Year: 1868

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The following article, from the pen
of Horace Greeley, is taken from the
Herald Of Health.


The Greek root of the word intoxi-
cate means poison. Whoever says a
man is intoxicated, says he is poisoned.
And 1t is true. Give a part of glass
of ordinary spirits to a child three or
four years old, and the child is in
twenty minutes in a congestion fit, and
probably dies. 1t operates precisely
like strychnine. arsenic, or any other
deadly drug. Commence by giving a
child thimbleful at time, and grad
ually increase the amount, and you
may indurate him so that he will swal-
low as much at a time as would kill
him at first. You may begin with any
other poison, and do the same thing.
Our physical framework is constructed
with reference to this, to enable it to
stand a large amount of any deadly
substance. There IS nothing peculiar
in this action of alcohol. There is
nothing in this but the universal law
that poisons all destroy the suscepti-
DllAAN vi AuC huL4aAA AAdL4Cs


Why does man like to drink liquor? |?
Not because it has a good taste, but
because it exhilarates his nervous sys-
tenn. The man takes his first glass of
liquor. It goes to his stomach. Now,
there is not a single human stomach,
nor that Of any animal ever created on
this earth, that ever did or can digest a
drop of alcohol. The moment it falls
into the stomach every vital organ
recognizes the presence of a deadly
enemy. 1t is precisely as if lion were
thrown into cage of tigers, and every
tiger were to recognize the lion as q
deadly enemy. The stomach cannot
digest it, and it cannot remain. All
the organs assist in throwing it of, and
that great struggle of every vital organ
to rid the stomach of this poison is the
very thing which the perverted senses
recognize as erhIlarati0n! If a man,
standing on the moon, could have a
telescope of sufficient power to enable
him to view objects on the earth, and
could have looked upon us during the
late civil war, and have seen, dimly
through the glass, the movements of
immense bodies of men, he would have
said, This nation has an immense pop
ulation; there is a tremendous out
pouring of the people; this nation is in
state of extraordinary prosperity" /"
Precisely so the mans sensorial, the
point where the nerves of sense con-
centrate, recognizes in this desperate
effort of the vital organs to get rid of
an enemy, q sense of strength and ex-
hilaration in place of the languor and
feebleness he felt just before. But in
little while, when nature has, by all
her efforts, disposed of this poison, the
man sinks down to his former condition,
and q great deal below it. Nature has
made her superior struggle; she has
got rid of the poison but she has tired
herself in the effort. The next time
Nature makes the same struggle, but
she has not the same strength. The
second glass does not make the man
feel so good. The more a man drinks,
the more he has to drink to attain a
certain condition. He has to take
more and more. Nature turns con-
stantly to rid herself of it, but by-and-
by becomes tired out and gives it up
There are men who are not very per-
ceptibly affected by liquor. 1t does
not make them drunk. 1t does not
hurt them, they say. But it does hurt
them. l never knew q man who drank
a good deal without becoming intoxica-
ted, whom liquor did not kill fast.
And for physiological reasons. If a
man will take poison, it is better to get
rid of it than to keep it in the system
Drunkenness is one of Gods infinite
neroies, sent to help poor. mistaken.
human beings to get rid of the conse-
queuees of their iniquity.


What we should do depends largely
upon what we are able to do. 1t is not
easy to fly in the face of public opinion.
Laws will, after all, be mainly a rehec-
ton on the moral condition of the
people. They will always be a little
better, but not much better. If you
should say that no one in the country
should do bad thing, it would be use
less, because human nature, in the de-
to which we have reached,
would not sustain such law. Public
sentiment is advancing. 1t does not
allow men to make a parade of vices
which were once tolerated. The time
will come when men will not be licens-
ed to sell alcoholic liquors, when grog-
shops will be where gambling houses
are now, out Of sight.