The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-09-18
TEMPERANCE READING.
DIR. Rush.

DR.. RUSH.
Extracts from His Celebrated Essay on
the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the
Human Mind and Body
DR.. Benjamin Rush was by nature a
pioneer. Thus we find him, saws
writer in the Union Signal, in the fore
front of many historic movements. In
IVA as a member of the Provincial
Assembly of Pennsylvania, he moved
the first resolution in favor of American
independence. Two years later, June
%, 1776, he was appointed Chairman of
the Committee on independence, and
on the Fourth of July following, as
member of the Continental Congress,
he appended his name to the immortal
Declaration. He was one of the
orignators of the bic Society and
drafted its first constitution.
Such man could not witness I'M
moved the ravages of intemperanee.
"He saw all of its evils and never tired
of raising his voice against it. He
viewed it from every standpoint, as a
physician, patriot and a Christian,
and his whole soul was stirred within
him. Thus stirred he wrote the famous
essay, early in 1856. This was followed
by series on the same general topic:
the effect of ardent spirits on the human
system. These were widely copied.
one authority says, into all the news
papers in America. They attracted
great attention and exerted such an in
tluence for good that, according to
Hildreth, the historian, at the Philadel-
phia celebration of the Fourth of July.
1877, which had the added dignity of
also celebrating the adoption of the
Federal Constitution, ardent spirits
were excluded from the entertainment.
He died April 10, 1918, but
the good he did was not entered
with his bones.'' His ESSAYS were
scattered everywhere, the seed thus
sown sprang and bore fruit abundant
ly. Some of this seed terminated in
Litchfeld, Conn, and fruited in the
first Temperance Society known in
America. In 1889. nineteen years ear
lier than the formation of similar
society in Saratoga County, New York,
over two hundred most respectable
farmers of Litchteld formed them
selves into '"an association to dis
courage the use of spirituous liquors"
From other seed, sown by the same
hand, grew the Massachu etts Society
for the Suppression of the Liquor Trat-
fc.n 49,.
The following extracts are taken
from his celebrated essay, first pub
hshed in 1885:
remark that its paroXysms occur, like the
paroXysms of many diseases, at certain
periods, and after longer or shorter inter-
walls. They often begin with annual and
gradually increase in their frequency until
they appear in quarterly, monthly, weekly,
and quotdian or da ly periods. Finally, they
afford scarcely any marks of remission either
during the day or night. There was a citi-
zen of Philadelphia many years ago in whom
drunkenness appeared in this protracted
form. In speaking of him to one of his
neighbors, said "Does he not sometimes
get drunk?' You mean said his neigh
Dor, " is lie not sometimes sober!"
1t is further remarkable that drunkenness
resembles certain hereditary, family and con-
tag GUS disease. have once known it to de-
scend from father to four or five of his
children. have seen three. and once four
brothers. who were born of sober ancestors
affectA by it, and have heard of its spread
ing through a whole family composed of
members not originally related to each other.
Let us next attend to the chronic effects of
ardent spirits upon the body and mind. In
the body they dispose to every form of acute
disease; they moreover excite fevers in per-
sons predisposed to them. from other causes.
This has been. remarked in all the yellow
fevers which have visited the. cities of the
United States. Hard drinkers seldom escape
and rarely recover from them. The following
diseases are the usual consequences OF the
habltual use of ardent spirits. viz:
. l. decay OF aDDetlte sickness at stomach
2. distractions OF the liver The fable of
PrometheuS on whose liver vlslture was
said to prey constantly as pySishment for
illustrate the painful effects of ardent spirits
upon that organ of the body.
3 Jaundice and dropsy of the various cayi-
ties of the body. - ........... ...
4. Hoarseness and husky cough, often
terminating in consumption.
5. Diabetes. ,-et... ....
6. Redness and eruptions on various parts
of the body. They generally begin on the
nose, and after extending all over the face
sometimes descend to the limbs in the form
I T. A fetid breath.
s. Epilepsy.
/ 8. Gout in all its various FORMS
Lastly, madness. DR.. Waters, while acting
as the apothecary of the Pennsylvania Hospi-
tai, assured me that in one-third of the pa
tients confined by this terrible disease, it had
been induced by ardent spirits.
Most of the diseases which have been emu
more certainly induced, and terminate more
speedily in death, when spirits are taken in
such quantities, and at such times, as to pro-
duce frequent intoXicatiOn; but it may serve
to remove an error with which some intem-
perate people console themselves to remark
that ardent spirits often bring on fatal dis
eases without producing drunkenness have
known many persons destroyed by them who
were never completely intoxicated during the
whole course of their lives. The solitary in
stances of longevity which are now and then
m OF wit n q nd f1ip nnT
the deadly effects of ardent spirits than the
solitary instances of recoveries from appar-
ent death by drowning prove that there is no
danger to life from a human body lying an
hour or two under water. fT
The body, after its death from the use Of
distilled spirits, exhibits by dissect on certain
appearances which are of peculiar nature.
The hbers OF the stomach and bowels are con-
tracted; abcesses, gangrene and scirrhi are
found in tho viScera The bronchial vessels
are rSntracted-the blood vessels and tendons
in many parts of the body are more or less
orsihed, and even the hair of the head DOS
sesses a crispness which renders il less valua-
Bile to wjgmakers than the hair of sober peo-
pie. e ...ii+'.. trf
Not less destructive are the effects of ardent
spirits upon the human mind. They impair
the memory, debilitate the understanding and
pervert the moral faculties. 1t was probably
from observing these effects of intemperance
in drinking upon the mind, that a law was
formerly passed in Spain which excluded
drunkards from being witnesses in q court of
TILED spirits do not stop here. They produce
not only falsehood. but fraud, theft, nnclean-
illness and murder. Like the demOniac men
toned in the New Test21ient, their name is
Legion" for they convey into the soul host
of vices and or. mes.
Thus we see poverty and misery, crimes and
infamy, diseases and death, are all the natural
and usual consequences of the Incorporate
use of ardent spirits.
/ have classed death among the conse-
quences of hard drinking. But it is not death
from the immediate hand of the Deity, nor
from any of the instruments of it which were
created by Him. 1t is death from suicide.
Yes, thou poor degraded creature who art
daily lifting the poisoned bowl to thy lips
cease 10 avoid the unhallowed ground in
which the sef-murderer is inferred and won
der NO longer that the sun should shine, and
the rain fail, and the grass look green upon
MS grave. Thou art perpetrating gradually,
by the use OF ardent spirits, what he has eff [
fected suddenly by opium or halter.
No man ever became suddenly drank
ard. 1t is by gradually accustoming the taste |
and stomach 70 ardent spirits, in the forms of |
grog and toddy, that men have been led to |
love them in their more destructive mixtures |
and in their simple state. Under the impress |
sion of this truth, were it possible for me to |
speak, With voice so loud as to be heard /
from the River St Croix to the remotest |
shores of the Mississippi. would say: Friends |
and fellow-citizensl avoid the habitual use Of (
those two eodlIpinD Iiun0PG whether they he I