The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-12-03
STIMULATION VS.. NUTRITION.
A Common-Sense Talk on Intemperance
In Food as Well as Drink.


In Food as Well as Drink.
The most common definition of the
term stimulant is IAN exciting agent"
in other words, that which compels
activity or movement for the time, al
ways to correspondence weaken action
afterwaxd. Do we wish to be unduly
excited in any single organ of brain or
body? We can all understand that no
one laboring under excitement of
brain or mind produces the truest and
best thought. 1t is sure to be tinged
more or less by the abnormal condi-
ton. Why can we not see as clearly
that the truest and best physical con-
dition is not and cannot be produced
through stimulation Only admit that
the principle of stimulation is true
and the argument against alcohol is
shorn of its force. There is no better
stimulant in use among the "druga-
paths"-alcohol being in small doses a
tonic, in larger doses a stimulant, vet
larger doses a narcotic, and still larger
doses death. The lesser stimulants pro-
duce their evil results in much the same
ratio, each one doing its own specific
harm, besides developing the craving
for something stronger. Many seem as
much dependent on their tea, coffee,
meats, spices and condiments as the
slave of nicotine is on his cigar, or the
topper on his glass. The moral sense of
many persons prevents them from ac-
cepting anything that they believe in
toXicating, yet with utter inconsistency
they accept freely that which clogs the
liver, kidneys and capillary circulation
till the whole system is saturated with
poison and the blood so foul that hosts
of disease germs End food and lodging
ready prepared for them. Then when
sickness gets full possession instead of
seeking out and returning to Gods
laws that have been so ruthlessly
broken and trampled on, they seek yet
another stimulant, perhaps an inor-
ganic poison or patent nostrum OF
whose pernicious qualities they are
ignorant, and presently find themselves
a companion of the woman mentioned
by Mark, who had suffered many
things of many physicians. and spent
all that she had, and was nothing bet
tered, but rather grew worse, as
though health were bottled up! As
though a few spoonfuls of some pois
onous fluid or powder could mend all
the broken laws, or purify the foul
blood that can only be restored by
Gods own remedies of pure food and
drink-pure air and sunlight, with nor.
NAL exercise for body and mind-rest
sleep, etc.
The attempt to cure tired brain
nerves, digestive organs and so on, by
stimulation is precisely like the effort
to cure worn out old horse of weari.
ness by urging him up the hill with
whip and spur. True, that unliindness
might seem to benefit the man that
rides the horse-but could human
reason imagine that it is any benefit to
the horse? The remedy in both cases
is rest. Judicious fasting alone would
remove large proportion of the Ellis
that flesh is heir to-" 1t is still true OF
much sickness that this kind goeth
not out save only by prayer and fast
ing" 1t is one of the crimes of civiliza-
ton that where food is plenty a large
proportion OF persons ignorantly eX
haust about Cne-half their vitality in
the attempt to digest and assmilate
food they do not need; while the almost
universal habit of examining into the
stomach countless stimulating prepare
tons that are not food at all, produces
sickness enough to support an army OF
physiCi3ns. Is not our blood manu-.
featured from what we eat and drink
and breathe? And does it not supply
the brain as we'll as the body and, there,
fore, our mind and our life? Is not ouI
body the temple Of the Holy Spirit?
What right have we then to swallow
anything that comes to us in the guise
of food or medicine, until we have fully
investigated its qualities and are rea-
sonably and conscientiously convinced
that it contains only pure elements,
easily digested and appropriated and
will therefore make for us the purest
blood we are capable of having? What
right have we to foul stomach or liver
or kidneys or blood when the wild ami
| mails guided by instinct alone can avoid
| these things? 1t never ceases to be a
matter of establishment that persons
otherwise comparatively intelligent
will accept and swallow the various
preparations of lard. rancid butter,
sugar, pepper, vinegar, ginger, cloves,
mustard, soda, alum, alcohol, etc,
without question, and will take almost
any kind of poison given them by an
NJ. D. and labeled medicine, or any
patent villainous combination of pois-
ons that has been given high sound
ing name and well advertised. May the
day be fastened when our temperance
| journals at least will refuse to publish
such advertisements with their pic
ture gallery of the weali-minded" and
hasten the advent of that kingdom in
which the tired stomachs and livers now
overloaded equal toany mule or worlds
fair street car, will seek restoration in
the normal way, through the rest of
fasting and by setting wide open the
five great eXcretory organs that God
made to cleanse the body, and not by
the whip and spur of stimulation
Sadie Z. Wilson, NJ. D., in Union Signal
Success of Swiss Temperance Societies.