Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-01-23

brilliant scintillations of intellect are some
times emitted-for an exaltation of all the
mental energies.
There are many who, still harping on the
oft-exploded sophism. that alcohol may be
used or abused, may say the best bread and
the purest water are great evils. when
excessively or improperly used. Very true
but these men entirely overlook the radical
difference. We may take too much food or
drink, or that not of the best quality, or
preparation, and suffer from it. Here we
get some good and some evil. Those articles
still contain some useful and nutritious
properties. The material is right; but the
application is wrong; here is use and abuse.
Alcohol contains nothing that is useful or
nutritious; consequently all such employ
ment is abuse. Again, the best aliment is
that which nourishcs our bodies with the
least excitement, alcohol only produces ex-
citement without particle of nourishment
Its whole character drink is unmitgated
evil.
To those who contend for its dietetic use
as a medicine. have only to say, first tell
me, what is your disease, and. second, show
me that you prepare it and use it after the
manner Of other medicine, and if l am
obliged to charge you with malpractice, l
will exculpate you in motive. If you can
not do this. ! am compelled to suspect that
there is already existing in your case, LUX
ing friendship between this all-potent, Sll-
curing. all-killing remedy and q morbid
appetite; and a general precedent authorizes
me to believe that such friendship will by
and by ripen into love, and that love may
eventually lead to a union of fortunes-not
only and altogether.
If On IN ma,4icat raonr1s fO lpar1 hOu
alcohol affects the human system. you learn
there that it infames the coats Of the stomach,
disorders the liver, excites the blood-vessels
poisons the blood, vitiates the secretions,
renders the bland juices of the body acrid
and irritating, paralyzes the nerves, hardens
the brain, produces Dropsy, Dyspepsia,
Jaundice, Marasmus, Consumption, Gout,
Rheumatism, Eruptions, Ulcers, Tumors,
Carbuncles. leads to imbeciity, insanity. and
delirium tremens, and so on through nearly
the whole catalogue of human maladies. The
fact is, it diseases the whole constitution.
taints every fluid and poisons every solid,
and it depends upon mere casualties what
particular form the general disease may as
sumo. One man of phlegmatic temperament
may be more liable to dropsy, or asthma !;
another of active habits and excitable brain,
will have delirium tremens; third whose
VIAL otSdiS are "tdk
whose organization was originally defective,
palsy; fifth of full habit and sedentary pur-
suit, gout, apoplexy, &C. Thus the dram-drink-
ing individual is always diseased; all the
general morbid condition is thrown with dis
prOportionate violence upon particular
organ or part; we call it a specific disease
and treat it accordingly.
There is another consideration. in my own
opinion, of more appalling magnitude than
any thing else connected with this whole sub
ject, and it is a consideration, to which the
public mind has been seldom directed; and
would that its truths could be clothed in
sunbeams of light, and sped like lghtning's
flash to the judgment and conscience of
every member of the whole family of man
kind, l mean the transmission of organism
from parent to child. We know that the al
coholic poison diseases and vitates the whole
organization. We know too that organiza-
ton, good or bad. is transmissible. What a
thought. for parent to transmit to his off
spring a depraved imperfect and malformed
organization Have you never seen the fond
mothers hopes blasted in an offspring, de-
formed in some feature Of body, by which
the symmetry of the whole WAS marred, or
deficient, or disproportioned in some mental
organ, by which faulty, or imbecility, or &C.
centricitv was stamped on the character!
That mother suffers not alone. Her child
suffers irremediably; and that childs child
perchance suffers. If there is one duty high
as heaven, and solemn as eternity, and para
mount to all others devolving on parents in
this relation, it is to transmit to posterity
pure, perfect and uncontaminated tenements,
in which for those spirits to sojourn. which
are to animate and actuate them through
life's whole pilgrimage. A drunken parent
can never be the father or mother of healthy
offspring; nor can the habitual moderate
,irinker be the progenitor of an issue as
sound and perfect as it should be.
If an immoderately drinking mans organ
ization is injured in great degree, moder-
ately drinking mans organization is injured
in lesser degree and to look for a progeny.
faultless, healthy, and of strict integrity of
structure, from degenerate parental organ
ism, is looking for a kind of miracle that
never did and never will happen. Think of
these things when you see children for whose
prococious depravitv YOU have been unable
to account and wonder no longer. True,
the use of Intoxicating drink by the parent is
only one of several causes of impotent and
depraved offspring; yet it is most prominent
and perhaps the most prolific one. 1t seems
to me that if I could but impress this one
truth on your minds-and its truth, since na-
ture's laws are true-I shall have accom-
plished a whole life work.
Now. granting the premises l have laid
down, where are the moderate drinkers going
to get their boasted strength of mind to regu-
late their moderate indulgences? They look
at the poor drunkard and say. ''what a mis-
erable mind that fellow must have" Yonder
is long array of drunkards, and follow ing
close behind them is an equal army of mod
crate drinkers; and the moderate drinkers
call all the drunkards weak minded fools.
This idea of controlling morbid propensities
while you continue to deprave the organiza-
tion-of creating artificial appetencies and
then governing them as though they were
natural, by some inexplicable process or
magic called strength of mind, is delusion
that has led its thousands, yea, its millions,
down the rapid stream Of moderate iadul-
gence to the murky pool of immoderate
drunkenness. You might as well take q
viper to your bosom, and when you begin to
feel the workings of its fangs. cry out. 20 .
strength of mind. save me from being pois-
oned.'
And the poor drunkard, whose organization
has already passed through in some respects,
the transformations Of disease to positive des-
truction, as the dilapidzted house of flesh
seems to moulder and erumble around his
spirit-and as that spirit recalls him to con-
sciousness in its struggles to unearth itself
of its dishonored tabernacle-he feels the
.,l H.