Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-23 00:00:00

DEDICATED TO THE

REV. C. E. TIT FERTON, B.A , PRESIDENT,

LIVERPOOL WORKING MAN

" Woe unto him that giveth his neighbonr drink, that puttest thy
bottle to him and makest him drunken."—Babak. it. 15.

[Continued from 2:222d October.]

CHAPTER VI.
EVILS OF DRUNKENNESS ON lIERLTI.

At the commencement of the nineteenth century, tie unitary
condition of the civic aed rural population of Great 2ritain, was
altogether unthouzht of. The dangerous filthiness of cities and
towns, arising from most obvious causes, was unnoticed, unaired for,
and even unnamed. Foal a'r, want of water, intramural and
entramural burying, aga net which no solve was raised, no inquiry
instituted, no energetic movement established. Men sme't the aT of
the fwtld gutter, or thrust the deal under the pews of th 3 House o f
God, as if it had been so from the day man passed out of Eden. That
the poor should squat in dirty hovels, or be cribbed in the stenchy
apartments of a blind alley, or live unwashed, unaired, unkennelled,
seemed as natural as to be born. That these avenging forces were
engenderiag moral and physical disease was not, it is evident, clearly
seen or earnestly calculated; at all events there seemed no effort put
forth to remove those evils, whatever their social degradation. The
spirit of the present age is not, however, the spirit of the commence-
ment of the 19:11 century. Fifty years in their gradual unwinding
from the axletree of time have served to advance tendencies and
effective agendas, whose power has already told in tke amelioration
of society; but who can contemplate the wide spread dominion of the
European idol-Alcoholic drinks-without having awakened within them
feelings of deep solici•ude and longing for a more elevated condition
still of social life, especially when we reflect upon the fearful amount of
disease and death prolueed by drunkenness. Sanitary reform, edu-
cation, and total abstineece principles cannot long remain disassociated
—temperance reformers are unquestioaably the best promoters of the
health, peace, hap2inees. and prosperity of the country.
With these preliminary observations I will tiler a few remarks on
the construction of the animal frame of man, and then proc led to the
demonstration that intoxicating drink is injurious to health.
The animal frame of man is, in the strictest sense of the word, a
machine, as much as even the watch to which it bears setae analogy.
For examp'e, the watch is intended to point out the hours, minutes,
and seconds of time, and for that purpose a number of wheels, a
chain and a spring, with other delicatecantrivances, are put together,
which, being set in motion, proc red with vronde.fal accuracy to note
the ever varying hour of the day.
In like manner the animal machine has its appropriate services for
which numerous organs have been so designed as to work with
th umaest precision. Man, for instance, to accomplish his
week, it has b•en ascertained is provided with 4;6 muscles,
which move 243 bones, working in more than 200 joints, each
Mat being proporionate, and every one working upon a smooth
durable service, and ma le still more Pasting by being lobri
cated with serum, just as oil is poured into the joints of the
watch. There is th s remarkable difference, however, between the
animate and inanimate meet:aces—the human body and the watch ;
the latter, from the first tick it emits on the commencing of its watch
of time, proceeds to wear itself away, or, at least, all those portions
of itself upon which its movements most materially depend. Such,
however, does not appear to be the cans with the animal machine
for though at the first moment of its existence, des the heat gives
its starting stroke, it com nences a sistem of wear and tear which is
not confined, as with the watch, to one or two main parts, but extends
to every organ of the body, yet byso doing it does-not wear itself away
like the watch so as to arrest its motions. If a- watch be weighed
when manufactured, and again after being ia u e number of years,
its weight will be found to have diminished in consequence of the
abrasion of its machinery; but take an. adult man and weigh him at
the commencement and end of five or six years, and if he have been
under precisely the same cireamstimces during the rims he w1;1 be
found to weigh the same weight. Now, this difftsrence in the two
machines is the result of the animal possessing the functions of r-pro-
daction as well as destruction, while the watch possesses the latter
only.

,During the whole life of man his physical constitution is subject to
one continued change. He is not for one moment of his existence
composed of the sans aboms entirely, and iii three sore years and
ten, it is calculated, he changes his whole system ten times, that is
once in every ssvea years. Every organ, every atom of the anima
system participates in the scions of the body, and is, consegaently,
steijact to wear and. tsar, and hence the necessity for reproduction,
for were there none the body most be reduced, to a skeleton in a very
short pario !, j ant as a garment through continual wear is male thin
an I threadb ire, there being no moans of supp.ying the par Lions of
fibre worn cff.

To replace this waste in the animal economy,. food aid diluents
have been provided, and a complex systa a) of organs and functions
contrived to prepare and bring the food to the state required for
entering into the composition of the human body.
It will be my business to demonstrate, which I, will do by the
production of indubitible evidence that Alcoholic drin ',a frustrate the
working of this complex syatsm and thereby produce disease an
death.
In thefir.st place, I will cite the evidence of the Heal Constable or
Liverpool, which establishea the painful fact that drunkenness is on
the increase, as wall as prove to a demonstration that intoxicating
drink is injurious to health.
" nacre has b'en a m irked increaas in the apprehensions for drank
euness ; in 1855 the number being Z,14l more. than dar.n; the year
1851. In many of those cases the persons charged have been in a
dangerous state, and but for the prompt and valuable aid rendered
by the surgeons of the various dispousaries the mast appalling results.
must have ensued."

I will adduce the testimony of some of the most eminent medical
gentlemen in the kingdoos, illustrative of Vas faci that intosicathog
drinks are poisonous, and consequently dsstructife of life.
Dr. George Cheyne, in his Essay oa Health and Long Life,
most strongly deaoances the use of Alcoholic drinks, which he desig-
tiat,s bowitch'ng poison ; and, further, says this eminent medic Al
gentleman, that neither arsenic norlaad.snum will kill more certainly
although more quickly.

The lrarned Doctr Darwin, F.R.S., imlades wines. boar, spirits,
and cider, because they contain Alcohol, in his list of poisons.
Dr. Gorden, Pays Lian to tho London ilosplsl, deposed to a Parlia-
mentary Committee, that it would be cliff:tilt to find a more destruc-
tive poison than ardent spirits.

Dr. John Cheyne, Physician-Ganeral, Ireland, said to the same
Committee that ardent spirits are very destructive to healt`a, and may
be deemed slow but sure poison.

Dr. Green also deposed to the same co n•nitt32, that Alcohol may b 3
renerded in all its forms as a m )st virulent poison.
Dr. Farre also deposed to the same commilea, that Ale ;11)1 wee in
the strictest sense a poison.

Sir Astley Cooper, whoa exaufned by the same Parliamentary
Committee, observed —" I never suUer ardent so rite in my house,
because I regard them as ev.l spirits, and if the poor could witaeiS
the white lives, the dropsies, the shattered nervous systems, which
I have seen, as the consequence of drinking tho2e p,sisons, they would
be aware that spirits and p oisons are synonimons terms. "
Dr. W. Hartley, Phys'cian to the Prisons, Dublin, observed to the
same committee—B sing thoroughly convinced by lo :g experience and
extensive observations among the middle classes, that th sre does not
eziat a more productive source of disease than the habitual use of
intoxicating drinks, I cannot, therefore, hesitate to recommend the
entire disuse of such poison.
Dr. Beddows said it is not uncommon for individuals many hours,
or oven a day, a ter a debauch, to reject the whole or part of a dinner
undigested.

Dr. Cheyae slid, the hart and dsasne which all fermented liquors
do to an ants Li body is evident fro:n m any considerations, ai that
they burden, co.:s riot, and bind up the fibre and strongly unite
the per•:icle4 of animal subs'ances, se that they are with much greater
difficulty sep:zated cad divided, the digestibility of fold obstructed,
so that beef on tlre stomach (that is whoa drunkards can get it) will
become almost like shce-leather.

Dr. Mc Nish says—" I hwe freqnently examined the holies stet
death, of those who hard fallen victims of drunkenness while In a state
of de'Lium tremens, and I have found net only th syna,:tonas att
the eXectlon, bat the morbid appearance to bu nu form, and my
observations fully confirm the opinion entertained by most modern
practitioners and physiologi .ts, that the disease has its seat originally
in the stomach, and that atnction of the brain is purely sympathetic
and secondary."

I will detail a circumstance illustrative of the terrible effects drink
had upon a mechanic, narrated to ma by the medical gentleman who
attended the unhappy man. " Upon receiving new, that a legacy of
+BlOO had come to him, h 3 immediately flung down his nols decl
er-
log that he wou!d have a spro', which of course meant drinking to
excess. From that moment he did not do one single day's wok, but
continued dri: king until I was sent for. Upon examining my patient
I found him in a dreadful state, he having comuelled his afflicted wife
to bring him spirits to bed, using the most awful Imprecations. I
Uk. d to him of the great danger he was in of death, with all the
earnestness I could, knowing that he could not survive msny hours.
I went for a minister of the Gospel; he, however, took n s no:1-.:e of
im, but continued ciamonrous for drink. When the minister had
gone he called me to his bedside (we were alone) and said, doctor,
you have been v. ry kind to me, you have always given ma good
advice—for time and eternity, for body and soul, and now I want yea
to grant me one fAvour. I promi!cd I would, if I could, with pro-
priety. He wanted me to promise him, unreservedly, but that I
refused ; well, then, sa d he, I know there is no hope for me, I mast
die, and it cannot matter much to you whether I die, sooner or later.
You have talked to me, my dear doctor, of the glories of Heaven and
the pains of Hell, but not for Heaven itself would I go throu.,ll the
horrors of such a night as I passed last night; Hell Itself cannel
be worse than what I suff_red. [These are the common suffer-
ings of the drunkard when labouring under that dreadful malady of
drunkenness the delirium tremens'. Now, if you know anything that
will kill me at once I entreat you to give it to me; no one will ever