Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-02
0bio Statesman,
AbsInthe and Absinthe Drinkers
70 IFrom the Pail Mall Garstte.l slt

ready prevails to a great extent among
all classes of Frenchmen, already threat
ems to become as widespread in France
and as injurious there as opium eating
is in China. If visitor to Paris strolls
along the boulevards from the Madeleine
to the Bastile some summers afternoon.
between and o'clock-which is COM
monty called the "hour of absinthe"-he
can hardly fail to remark hundreds of
Partisans seated outside the various
cafes or lounging at the counters of the
wine-shops and imbibing this insidious
stimulant. At particular cafes, the Cafe
de Bade for example, out of fifty idlers
seated at the little round tables forty-fve
will be found thus engaged. But it is
not on the boulevards alone that alb
sinthe is the special 5 o'clock beverage.
In most of the wine shops in the fau-
bourgs, in the QUARTER Latin, and round
about the Ecole Militaire, you may see
at that particular hour workmen, stu
dents,- soldiers, clerks, charbonniers,
chiffoniers even, mixing the custom
ary draughts of emerald-tinted poison
and watching the fantastic move
ments of the fluid as it sinks
to the bottom of the glass, wherein it
turns from green to an almost milky
white, at the moment when the perfumes
of the various aromatic plants from
which it is distilled disengage them
selves. A quarter of century ago ab-
sinthe was the drink of French coach
men, grooms and footmen, and people of
the lowest class; to-day its most ardent
lovers are to be found among educated
and well-to-do Parisians. Literary men,
professors, artists, actors, musicians, f.
nanciers, spectators, shopkeepers, even
women yield themselves up to its seduct-
i've infuence-to those indefinable prov
ocations which seem, they say, to i'm
part renewed activity to an enfeebled
brain, developing a world of new ideas,
and which thus, it is believed, have in
spired many a noble work of imagina-
tion in literature and art. 1t may be so,
but then those who habitually excite
the brain with absinthe soon discover
that they can produce positively moth
ing without its aid, and that time ar
riyes when heavy stuper supersedes that
excitement of the intellectual faculties
which once seemed so easy and so
harmless. After the first draught of this
poison, which DR.. Legrand who has
studied its effects, pronounces to be one
of the greatest scourges of our time,
you seem to lose your feet, and you
mount to boundless realm without a
horizon. You probably imagine that you
are going in the direction of the infinite,
whereas you are simply drifting into the
incoherent. Absinthhe effects the brain
unlike any other stimulant; it produces
neither the heavy drunkenness of beer,
the furious inebriation of brandy, nor
the exhilerant intoxication of wine. 1t
is an ignoble poison, destroying life not
until it has more or less brutalized it's
votaries, and made driveling idiots of
them. There are two classes of absinthe
drinkers. The one, after becoming ac-
customed to it for short time, takes to
imbibing it in considerable quantities,
when all of sudden delirium declares
itself. The other is more regular, and
at the same time more moderate in its
libations; but upon them the effects,
though necessarily more gradual, are
none the less sure. Absinthe drinkers
of the former class are usually noisy and
aggressive during the period of intoxica-
tion, which, moreover, lasts much longer
than drunkenness produced by spirits of
wine, and is followed by extreme depres-
sion and sensation of fatigue which are not
to be got rid of. After while the digestive
organs become deranged, the appetite
continues to diminish until it is alto
gether lost, and an intense thirst supplies
its place. Now ensues constant feel
ing of uneasiness, painful anxiety, ac-
companied by sensations of giddiness
and tinglings in the ears; and as the day
declines hallucinations of sight and hear
ing begin. A desire of seclusion from
friends. and acquaintance takes posses
sion of the sufferer, on whose counte-
nance strong marks of disquiet may be
seen; his mind is oppressed by a settled
melancholy, and his brain affected by a
sort of sluggishness which indicates ap-
preaching idiocy. During its more active
moments he is continually seeing either
some imaginary prosecutor from whom
he is anxious to escape, or the fancied
denunciator of some crime he dreams
he has committed. From these phantoms
he flies to hide himself, or advances pas
sionately towards them, protesting his
innocence. At this stage the result is
certain, and dissolution is rarely
delayed very long. The symptom
that first causes disquiet to the habitu-
al absinthe drinker is peculiar affec-
ton of the muscles, commencing with
ftful contractions of the lips and mus.
cles of the face, and tremblings in the
arms, hands, and legs. These are pre-.
sently accompanied by tinglings, numb
ness, and distinct loss of physical pow.
er; the hair falls off, the countenance be-
comes wan and sad-looking, the body
thin, the skin wrinkled and of yellow
tinge--everything, in short, indicates
marked decline. simultaneously with
this, lesion of the brain takes place; SLEEP
becomes more and more disturbed by
dreams, Nightmares and sudden wakings
ordinary illusions, succeeded by dizzi
ess and headaches, eventually give
lace to painful hallucinations, to de-
irium in its most depressing form, hyp
chondria, and marked impediment O.
peech. In the end come entire loss
intellect, general paralysis, and
cath. There are two kinds of absinthe
onsumed in Paris, the common
nd the Swiss absinthe, the latter Of
,shich possesses almost double the in
,xicating properties of the former. A
wv years ago, the consumption of the
ommon absinthe was three times that
the Swiss; but now the proportions
re reversed, and four times as much
Swiss absinthe is drunk as of the com