in his melancholy. Voltaire and Fontenelle, for the same purpose, used coffee. The excitements of Newton and Hobbes were the fumes of tobacco, while Demosthenes and Haller were sufficiently stimulated by drinking freely of cold water. Such are the differences of constitution.

"As good be melancholy still, as drunken beasts and beggars." So says old Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, and there are few who will not subscribe to his creed. The same author quaintly, but justly, remarks, "If a drunken man gets a child, it will never, likely, have a good brain." Dr. Darwin, a great authority on all subjects connected with life, says, that he never knew a glutton affected with the gout, who was not at the same time addicted to liquor. He also observes, "it is remarkable that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation, gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct."

We need not endeavour to trace further the remote causes of drunkenness. A drunkard is rarely able to recall the particular circumstances which made him so. The vice creeps upon him insensibly, and he is involved in its fetters before he is aware. It is enough that we know the proximate cause, and also the certain consequences. One thing is certain, that a man who addicts himself to intemperance, can never be said to be sound in mind or body. The former is a state of partial insanity, while the effects of the liquor remain; and the latter is always more or less diseased in its actions.

PHENOMENA OF DRUNKENNESS.

The consequences of drunkenness are dreadful, but the pleasures of getting drunk are certainly ecstatic. While the illusion lasts, happiness is complete; care and melancholy are thrown to the wind; and Elysium, with all its glories, descends upon the dazzled imagination of the drinker.

Some authors have spoken of the pleasure of being completely drunk; this, however, is not the most exquisite period. The time is when a person is neither "drunken nor sober, but neighbour to both," as Bishop Andrews says in his "Ex--ale--tation of Ale." The moment is when the ethereal emanations begin to float around the brain--when the soul is commencing to expand its wings and rise from earth--when the tongue feels itself somewhat loosened in the mouth, and breaks the previous taciturnity, if any such existed.

Now comes a spirit of universal contentment with himself and all the world. He thinks no more of misery: it is dissolved in the bliss of the moment. This is the acm? of the fit--the ecstasy is now perfect. As yet the sensorium is in tolerable order: it is only shaken, but the capability of thinking with accuracy still remains. About this time, the drunkard pours out all the secrets of his soul. His qualities, good or bad, come forth without reserve; and now, if at any time, the human heart may be seen into. In a short period, he is seized with a most inordinate propensity to talk nonsense, though he is perfectly conscious of doing so. He also commits many foolish things, knowing them to be foolish. The power of volition, that faculty which keeps the will subordinate to the judgment, seems totally weakened. The most delightful time seems to be that immediately before becoming very talkative. When this takes place, a man turns ridiculous, and his mirth, though more boisterous, is not so exquisite. At first the intoxication partakes of sentiment, but, latterly, it becomes merely animal.

When the drunkard is put to bed, let us suppose that his faculties are not totally absorbed in apoplectic stupor; let us suppose that he still possesses consciousness and feeling, though these are both disordered; then begins "the tug of war;" then comes the misery which is doomed to succeed his previous raptures. No sooner is his head laid upon the pillow, than it is seized with the strongest throbbing. His heart beats quick and hard against the ribs. A noise like the distant fall of a cascade, or rushing of a river, is heard in his ears: sough--sough--sough, goes the sound. His senses now become more drowned and stupified. A dim recollection of his carousals, like a shadowy and indistinct dream, passes before the mind. He still hears, as in echo, the cries and laughter of his companions. Wild fantastic fancies accumulate thickly around the brain. His giddiness is greater than ever; and he feels as if in a ship tossed upon a heaving sea. At last he drops insensibly into a profound slumber.

In the morning he awakes in a high fever. The whole body is parched; the palms of the hands, in particular, are like leather. His head is often violently painful. He feels excessive thirst; while his tongue is white, dry, and stiff. The whole inside of the mouth is likewise hot and constricted, and the throat often sore. Then look at his eyes--how sickly, dull, and languid! The fire, which first lighted them up the evening before, is all gone. A stupor like that of the last stage of drunkenness still clings about them, and they are disagreeably affected by the light. The complexion sustains as great a change: it is no longer flushed with the gaiety and excitation, but pale and wayworn, indicating a profound mental and bodily exhaustion. There is probably sickness, and the appetite is totally gone. Even yet the delirium of intoxication has not left him, for his head still rings, his heart still throbs violently; and if he attempt getting up, he stumbles with giddiness. The mind also is sadly depressed, and the proceedings of the previous night are painfully remembered. He is sorry for his conduct, promises solemnly never again so to commit himself, and calls impatiently for something to quench his thirst. Such are the usual phenomena of a fit of drunkenness.

In the beginning of intoxication we are inclined to sleep, especially if we indulge alone. In companies, the noise and opportunity of conversing prevent this; and when a certain quantity has been drunk, the drowsy tendency wears away. A person who wishes to stand out well, should never talk much. This increases the effects of the liquor, and hurries on intoxication. Hence, every experienced drunkard holds it to be a piece of prudence to keep his tongue under restraint.

The giddiness of intoxication is always greater in darkness than in the light. I know of no rational way in which this can be explained; but, certain it is, the drunkard never so well knows his true condition as when alone and in darkness. Possibly the noise and light distracted the mind, and made the bodily sensations be, for the time, in some measure unfelt.

There are some persons who get sick from drinking even a small quantity; and this sickness is, upon the whole, a favourable circumstance, as it proves an effectual curb upon them, however much they may be disposed to intemperance. In such cases, it will generally be found that the sickness takes place as soon as vertigo makes its appearance: it seems, in reality, to be produced by this sensation. This, however, is a rare circumstance, for though vertigo from ordinary causes has a strong tendency to produce sickness, that arising from drunkenness has seldom this effect. The nausea and sickness sometimes occurring in intoxication, proceed almost always from the surcharged and disordered state of the stomach, and very seldom from the accompanying giddiness.

Intoxication, before it proceeds too far, has a powerful tendency to increase the appetite. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that inebriating liquors, by stimulating the stomach, have this power. We often see gluttony and drunkenness combined together at the same time. This continues till the last stage, when, from overloading and excess of irritation, the stomach expels its contents by vomiting.

All along, the action of the kidneys is much increased, especially at the commencement of intoxication. When a large quantity of intoxicating fluid has been suddenly taken into the stomach, the usual preliminary symptoms of drunkenness do not appear. An instantaneous stupefaction ensues; and the person is at once knocked down. This cannot be imputed to distention of the cerebral vessels, but to a sudden operation on the nervous branches of the stomach. The brain is thrown into a state of collapse, and many of its functions suspended. In such cases, the face is not at first tumid and ruddy, but pale and contracted. The pulse is likewise feeble, and the body cold and powerless. When re-action takes place, these symptoms wear off, and those of sanguineous apoplexy succeed; such as turgid countenance, full but slow pulse, and strong stertorous breathing. The vessels of the brain have now become filled, and there is a strong determination to that organ.

Persons of tender or compassionate minds are particularly subject, during intoxication, to be affected to tears at the sight of any distressing object, or even on hearing an affecting tale. Drunkenness in such characters, may be said to melt the heart, and open up the fountains of sorrow. Their sympathy is often ridiculous, and aroused by the most trifling causes. Those who have a living imagination, combined with this tenderness of heart, sometimes conceive fictitious causes of distress, and weep bitterly at the wo of their own creating.

There are some persons in whom drunkenness calls forth a spirit of piety, or rather of religious hypocrisy, which is both ludicrous and disgusting. They become sentimental over their cups; and, while in a state of debasement most offensive to God and man, they will weep at the wickedness of the human heart, entreat you to eschew swearing and profane company, and have a greater regard for the welfare of your immortal soul. These sanctimonious drunkards seem to consider ebriety as the most venial of offences.

During a paroxysm of drunkenness, the body is much less sensible to external stimuli than at other times: it is particularly capable of resisting cold. Seamen, when absent on shore, are prone to get intoxicated; and they will frequently lie for hours on the highway, even in the depth of winter without any bad consequences. A drunk man seldom shivers from cold. His frame seems steeled against it, and he holds out with an apathy which is astonishing. The body is, in like manner, insensible to injuries, such as cuts, bruises, &c. He frequently receives, in fighting, the most severe blows, without seemingly feeling them, and without, in fact, being aware of the matter till sobered. Persons in intoxication have been known to chop off their fingers, and otherwise disfigure themselves, laughing all the while at the action. But when the paroxysm is off, and the frame weakened, things are changed. External agents are then withstood with little vigour, with even less than in the natural state of the body. The person shivers on the slightest chill, and is more than usually subject to fevers and all sorts of contagion.

External stimuli frequently break the fit. Men have been instantly sobered by having a bucket of cold water thrown upon them, or by falling into a stream. Strong emotions of the mind produce the same effect, such as the sense of danger, or a piece of good or bad news, suddenly communicated.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet