The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-24
WILL THE COMING MAN DRINK wINE'
BY JAMES PARTON.

Tfori the Atlantic Monthly for August
The teetotalers confess their failure. After
Iorty-hye years OF jealous and well-meant effort
in the "cause," they agree that people are driuk-
ing more than ever. DR.. Il. 4. Trail of New
York., the most thorough going teetotaler eX-
tant, exclaims:-"Where are we to-day? De
feated on all sides. The enemy victorious and
ram pant everywhere, More Intoxicating liquors
manufactured and drunk than ever before
Why is this ~ Why, indeed When the teetS-
falers can answer that question correctly they
will be In q fair way 10 gam upon lhe enemy
that is now so .'rampanLD They arc not the
first people who have mistaken Symptom OF
disease for the disease itself and strlyen TO cure
cancer by applying salye, and plaster, aud
first travellers through this wilderness who have
tried to eXtiuguish smol llerug fire and discov-
ering at last that they have been pouring water
into the crater o. VOLCANIC
Our teetotal friends have not neglected the
scientific questions involved in their subject;
nor have they settled them. Instead OF insult
ing the public intelligence by asserting that the
wines mentioned in the Bible were some KIND
OF unintoxicating slop, aud exasperatlng the
public temper by premature prohloltory laws,
they had better eXpend their strength upon the
science of the matter and prove to mankind, II
they can, that these agreeable drinks which
they denounce are really hurtful. We all
kLow that excess is hurtful. We also know
that adulterated liquors may be. But is the
thing in itself pernicious 2-pure wine taken
in moderation! good beerS genuine Old
For one, wish it could be demonstrated that
these things are hurtful. Sweeping, universal
truths are as convenient as they are rare. The
evils resulting. from excess in drinking are 80
enormous and so terrible that ii would be
relief TO know that alcoholic liquors are in
themselves evil, and to be always avoided.
What are the romantic woes OF Desdemona, or
the brief picturesque sorrows OF Lear, COM
pared with the thirty years. horror and desola-
tion caused by drunken parent? We laugh
when We read Lambs funny description Of his
waking up in the morning and learning in what
condition he had come home the night before
by seeing all his clothes carefully folded. But
his sister Mary did not laugh at it. He was all
she had; it was tragedy to her, this self
destruction OF her sole stay and consolation.
Goethe did not find IL q laughing matter 10 have
drunken wife in his house for fifteen years, nor
jest to have his son brought in drunk from
the tavern, aud to see him dead in his coffin,
the early victim of champagne. Who would not
like to have a clear conviction that what we
have to do with all such fluids is to let them
alone? / am sure ] should. 1t is great
advantage to have your enemy in plain sight,
and to be sure be is az enemy.
If something more is known of the operation
OF alcohol than OF any other chemical huld--tt
there is any approach to certainty respecting
tive owe it chiefly to the teetOtalers, because
1t Is they who have provoked contradiction,
excited inquiry, and suggested experiment
They have not done much themselves in the
way of investigation, but they started the
topic, and have kept it alive. They have also
published few pages which throw light upon
IN
ground pretty thoroughly, l can tell the reader
in few words the substance OF what has been
ascertained, and plauslbly inferred, concerning
the effects Of wine, beer, and spirits upon the
human constitution.
They cannot be nourishment, in the ordinary
acceptatiOn OF that word, because the quantity
of nutritlYe matter in them Is SO email. Lebig,
no enemy OF beer, says thIs:-"We can prove,
with mathematical certainty, that as much
-four or meal as can lie on the point of a table.
knife is more nutritious than nine quarts of the
best Bavarian beer; that a man who is able
daily to consume that amount of beer obtains
from it in a whole year, in the most favorable
case, exactly the amount of nutrltive constltu-
ents which is contained in fVe-pound loaf of
bread, or in three pounds of flesh" So OF wine;
when we have taken from glass OF wine the
ingredients known TO be innutIitious, there is
scarcely anything left but grain or two Of
sugar. Pure alcohol, though product of
highly nutritive substances Is a mere poison,
an absolute poison, the mortal foe OF life IN
every one of its forms, animall and vegetable.
IF, therefore, these beverages do us good, it is
not by supplying the body with nourish nent.
Nor can they aid digestion by assisting to de-
compose food. When we have taken too much
shad for breakfast, we find that wineglass OF
whisky instantly mitigaLes the horrors of indi-
gestion, and enables us again to contemplate
the future without dismay. But II we catch
curious fish or reptile, aud want to keep him
from decomposing, and bring him home as a
a contribution to the museum OF Professor
Agassz, we put him in bottle of whisky.
Several experiments have been made with
view TO ascertain whether mixing alcohol with
the gastric Juice increases or lessons Its power
to decompose food, and the results of all
of them point to the conclusion that the
alcohol retards the process of decomposi-
tion. A little alcohol retards 1t little, and
much alcohol retards it much, 1t has been
proved by repeated experiment, that any por-
tioA OF alcohol, however small, diminishes the
power of the gastric juice to decompose. The
digestive fluid has been mixed with wine, beer,
whisky, brandy, and alcohol diluted with water,
and kept at the temperature OF the living body,
and the motions of the body initiated during
The experiment; but, in every instaIce the pure
gastric juice was found to be the true and sole
dgester, and the alcohol a retarder Of digestion.
This fact, however, required little proof. We
are all familiar with alcohol as II presenter, and
scarcely need to be reminded, that if alcohol
assists digestion at ALL it cannot be by assisting
decomposition.
Nor is it a heat-producing fluid. On the con-
trary, ii appears in all cases to diminish the
efficiency of the heatproduclng process. Most
of us who live here in the North, and who are
occasionally subjected TO extreme cold for hours
at time, know this by personal experience,
and all the Arctic voyagers attest it. Brandy is
destruction when men have to face tempsrs-
ture OF GO degrees below zero; they want lamp
oil then, and the rich blubber OF the whale and
Walrus. DR.. Rae, who made two or three
pedestrian tours OF tue Polar regions, and
whose powers of endurance were put to as
severe test az mans ever were, is clear and
emphatic upon this point. Brandy, he says,
stimulates but for few minutes, and greatly
lessons mans power to endure cold aud
fatigue. Occasionally we have in New YORK a
cool breeze from the north which reduces the
temperature below zero to the sore discomfort
of omnibus-driyer and car-drVers, who have to
face it on their way uptown. On certain
Monday night, two or three winters ago, 23
drivers on one line were disabled by the cold,
many of whom had TO be lifted from the cars
and carried in. 1t is fact familiar to per-
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