Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-04-03
Why Men Like to Drink.

L line following arL1cle, from tne pen OF
Horace Greedy, is taken from the Herald OF
Health. ~ 1lf9k13EhE
1 The Greek root of the word intoxicate
means poison. Whoever says man is in
tOxicated, says he is poisoned. And it is true.
Give part of a glass of ordinary spirits to
a child three or four years old, and the
child is in twenty minutes in a congestion
fit, and probably dies. Itoperates precise
ly like strychnine, arsenic, or any other
deadly drug. Commence by giving a
child thimbleful at time, and gradually
increase the amount, and you may indu-
rate him so that he will swallow as much
at time as would kill him at first. You
may begin with any other poison, and do
the same thing. Our physical framework
is constructed with reference to this, to en-
able it to stsad a large amount of any
deadly substance. There is nothing pc
culiar in this action of alcohol. There is
nothing in this but the universal law that
poisons all destroy the susceptibility of the
human frame. Ea< "a IS 2beaw fIn4
Why does man like to drink liquor
Not because it has good taste, but because
it exhilarates his nervous system. The
man takes his first glass of liquor. 1t goes
to his stomach. Now, there is not single
human stomach, nor that of any animal
ever created on this earth, that ever did or
can digest a drop of alcohol. The moment
1t falls into the stomach every vital organ
recognizes the presence of a deadly enemy.
1t is precisely as if lion were thrown into
a cage of tigers, and every tiger were to
recognize the lion as his deadly enemy.
The stomach cannot digest it, and it can
not remain. All the organs assist in throw
ing it off, and that great struggle of every
vital organ to rid the stomach Of this
poison is the very thing which the pervert-
ed senses recognize as elaboration If
man, standing on the moon, could have a
telescope of sufficient power to enable him
to view objects on the earth, and could
have looked upon us during the late civil
war, end have seen, dimly through the
glass, the movements of immense bodies
of men, he would have said, "This nation
has an immense population; there is a
tremendous outpcuriBg of the people; this
nation is in state of extraordinary pros
perity." Precisely so the mans sensorial,
the point where the nerves of sense
concentrate, recognizes in this desperate
effort of the vital organs to get
rid of an enemy, sense of strength and
exhilaration in place of the languor and
feebleness he felt just before. But in a
little while, when nature has, by all her
efforts, disposed of this poison, the man
sinks down to his former condition, and a
great deal below it. Nature has made her
superior struggle she has got rid of the
poison; but she has tired herself in the
effort The next time Nature makes the
same struggle, but she has not the same
strength. The second glass does not make
the man feel so good. The more man
drinks, the more he has to drink to attain
a certain condition. He has to take more
and more. Nature turns constantly to rid
herself of it, but by and by becomes tired
out and gives it up. There are men who
are not very perceptibly affected BY liquor.
Itdoes not make them drunk. 1t does not
hurt them, they say. But it does hurt
them. / never knew a man who drank
good deal without becoming intoxicated,
whom liquor did not kill fast. And for
physiological reasons. If man will take
poison, it is better to get rid of it than to
keep 1t in the system. Drunkenness is
one Of Gods infinite mercies, sent to help
poor, mistaken, human beings to get rid of
the consequences of their iniquity. -
What we should do depends largely
upon what we are able to do. It is not
easy to fly in the face of public opinion.
Laws will, after al, be mainly reflection
of the moral condition of the people.
.Theyswill always be little better, but not
much better. If you should say that no
one in the country should do bad thing,
it would be useless, because human nature,
in the development to which we have
reached, would not sustain such a law.
Public sentiment is advancing It does
not allow men to make parade of vices
which were once tolerated. The time will
come when men will not be licensed to sell
acoholic liquors, when grogshops will be
where gambling houses are now, out of
SIGHT