DRUNKENNESS, or Intoxication, a well-known vice, the consequence of an excessive use of spirituous liquors, wines, or drugs. Drunkenness is gradually produced, and several distinct stages may be traced in its progress. The sensations experienced in the earlier stages, or the state of incipient intoxication, are peculiarly pleasurable. The mind becomes unusually excited; a soft serenity steals over it, inducing a spirit of universal contentment; gaiety and warmth kindle at the heart, and images of beauty expand before the imagination. In this state, before consciousness is attacked, or the sensorium affected, some of the faculties of the soul act with greater liveliness and vigour, and the feelings of strength and courage are increased. In a short while the sense of propriety is lost, the soul begins to open itself and pour forth its secrets, displaying all the peculiarities of temper, good or bad. Gradually the scene thickens, and consciousness becomes still more weakened. Reason vacates her throne, and grotesque conceptions crowd upon the fancy. Dizziness attacks the brain, and surrounding objects, seeming to lose their balance, [7:8:217]Into strange vagaries fall, As they would dance.

The drunkard begins to feel the earth unsteady beneath his feet, his sense of equilibrium gives way, and total insensibility succeeds, in which a state of stupor, wild dreams, and horror, strongly contrasts with that of previous excitement. Different individuals are differently affected by the inebriating liquid. The state of the passions at the period of indulging in strong liquors also operates powerfully in modifying its effects. Persons under sentence of death, and immediately before execution, have been known to swallow with impunity draughts of the strongest alcohol, which, under other circumstances, would have rendered them senseless. Hence the remarkable propriety of the language put into the mouth of Lady Macbeth previously to the contemplated murder, when, alluding to the manner in which she had “drugged the possets” of the grooms, she says, “that which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.” In some persons constitutional moroseness and melancholy are dispelled; in others their habitual gloom is aggravated. Cases of the latter description, however, are by no means so numerous as those of the former, and the general effect of indulgence in “thick potations” is to dispel the clouds of care, at least for the time being. But the re-action which eventually follows over-excitement serves to deepen the darkness, and, by a dispensation of retributive justice, to inflict certain punishment for the previous delinquency. Drunkards who are of a sanguineous temperament are most intensely excited by the use of strong liquors.

It is unnecessary to enumerate the various inebriating agents, which, as well as temperament, influence the nature of the intoxication produced. Thus ebriety from ardent spirits differs from that generated by malt liquors. Besides alcohol, which is the intoxicating principle in all liquors, there are various substances taken, both in the solid and fluid state, which induce intoxication. The most common and remarkable are opium and nitrous oxide gas. The former, it is well known, is in extensive use for this purpose in the East, but the latter has not yet been employed out of the laboratory of the chemist. The effects produced by this gas are described by the discoverer, Sir Humphry Davy, and others who have experienced them, as very delightful, and similar to those feltduring the earlier stages of intoxication from wine, but of a purer and more ethereal nature.

Amongst the physiological effects of drunkenness are vertigo, double vision, staggering and stammering, heat and flushing, ringing in the ears, and other analogous affections. Vertigo, though partly produced by the ocular delusions under which the drunkard labours, seems principally to arise from the close sympathy which subsists between the brain and the nerves of the stomach. Double vision is readily accounted for by the influence of increased circulation in the brain upon the nerves of sight. Staggering and stammering may likewise be explained by the disordered state of the nervous system. Heat and flushing result from the strong determination of blood to the surface of the body, and ringing in the ears particularly from the throbbing of the internal carotid arteries, which run in the immediate neighbourhood of the ear. The mental pleasure arising from intoxication is not so easily explained, though the primary cause no doubt is physical or rather nervous excitement gradually superinduced, and thus stimulating both the imagination and the passions. The evil consequences of drinking, both in a physical and moral point of view, are numerous and distressing. On the unhappy victim of this propensity a long train of bodily diseases and infirmities are entailed. The liver, stomach, brain, kidneys, indeed all the functions of the body, are seriously impaired by the practice; and in this state the frame is not only more liable to attacks of disease, but when they do come they are likely to exhibit tenfold inveteracy. Thus life is either suddenly shortened, or protracted into a long disease. Death itself is frequently an immediate consequence of over indulgence. We shall not attempt a classification of the bodily infirmities and pernicious effects which drunkenness produces; but we may mention madness, and spontaneous combustion of the body, as belonging to the number. The former is by no means a rare occurrence, and there are well authenticated cases of the latter. Drunkenness in a judicial point of view is not punishable by our laws; but acts of violence committed under its influence are held to be aggravated rather than otherwise; nor can the accused allege it as an extenuation of the crime of which he has been guilty. In proof of this it maybe stated, that a bond signed in a fit of intoxication holds good in law, and is perfectly binding, unless it can be shown that the person who signed it was inebriated by the collusion or contrivance of those to whom the bond was given.

Drunkenness has been known from the earliest ages. Wherever the grape flourished inebriation soon made its appearance. It has greatly varied at different times and amongst different nations. There can be no doubt that in a rude, uncivilized state of society, it prevails to the greatest extent, and assumes the most revolting forms. It is also found to exist more extensively in northern than in southern latitudes, owing no doubt to the difference of climate. As society is refined, the vice certainly diminishes amongst the higher orders, although amongst those in the lower ranks it is still found to exist to a fearful extent. For checking this demoralizing practice various moral engines have been set to work, but without a success commensurate with the philanthropy of the design or the importance to society of the anticipated results.