Polynesian., 1852-09-11

formation. Dr. Emlin, secretary oil the Phil
adelphia College Of Physicians and Surgeons
declared that all use of ardent spirits is al
abuse. They are mischievous he says &c under
all circumstances. DR.. Cheyne Of London
states that they most I" are like opium. in thei
nature, and like arsenic in their deleteriou:
effects" DIR. Funk declares that ''their ten
dency, even when used moderately, is to in
duce disease, premature old age and death.
DIR. Trotter of London, and one of the mos
eminent in his profession, states that " of al
the evils Of human life, no cause Of disease
has so wide a range or so large share, a:
the use Of spirituous liquors, and that more
than half the sudden deaths are occasione(
by them" DR.. Harris states that "the mod
crate use of liquor has destroyed many who
were never drunk" DR.. Kirk Of Scotland
gives it as his opinion that men who were
never considered Incorporate, by daily drink.
ing have often shortened life more than twenty
years, and that the respectable use of thus
poison has killed more than even drunkenness
ITSELF DR.. Alden of Massachusetts, says
"On every organ they touch, ardent spirits
operate as a poison. In any quantity
they are an enemy to the human constitu-
ton" DR.. Muzzey, of the Ohio Medica
College, says: Does a healthy laboring
man need alcohol No more than he needs
arsenic. corrosive sublimate, or opium"
Similar testimony from many hundreds OF
the most eminent physicians has been pub
lished, but my limits will not permit me even
to give list of their names. When epidemic
diseases prevail, it is the drinking men who
are the first to fall DR.. Brons of Albany,
who visited Montreal when the cholera pre-
vailed there, says: "The disease has search
ed out the haunt of the drunkafd, and has
seldom left it without bearing away IFS victim.
Even moderate drinkers have been but little
better of" DIR. Rhenelander who was there
also, says: "The Incorporate it invariably
cuts off, A Montreal paper stated that OF
1900 persons attacked not drunkard had
recovered.
In Paris the thirty thousand who died OF
cholera were with few exceptions, those who
drank freely of Intoxicating liquors. Nine
ten,hs of those who died in Poland were said
to be Of the same class.
In St. Petersburg and Moscow the average
number of deaths recorded in the bills OF
mortaIiy during the prevalence of the cholera,
,chen The people absiained from The use q
brandy, was no greater than when they used
1t in the ordinary months of health. Brandy
drinking and attendant dissipation may have
killed as many in the same time as cholera.
The cholera without brandy, was no more
fatal than brandy without cholera. Monsieur
Huber who in one town in Russia saw 2l6O
persons fall by this disease, says: '' Ii is a
remarkable circumstance that persons given
to drinking have been swept away like flies.
In Tifflis, containing 10000 inhabitants,
every drunkard has fallen" DIR. Small OF
Washington, stated that of2Ol cases fchol-
era in the Park Hospital N. Y, there were
only six temperate persons, and that those all
recovered, while of the others I'D had died.
In Albany, 1886 persons over Is years of age
died of cholera. OF these l4O were intem-
perate }; SIS free drinkers; l3l moderate
drinkers; 5 strictly temperate. Ofthe 5000
members of the Temperance Society there
were only t,ro died of the disease. Three
died whose habits were unknown. The truth
of the above statement is altested by the
Board of Health, consisting of eight Of the
most respectable ply sicans of the city.
Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian
doctor, states with regard to India where the
cholera first and most prevailed. People
who do not take opium or spirits do not take
the disease even when they are with those
who have it, There is no doubt something
of oriental hyperboIe in this language. DIR.
Fingee means that persons whose systems are
or impaired by the use of either
opium or spirits, are far more liable to this,
as they no doubt are to any other disease, and
have less chance of recovery. Brandy and
opium are both used, believe, in the incip-
lent stages of the cholera, though not the
best remedy; but their sanitary effect must of
course be very little on body already enfee-
bled and disordered by their habitual use.
The causes of disease to the human system
are multifarious, but incline to the opinion
which has often been expressed, that TO one
cause operates so much to shorten the natu-
raj life of man in our day. as the drinking of
alcohol in all its forms or mixtures. Neither
plague nor cholera, nor fever, nor any pesti-
lence, carries off prematureDy half as many
persons as Incorporate drinking. Indeed it
prepares its subjects to be the ready victims
of all other diseases; while its moral influence
leads men to every variety of crime and Of
fenses against the peace and happiness of the
human family. What, then is our duty in
relation to it: Can we hesitate to say,
ssTouch not-taste not-handle nOts"
Before the art of d,stilling was discovered,
and when wines and weaker liquors were
not made more Intoxicating by an infusion of
distilled spirit, it was safer to recommend
moderation, and to use mild wines and other
fermented drinks Much Of the wine drank
by the ancients did not intoxicate. Some of
the wines of the Levant, like those of Tene-
dos, and others in the island of Cyprus, are
so rich in saccharine matter that they pre-
serve themselves from fermentation like sugar
and honey We see this preserving power
in raisns and figs. And these rich, sweet,
unfermented wines were long preserved,
being more highly priced for their age. The
fact that the most costly wines among the
Greeks and Romans were these rich old un-