The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1877-06-07


THE ALCOHOL QUESTION.
From Joseph Cooks prelude to his Non,
day lecture, april 23d
Mr.. Cough, who used To be paid
nine dollars for three lectures, has
lately made us all his debtors by a
plea in Christ's name against moder-
ate drinking. The Light that light
eth every man that cometh into the
world II shining now more intensely
than In any previous century on the
physical deteriorations that come
from coarse bodily habits. Christian
ity so values the body that Holy
Sepulcher, where once an angel sat
the headand an angel at the feet, not
of a body, but of place where body
had lain, drew to il all Europe, in
crusade after crusade, making the
Italian cities rich, founding the
Hanse towns. wrcnching liberty for
the municipal classes out of the grippe
of the mobiles, and so in ultimate re-
suit writing Magma Charta and the
American Constitution. 1t is histor-
icallv true to say that the Crusades
put the ballot into the poor mans
hand, or began liberty; and they
We're in great measure the outcome of
the reverence of Christianity for the
lincontrovcrtible fact that physical
frame had been the supreme temple
of the Holy Ghost.
In similar spirit she, aud she on
| ly, has for ages effectively taught
what science at last proclaims, that if
any man detile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy; for the tenn
pie of God is holy, which temple We
are. Ii j. a small sneer of skepticism
! that Christianity cares nothing for the
flesh. Only she glorities il. Mr.. Sew
ard came back from "A tour around the
world, and the shrewdest thing he
! said about Asia was: ''ln all the
| East there Is not home" Only
! Christianity makes the home possible.
| Christianity has so hallowed the
| body that man and woman under
stand themselves to he but clouds sat
urated by Divine light, glorious
when saturated with the light-with-
out the light only fog.
suppose that | have in one hand
goblet containing alcohol, aud in the
other a goblet containing the white
of an egg, and that turn the egg out
into the alcohol. What has science
to say about moderate drinking
Just this: that you drop the white
of an egg into alcohol, very soon the
albuminous substance is hardened by
the action of the alcohol, and so har-
dcned that if YOU could have put the
egg in round it would have been fixed
in that shape with such degree of
tirmness as to permit you to roll the
egg across this platform. All glue
like, or colloid substances, as your
books say, are hardened by alcohol,
because they contain a large percen-
tage of water and we know that al
cohol il as thirsty for water as ever
an inebriate Is for alcohol. But the
very latest investigation begins to
speak III tones of great emphasis
against moderate drinking, and this
in the name of the natural effect of
alcohol in hardening all the glue-like
substances of the body.
We say that the heart beats faster
when we indulge moderately i'm the
use Of intoxicating beverages, and |
that a cheerful flush comes to the |
face. Well, perpetual health is a
perpetual intoXication and | had |
rather have the flush that our Anglo |
Saxon ancestry gave Us, and that we
should keep il we loved the open sky |
a they did, or even open windows,
as Charles Kingsley or Victor Hugo |
advise us to do, than any flush which |
comes, as alcohol brings it, by relax
ing the nerve-tibers in the circulatory |
vessels. The quickening of the circu-
laton of the blood by alcoholic stimu-
tAhtS was i'Ntl Iuiit
until within the last twenty years,
and perhaps not fully until within
ten years. What makes the heart |
beat faster after moderate drinking? |
Is this is sign of good effect, or of a
bad l. il disease. or is il the quick
ening Of the normal activity of the
system" Suppose that | have here a
steam engine with India rubber pipes.
suppose that round the pipes are del
icate tibers constructing them, but Ii
able TO melt whenever the tempera-
ture of the room rises above a certain
point. You can easily imagine that |
If were to raise the temperature |
of the room TO such point as to |
melt all these little constructing fibers |
from the India rubber pipes Of this
-tealn engine. the moment they were |
melted or relaxed, the engine, with
would begin to move faster. Why? |
Because by the melting of the deli
cate iihers around the India rubber
pipes, the latter have themselves be-
come relaxed. and SO there j. evident
~ less friction for the rushing steam
to meet: and. therefore, without any
increased force or fire, you would
have suckening of the action of the
engine. Would that result be an inn
proyenent of the normal conditions
of the machinery? Not at all. 1t
would be an indication of disar-
rangement Just 50 in the human
system; we have now learned that
moderate drinking, in ninety eases
out of hundred, temporarily para
lyzes the nerves that govern the min
ute muscles that hold the arteries and
the veins in proper tension. This in
jury of the finest nerves allows the
circulatory system to become relaxed,
and so your heart beats faster but
there isno more force in the heart The
whole effect is like the acceleration
produced in the motions of a watch
when YOU take the pallets off the ma
chinery. DIR. Richardson, fellow OF
the Royal College of Physicians, has