Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-02-04
TIE Delusions Of Drink.



by wine, the mocker, and strong
drink, is not wise. The delusions of
drink are as old as drink itself, and
are as prevalent now as in Solomon's
time. There are men that honestly
believe that alcoholic drink is good
for them; yet there is not one of them
who would touch it except as a pre-
scription for medicine if it were not
for its pleasant taste. The delusion
touching its healthfulness grows out
of desire to justify an appetite which
may either be natural or acquired
If a man likes whisky or wine, he
likes to think that it is good for him,
and he will take some pains to prove
that it is so, both to himself and
others.
Now, alcohol is pure stimulant.
There Is not 50 much nutriment in it
as there is in chip. In never added
anything to the permanent forces,
and never can add anything. It's
momentary intensifcation of force is
a permanent abstraction Of force
from the drinkers capital stock. All
artificial excitan1s bring exhaustion.
The physicians knows this, and the
simplest mans reason is quite capa-
bic of comprchcnding it. If any
man supposes that daily drink, even
in small quantities, is conducive to
his health, he is deluded. If he pos
scsses Il sluggish temperament, he
may be able to carry his burden with
out much apparent harm, but burden
it is, and burden it will always be.
After a man has continued moder-
ate drinking long enough, then comes
a change-a demand for more drink.
The old quantity does not suffice
The powers which have been inscnsi-
bly, undermined, clamor, under the
pressure of business, for increased
stimulation. It IS applied, and the
machine starts off grandly; the man
feels strong, his form grows portly,
and he works under constant pres
sure. Now he is in a position of
great danger, but the delusion is upon
him that he is in no danger at all
At last, however, drink begins to
take the place of food. His appetite
grows feeble and fitful. He lives on
his drink, and, of course, there is but
one end to this, viz: death. 1t may
come suddenly, through the collapse
of all his powers, or paralysis, OF it
may come slowly, through atrophy
and emacation His friends see that
he is killing himself, but he cannot
see it at all. He walks in q delusion
from his early manhood to his death.
Not long since one of our city ply
sicians publicly read a paper on the
drinking habits of women. 1t was a
thoughtful paper, based on II com
ple1e knowledge of facts. 1t ought
to have been of great use to those
women Of the city who are exposed
to the dangers it portrayed, and es-
peclally to those who have acquired
the habits it condemned. Soon after
ward there appeared in the columns
OF daily paper, a protest from a
writer who ought to be a good deal
more intelligent than he is, against
the doctors conclusions The health
and physique of the bcer-drinking
English women We're placed over
against the health and physique of
the wster-drinking American women,
to the disadvantage Of the latter
The man is deluded. Sir Henry
Thompson, one Of the most eminent
medical men in England--a man no.
toriouslv beyond the reach of any
purely Christian consideration has
declared against the beerdrinking of
England on strictly sanitary grounds.
Our litterateur declares that the Eng
lish woman can outwalk her Ameri-
can sister. That depends upon the
period of life when the tasks are un-
dertakcn. The typical English wo-
man who has stood by the beer diet
until she is more than forty years old
is too fat to walk anywhere easily,
out Of doors or gracefully within.
During our late civil war this mat
ter of drinking for health's sake was
thoroughly tried. a stock of exper-
fence and observation was acquired
that ought to have lasted for cen
tury. Again and again, thousands
and thousands Of times, was it proved
that the man who drank nothing was
the better man. He endured more,
he fought better, he came out Of the
war healthier than the man who
drank Nothing is more easily demon
strable than that the liquor used by
the two armies, among officers and
men alike, was an unmitigated curse
to them. 1t disturbed the brains and
yiiisted the councils Of the officers,
and dcbilitatcd and demoralized the
men. Yet all the time the dclusion
among officers and men was, that
there were both comfort and help in
whisky.
The delusions of drink are numer-
ous, but there is one of them which
stands in the way of reform so de-
cidedly that it calls for special treat
ment. We alludc to the notion that
it is q nice thing to drink nice liquors
OF wines at ones home, to offer them
to ones friends, and to make them
minister to good fellowship, at every
social gathering, while it is 4 very
different thing to drink bad liquor, in
bad places, and in large quantities.
A man who is full of good wine feels
that he has right to look with con-
tempt upon the Irishman who is full
Of bad whisky. 1t is not long since
the election Of professor in Brit
ish university was opposed solely on
the ground that he neither drank
wine or offered it to his friends; and
when, by a small majority his cleo
ton was effected, the other professors
decided not to recognize him socially.
There are thus two men whom these
sticklers for wine despise, viz: the
man who gets drunk on bad liquor,
and the man who drinks no liquor at
all. Indeed, they regard the latter
with hatred or contempt which they
do not feel for the drunkard.
The habits neither of Great Britain
nor America will be improved until
men of influence IN every walk of life