The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-20


litical, the ethical and the physiologi-
cal sides of the question.
Why we like to drink? has never
been answered, but it appears that we
drink to change the mental state. The
effects of alcohol on animals are al
most the same as those on men. Ami
mails in almost no cases come to like
the taste. 1t is said that hogs fed on
brewery swill learn to like it, and dogs
may develop slight degree ct the
habit.
Primitive people, almost without eX-
ception, had the drinking habit. IT
seems to coexist with the social IL
stincts. We find excitement is a large
part Of savage religions and narcotics
had a part in their worship. 1t seems
to be true that the neolithic men in
England cultivated the poppy and used
il in religious worship. The Greeks
had drinking cults, the Pueblo Indians
drank only in religious services: some
tribes get drunk as a marriage c2re-
mony. Among the Seminoles, drinking
is state function. The Pueblos drink
only once a year. No tribe probably
ever did exist without some stimulant
or narcotic
Tests made upon some 40 subjects
seem to show that strength after some
what moderate drinking is not affected
much, and the senses affected but lit
tie. There is much about drink in liter
allure. Hasheesh is said to
produce sort of ecstacy of
dreams. DeQuincy, in his opium eater,
describes the sensation. We know that
tobacco acts on the spinal cord and
weakens the arterial pressure, while al
cohol seems to excite the cerebrum it.
self
In man the effects seem to mass
themselves on the cord. Alcohol, when
taken into the body is largely burned
up as other hydrocarbons, and some of
1t is eliminated from the body. The
old view of the doctrine of stimulants
as held by the medieval philosophers,
was that the mind and body are sep
arate principles, and the heart some
times has to be walked up by stimu-
liant when it gets tired.
Then came the doctrine of irritibility,
and Hall thought the property of all
drugs was depressing or stimulating.
The third general view is that the
higher centres are affected through the
lower ones. DR.. Forel thinks the pa
ralysis caused by alcohol removes the
restraint of the higher centres instead
of the lower. Some have evolved the
theory that the centres are affected in
| the reverse order of evolution.
Perhaps alcohol does or does not in
crease motor activity. The distinction
between drinking and inebriety should
be noticed. Dipsomania is periodical
the drunkard drinks all the time. There
is in the system rhythmic ordering.
One of the great causes of intemper-
ance is bad cooking. Poverty, monoto-
ny, too strict Sunday observance may
cause it.
SiXty-five cases were studied and it
was found thatsome drank every night,
some Saturdays, some to kill bashful-
| ness, some for social reasons, some on
| account of sorrow, others on account
| of hard work. But few of these seem
| to have had any passion for it, I'm
doubtedly conversion cures many
drunkardS, and I think the religious
value cannot be overestimated.
Excessive drinking seems to begin be-
tween IA and % and end at 40, and it
usually ends in exhaustion and in
| death. There are said to be 366 Eng
lish phrases for drunkenness and over
500 words in German. The disposition
| to glorify wine has not only been in
| religious orgies, but in numerous drink
ing songs, some of which are very in
| teresting, especially some of the old
Latin songs.
| There is no doubt but that the human
race loves abandon. 1t is seen in the
dance, In the religious orgies which end
| IN frenzy. 1t is claimed that there were
periods of great drinking Just before a
period of great culture, and others
nave said just the reverse-that il Is
llabie to occur at periods of depression,
| IT is really triumphant victory of
| life over death. 1t has been Thought Of
as kind of regeneration. a freeing Of
| the mind from the body. 1t is craving
| Tor youth. Litche says narcotics and
Christianity both aim at the same goal
10 pailiate the hardness of life. Mr..
| Reed thinks that the struggle for sur
Vlval today is not a struggle against
| animals or against men, but against
germ diseases and against alcohol, and
those best fitted to live will be those
| VINO resist the germs and the alcohol
Berri says that Protestant Christian
| ity is the growth of an alcoholic de-
| sire and desire for freedom. There
| Is some question whether people who
nave never tasted alcohol have a crav
ing for it. 1t does not appear that a
man who is innocent of the taste Of
drink is at all stimulated by the sight
| of foaming glass of beer. The 90 :
| paelty for brief, intense action is one
OF the great factors in the struggle for
supremacy, and 1t would seem that the
| alcohol habit has summated that Ga :
pacity.
| The love of excitement is one of the
very best things in life. 1t is what we
love. Vitality is the end of all of If
The other spirit of inertia is psychic
death. pS' N'''c
There is very practical question.
| Is pleasure the great end of life? IF
| that were all, there could be no uuez-
| ton of the value of alcohol. But that
| is not all. Back of it is the question
| Of reaction, the burning up of energy
the premature death. The passion to
taste and touch of life at every nom,
until we can realize all the activii;as
| of the human race, is the culmination
of what we wish.
Alcohol has probably done more good
| in the world than harm. We in this
| country are prone to extremes. Fern
perance is the word Abstinence is
quite another word. Christ taught ,en.
perance and drank wine. The old Chris.
tians drank wine and do yet in south
ern countries,
l am inclined to have sympathy wi.b
Henry Ward Beecher, who said Of nnc
of his deacons, long faced abstemiol,s
man: There is nothing in the world
| that would do Deacon Smith so ,n1lch
good as to get bowling drunk"
| This is probably aganze. Inf
| there is something nd ono ,on
not help but symp, tifb 49,
who is slightly elatet s the tr,tb
then; he is all pleas ra en- we re-
! fleet that tea, coffet ga itself IL
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