American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-05-04
Miscellany.
A CHAPTER ON ALCOHOL.


Law of Illinois" by c. II. Fowler, ID d.,
we make the following extracts
PURE ALCOHOL.
BY the general term "Alcoho, we
mean to include the entire family of spir-
ituous liquors-everything from beer TO
brandy, that can induce intoxication.
Woods United States Dispensatory says:
alcohol is the intoxicating ingredient
in all spirituous liquors, including every
liquid that has undergone fermentation
Any sweet fluid, that, mixed with yeast
or leaven works or sours while kept cool,
under 1Jo of heat, ferments and turns to
spirituous liquor; if above 75o and I'M
der SOC to vinegar. Alcohol exists no.
where in nature till ii is produced by the
fermentation of some sweet substance. 1t
IS not the exclusive product of the orchard
or vineyard; but is producible from every
thing that contains the substance eff sugar
Potatoes, grain, any thing that contains
sugar may be fermented-may be manu-
featured into Alcohol" All thought of
remedy, then, must reach deeper than our
orchards and vineyards.
Alcohol, then, is produced by fermenta-
ton, q. G., by rOtting the grains. 1t is
the product of death-nothing more or
less Living nature does not contain it.
Dlssolving, decaying nature produces it.
Every time you drink any spirituous
liquor you drink the extract of decaying
NSSctdDlcS II ullltTS ITOm Carlton only IN
the absence of the odor. Add nitrogen
to your fermenting mass, and you have
all the horrible presence of carrion.
Baron Won Liebig, one of the ablest
chemists the world ever produced, says:
fermentation is nothing else but the
pLtrefaction of a substance containing
no nitrogen There is no dispute on
this point. urge it that you may under
stand what you are drinking when you
drink even the purest spirits. You would
be angered at your laIdlady if she should
place before you putrid meat, or rancid
butter, or decaying potatoes. But why?
You might as nationally eat decaying food
as drink decaying fluids.
Another fact, in perfect keeping with
the nature of this death principle, is that
alcohol is not food 1t supplies no nour-
ishment. 1t goes into the system n COM
pound too stout and too malignant to be
dissolved. Arrived at the stomach it
sends forth its fiery threats, crisping and
soaring that sensitive organ. Then it
rides, like Jehu, along the highways of
nature Its fiery chariot wheels burn
deep ruts in their passage. 1t is a foe
feared and combatted by every organ of
life. No sooner is Its presence announced
than all the forces of life and health rally
and swarm about the intruder till they
have expelled it from the systcm-not
mastering it and appropriating it, but
casting it out through the pores of the
skin, through the lungs and breath, out
of every nearest door-way-any way to
get it out Then there is a relapse in ex-
haustion- The blood has not been nour-
ished but adulterated. The organs and
tissues have not been built up, but worn
out and broken down. The heat of the
body has not been sustained or increased,
but wasted and cooled. No fuel has been
added to the fire. The nerves have been
soaring iron, but no fuel has been put in
the furnace of the body. "Alcohol burns
the nerves, but casts water upon the vital
fire"
More than all this, no power for work
has been generated. but the power of the
system has been exhausted in expelling
mortal enemy. Take the form in which
liquor is most nutricious, in which it is
mixed with most nourishing substances
Bavarian beer. Prof. Liebig-than whom
there can be no better authority-who
was no foe to beer, says: "We can prove
with mathematical certainty that as much
flour or meal as can lie on the point of a
table-knive is more nutritious than nine
quarts of the best Bavarian beer-that a
man who is able to consume daily that
amount CT beer, obtains from it. in a
whole year, in the most favorable case,
exactly the amount of nutritive constitu-
ents which are contained in a five-pound
loaf of bread or in three pounds of flesh"
That is, you must drink twenty-three large
barrels of the best beer to get as much food
as is in three-pound steak, or four bar
rels day to secure the average amount
of daily neurishment. These are the
facts that compel the most feared of the
medical profession, and the most accurate
and able chemists to affirm that Alcohol
lis not and cannot be food
Some men will say, Suppose it does
not furnish actual food, it assists diges-
|tiOn." So you think, but you mistake.
Your food, to be digested, must be picked
to pieces-the elements separated; but |
Alcohol prevents this very process. 1t
arrests decomposition. Go into any Mu- |
scum and you will find the snakes, toads, !
and everything else which they wish to
preserve, bottled in alcohol. Numberless
experiments have been made by mixing |
the gastric juice-which does the work of |
digestion-with different kinds of liquors, |
and it is found that digestion is retarded |
just in proportion to the amount of AL /
cohOl present. A miner in England ate |
hearty dinner and made himself drunk |
After twenty-fOur hours he was accident
ally killed. Dissection discovered the |
fact that digestion had not commenced !
Experiments on dogs have shown the |
same results.
DIR. Figg, of Scotland, had two dogs
the same Size. lie gave 10 each OF them. |
ut the same time, four ounces of cold !
roast mutton. Then to one he gave one
and a half ounces of spirits Three !
hours after, he killed both dogs, and in /
the stomach of the one to which he gave /
the spirits he found the meat preserved, /
while in the other the meat was gone.
Mark its effects. 1t burns the nerves,
imflames the blood vessels, scorches and /
blackens the stomach congests the brain, /
fills the whole body with ulcers and putri |
flying sores, benumbs the senses, dcadens /
the hearing, lights its beacon fire on the /
end of the nose like watch tower over .
breakers, bloats the checks, stilfens the I
Joints, and hangs the whole body with .
signs of ruin. Look upon that poor
creature staggering, ragged, bloated blear I
eyed, his face contorted, his mouth fab [,
by, open, driveiing, his cheeks blistcred 1
and swollen, Do you call him "A man
Mature disowns him. She hangs his body |
all over with the evidences of his debauch- .
|ery. She covers him with the labels and |.
sof sin She cries through his |
INV work This is what alcohol can do"
So much for the nature of this greats
assassin. Yet his friends make show of
pretexts to excuse his existence, and make
a footing in the Enlightened judgment for
the qualification of the deadly appetite
One pretext is, that Il gjces great strength
ami endurance .for tie time. So does in
sanity. But are you ready to pay the
cost9 Your hilarity may come up the
hour you are over your cups, but dejec-
|tion. moroscness, sadness, gloon, head
ache. stretchiness, pulling hair, d.ranged
,a,na ha rnnrnipr If Won