were we to weep day and night," such expressions of sorrow would convey but an imperfect idea of the wide-spreading desolation. Tears, however, are unavailing in such a case; more than tears are therefore asked. By total abstinence we can stay the plague which our boasted temperance and moderation have spread. Could the sympathetic prophet have been told that by abandoning the use of a cup of poison, he might restore his much-loved Zion to her pristine beauty, and her ruined sons and daughters to happiness and honour, would he have hesitated, or staid a moment to consult a vitiated taste or unnatural appetite? Rather, had he ever been so besotted as to use such a beverage, the cup in one moment would have been dashed from his lips, and most solemnly would he have vowed never to be misled again. Let us go and do likewise, "that our sons," instead of being ruined, "may be as plants grown up in their youth; and our daughters," instead of being the prey of the seducer, may be as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace."

66

over

Dioclesian depredations are acted again; the bloody days of other times are come back; and the fires of Smithfield rekindled; and protestant ministers plead the cause of the fiend, and actually lodge in their houses the demon that thus "scatters fire-brands and death" in the sanctuary of God! For so long as we continue to use intoxicating drinks we practically recommend the spirit which has already destroyed millions, and, unless driven from the land, will yet destroy millions more. Every one who has attended but a very little to the progress of the gospel in the South Sea Islands, must have noticed how much the labours of the missionaries have been impeded, and what havoc has been made of the churches, by the introduction of these detestable poisons. We all know what a scourge they proved to Pomare. The chief thing that rendered the religion of that monarch questionable, was his taste for strong drinks. In the Sandwich Islands drinking is the chief antagonist that missionaries have to contend with. The Rev. Mr. Stewart, chaplain to the American navy, in the narrative of his visit to the South Seas, has given us some awful details of the effects of these liquors both on the islanders and the British seamen that occasionally land among them. The Rev. Mr. Williams, in his last publication, has con

of liquor. This calculation is below the mark, because if some churches have lost none, others have lost twenty or thirty, as their church books can testify; but we have taken the average low enough, and what is the affecting truth? Why that 20,000 members have been expelled from communion, and 40,000 kept from communion by these accursed poisons, making a total of 60,000 individuals of whose services the church has been thus wantonly deprived! These divided into congregations of 500 each, would constitute 120 churches. What could we think of the papists if they had power and came to England and levelled with the ground one hundred and twenty sacred edifices, and burnt sixty thousand protestants? But here we have what is worse. Persecutors "can only destroy the body, and after that they have nothing that they can do;" but alcohol in the insidious form of beer, porter, wine, gin, &c., "can destroy both body and soul in hell," and yet we ourselves kindle this fire that desolates so many churches and ruins so many souls! The persecutor, the Vandal, the Goth, the Turk, or the Saracen is no longer needed to devastate Christendom; we have what is worse than all these in our own houses, and what has annually proved a thousand times more baneful. The days of Nero are returned;

66

ous missionary having been absent for some time from his people at Raiatea, found, on his return, that" spirits had been introduced and stills set up." He tells us, that out of his flourishing and numerous church and congregation, "not a hundred had escaped the contamination of these liquors, they all appeared maddened with infatuation." "I could hardly believe," he says, they were the same people among whom I had lived so long, and of whom I had thought so highly." Do we wonder that with such a scene before him, he calls alcoholic drinks, "Poisons of the body and of the soul?" He informs us that "the gigantic chief, Tamatea, who was six feet eleven inches high, was, before conversion, much addicted to drunkenness, and when drunk, if disturbed, became desperate; would seize a club, spear, or any other weapon, rush out of the house and wreak his vengeance upon friend or foe, man, woman, or child, whom he might happen to meet. Several persons had fallen victims to the ferocity which the juice of the kava-root produced." After conversion to Christianity, this eminent chief "made a vow of total abstinence, and kept it until death." How many a professor of Christi anity, who cannot allow his liberty to drink what poisons himself and others to be infringed upon, the example of Tamatea must condemn! This unsophisticated chief knew that to vow to abstain from what

threatened to ruin himself and thousands more, instead of subjecting himself to slavery, was an act of the holiest emancipation and liberty. To say that we will not pledge ourselves to abstain from wines and strong drinks, because the pledge would enslave us, is to demonstrate that we are slaves already, and voluntarily submitting to the tyranny of a taste for liquors which have done more to desolate the church than Nero or Dioclesian. When the parliament of Tahiti consulted the queen respecting the admission of intoxicating drinks, she said, "Let the principles contained in the New Testament be the foundation of all your proceedings;"" and immediately they enacted a law against trading with any vessel that brought ardent spirits." The inhabitants of those islands, in many of which total abstinence had of necessity been practised, Mr. Williams tell us, are "in stature and intellect the finest upon earth." The engravings we have seen of them exhibit an athletic form, and proportion of limb of such perfection, that, in their presence, the beer and gin drinkers of Britain appear pigmies and skeletons, or mere bloated masses of deformity. And their intellectual proceedings demonstrate that we are far behind them in mental acumen and moral sensibility. These discerning Christians passed an act for national total abstinence, and did so because they saw that "the principles of the New Testament" demanded such a measure. It was not so much any isolated text as "the principles" of the Book generally that guided their determination. They saw that love to God and man is the grand "principle" of the Book; and that this love enjoins us to do nothing, to eat nothing, to drink nothing, which would prove the means, directly or indirectly, of making a brother "stumble, offend, become weak," or fall into sin. This love forbids us from "destroying by our meat or drink him for whom Christ died." These simple-hearted islanders saw all this, and resolved on total abstinence. They did not allow a metaphor, borrowed from the use of wine, the commendation of a medicinal draught, or the miraculous production of an innocent beverage, to beguile them from

walking charitably," or according to the dictates of universal" love." They showed a maturity of critical and spiritual judgment in allowing "the principles" of the gospel to explain the metaphor, the medicine, and the miracle, instead of arraying the metaphor, the medicine, and the miracle against the principles of the gospel. Intoxicating drinks were about to desolate their churches, to cover the island with crime, to corrupt and besot the rising generation, to take them back to heathenism, and they nobly resolved to drive the abomination from their land. They did not wax presumptuous enough to

argue that if they introduced to their frames a poison which would infest their bodies and infect their minds, the grace of God would work a daily miracle to satisfy their vitiated taste, and would therefore abstract the pestilent spirit from their brains and their bones. No! these christians believed that we are not to "do evil that good may come," and that we are prohibited from "tempting the Lord our God;" and thus making "the principles of the New Testament the foundation of their proceedings, they determined totally to abstain from so deleterious a drug. And when we look at the scourge which intoxicating drinks have inflicted on the British churches, and which, a thousand fold greater, they still threaten to inflict, can we do better than follow their example?

CHAPTER II.

On Diseases, Deaths, &c. from Drinking.-1. The Testimonies of the most distinguished medical men. 2. Alcohol a Poison. 3. The Physiology of the Human Frame examined in connexion with Drinking. 4. Effects of Intoxicating Drinks upon the Stomach, Brain, Nerves. 5. The many Diseases which may be traced to these Poisons. 6. Cases cited. 7. Testimonies of Coroners, &c. respecting deaths from Drinking. 8. Signatures of distinguished Medical Men. 9. Longevity. 10. Synoptical Table of Diseases from Alcohol. 11. Weekly Table of Mortality in London.

On this topic it may be necessary to observe, that the inebriating principle in all intoxicating drinks is spirits of wine or alcohol, and that alchol is a poison. Whether ardent spirits, wine, beer, porter, or cider be drunk, what is called the strength of these liquors, and for which alone they are drunk, is allowed by all medical men, chemists, and physiologists, to be an acrid poi

son.

Dr. Dods, in his examination before the Committee of the House of Commons, stated that "Writers on medical jurisprudence rank alcohol among narcotico-acrid poisons ;" and he adds that "small quantities, if repeated, always prove more or less injurious," and that "the morbid af pearances seen after death, occasioned by ardent spirits, exactly agree with those which resubstance ranked in the same class."* sult from poisoning, caused by any other Astley Cooper has declared,

Sir

"No person has a greater hostility to dram drinking than myself, insomuch that I never suffer any ardent spirits in my house, thinking them evil spirits; and if the poor could witness the white livers, the dropsies, the shattered nervous systems which I have seen, as the consequences of drinking, they would be aware that spirits and poisons are synony

*Parliamentary Report, p. 221.

mous terms. " A testimony, similar in sentiment, was signed by nearly five hundred medical men of the first respectability in Edinburgh, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bradford, Brighton, Cheltenham, Derby, Dublin, Gloucester, Kilmarnock, Leeds, Leith, Lincoln, Manchester, Nottingham, Worcester, York, &c. Dr. Mussey says, "That alcohol is a poison to our organization, and tends to pervert our moral feelings, is evident from observation." And he adds, "What is poison? It is that substance, in whatever form it may be, which when applied to a living surface, whether external or internal, disconcerts life's healthy movements. It is altogether distinct from substances which are in their nature nutritious. It is not capable of being converted into food, and of becoming part of the living organs. We all know that proper food is wrought into our bodies. The action of animal life occasions a constant waste, and new matter has to be taken in, which, after digestion, is carried into the blood, and there changed," and assimilated so as to supply all the waste of the frame. "But poison is incapable of this. It may indeed be mixed with nutritious substances," as arsenic for rats, "but if it goes into the blood, it is thrown off as soon as the system can accomplish its deliverance, unless nature has been too far enfeebled by the influence of the poison. Such a poison is alcohol; such, in all its forms, mix it with what you may. It is never digested and converted into nourishment. The same is true of it as of arsenic and corrosive sublimate. Dr. Dods, to whom we just now referred, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, gave the following physiological explanation of the effects of this poison upon the human constitution: "Alcohol coagulates the albuminous and gelatinous parts of the structure, and corrugates the solid parts, as the muscles, &c. Its effect on the bloodvessels seems to be twofold - increased excitement and contraction in the diameter of the vessels; this tends to produce enlargement in some parts of the blood-vessels, or effusion should their coats give way at any part of their course. Diseased deposits are frequently formed where a branch is given off, or in some wider portions of the blood-vessels, which give rise to most painful symptoms, such as are common in gout or rheumatism. Increased excitement, also, from the use of stimuli, maintained for a given time, diminishes, in proportion, the healthy functions of the organs, and leads slowly, though certainly, to alterations both in structure and function in this way we may account or diseased livers, diseased kidneys, diseased hearts, and symptoms which indicate these in the effusions of serum, which occur in different regions of the body, and is called dropsy, water in the chest, and

| general anasarca. Very striking effects also are produced upon the nervous system, as is manifested in the imperfect muscular contractions visible in a state of intoxication, in tremors, palsies, and other maladies, which not unfrequently afflict the victim of intemperance. Emaciation and debility, which are very common characteristics of those given to habits of spirit drinking, proceed from the constitution being robbed of its proper supply of nourishment, while at the same time it is compelled to carry on increased action, and increase the process of absorption beyond that of nutrition: besides, the glands through which the absorbent vessels pass, being kept under constant irritation, become enlarged, hardened, and variously altered in their structure, till at last they cease to carry on the functions to which they are destined, and the fluids which they used to transmit become effused in the surrounding parts. The diseased deposits which occur at the heart and along the blood-vessels seem to be produced by the efforts of the minute vessels which supply these organs to resist the injury that might result to larger blood-vessels from their increased action, produced by the presence of ardent stimuli; in other words, a given amount of blood, with a given force, and in a given time, circulates through a set of tubes, contractile and expansible up to a certain point; these tubes are of a certain length and diameter, and in their healthy condition are capable of affording passage to the blood, according to the usual rate and quantity; but when their diameter is diminished through the influence of spirits, and when the frequency and force of the circulation is, from the same cause, considerably increased, the vessels become strained at some part of their course, and the vital energies instantly attempting to prevent or repair the injury, throw out fluids which become coagulated, and remain as mechanical obstacles to the proper discharge of future functions. Many lamentable specimens of morbid deposits are furnished by habits of intemperance, and many "wearisome days and restless nights become the purchase of such thoughtless indulgences. On the same principle might we explain enlargement of the heart, of the aorta, and other parts of the arteries, apoplexy, coma or lethargy, and the like; always taking into the account the influence of vital action, and a combination of other causes aiding or resisting the various results. It were easy to extend my remarks on this part of the subject to a much greater length, but enough has been said to convince those who will yield to facts, of the injurious effects of ardent spirits, when used even moderately for any length of time. the thoughtless consumers, or zealous advocates of strong stimuli, would accompany us to a few post mortem examinations of

If

individuals who have persevered in such habits, or were called to witness, like us, the sufferings they previously endured, they would feel horrified at their own folly and ignorance, and if they were wise would never touch the bowl again. But whatever men may think, and however they may act, still it is true that the use of ardent spirit, now so prevalent, is one of the greatest evils that ever has befallen the human race. It is a second curse, which seems destined completely to destroy every blossom of beauty and virtue, which the first left blanched and drooping here and there upon the face of the earth."* We have given this passage, because it contains a physiological explanation of the baneful effects of intoxicating drinks upon our constitution, furnished by a gentleman of accurate observation, and who, in his medical capacity, has repeatedly seen most affecting illustrations of the facts he has stated. These words of Doctor R. G. Dods ought to be printed in letters of gold, and hung up in the most prominent place of every room of moderate as well as of immoderate drinkers. But before making any remarks on this affecting exhibition of the evil influence of alcohol, we will give a few quotations from the evidence of Dr. Farre.

On the Committee handing to this eminent physician the paper which contains the testimony of nearly five hundred distinguished medical men, to which we just now alluded, after reading the words, By the following certificates it will be seen that ardent spirit is ascertained by medical science to be in a strict sense a poison, and that the use of it as an article of diet, especially among the poorer classes, is the direct cause of an incalculable and appalling amount of disease and death," the Doctor said, "It is strictly so in regard to the destruction of life. Undoubtedly that is the fact; it destroys the gastro-hepatic system, producing a variety of liver diseases, as inflammation, especially the chronic hepatitis, what Baillie termed the small white tubercle of the liver; also cancerous affections, as the large fungus of the liver, and completely obliterates the fine structure of that organ. With respect to the stomach and intestines, it destroys the villous surface of their lining membrane, so that death is inevitable.

The

He

liver was gibbous at the extremity, completely rounded, white within, and its peculiar structure very much obliterated. The artery of the dura mater, or outer membrane of the brain, was blood-shot. died of injury of the brain from alcohol."* He also stated, "That cases of disorganization from the abuse of fermented liquor, with every other variety of disorder, and also demoralization of mind, resulting from the same cause, had frequently come before him as a consulting physician."+ He asserted, that by demoralizing the mind, it led "to pauperism, riots, murders, suicide." He says, that "diluted spirit destroys as effectually, although more slowly, than the undiluted, and therefore, that the addition of water does not make any change in the property of distilled spirit."§ Again, "Alcohol destroys the lacteal absorbent surface, and the lymphatic absorbents take up the more, and the man begins to waste, in such a case, immediately."|| He adds, that "spirits destroy life by the destruction of the balance of circulation, by excitement, and subsequent collapse, or the disorganization resulting on the reaction therefrom."T He affirms, that "cholera was more fatal to drunkards than to others," and also that "fewer recovered under treatment by the diffusible stimulants of alcohol and opium, than by a milder and more discreet treatment."** He mentions an instance of post mortem examination of a person who died from mania, produced by alcohol, in which he says, "the brain, to use a strong expression, may be said to have sweated blood, and the case decided a disputed point in anatomy, whether or no the dura mater, or living membrane of the skull, and the investing membrane of the brain, consisted of two layers, for in this instance the blood was effused between these two layers and formed a distinct lamina of blood between them, marking the extreme point to which the circulation was forced."++ As confirmatory of his statements, the Doctor instanced the case af a "woman who died of jaundice and disorganized liver from drink. ing a quart of malt liquor daily while living a sedentary life; and of "a farmer of a most vigorous constitution who was blind, and injured in other important functions, at the age of forty-two, in consequence of aledrinking." All medical men seem to be agreed on the sentiment which Doctor Dods advanced in another place, that "diseases of the brain, of the liver, of the heart and blood-vessels, of the kidneys, of the stomach, of the pancreas, of the bladder, of the skin; that apoplexy, insanity, mental delusions, delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion,

all spring from the use of alcoholic drinks."* "mental dejection, morbid irritability, ungovernable passion, frightful delusions, confirmed insanity, aneurism, and the perpetration of the foulest crimes, as duelling, murder, suicide, &c.," the same physician attributes to strong drinks as their origin. Children also are said to be stunted in their growth, and often unhealthy all their days, or perhaps sent to their grave in infancy in consequence of the diseased constitution which they have inherited from drinking parents, or from having alcohol in some form or other early administered to them. In cases of disease also it is allowed by all parties, that the profoundest skill of the physician is often entirely counteracted by the folly of nurses and others, who most indiscreetly administer these stimulants to the sick. The reader by this time must be satiated, or we could multiply medical opinions and testimonies to almost any extent, and all agreeing in the statement, that all the diseases which we have mentioned, and a great many more, are produced and cherished by the use of these intoxicating beverages.

The examples already given, show us that alcohol, whether diluted or not, is a poison, and that belonging to the class, diffusible stimuli, it circulates through the whole frame. Mr. Higginbotham, an experienced surgeon in Nottingham, informs us that," unchanged in its property, it passes through the brain, lungs, heart, liver, and every organ of the body, through every muscle, and bone; every part of the system is washed with it, and no part wants it." Dr. Beaumont has shown from his experiments on the stomach of St. Martin, that all the fluids that enter the stomach are immediately absorbed. It seems that the stomach is only capable of digesting what is solid, and therefore it always dismisses every fluid before it can commence the important labour of digestion. When milk was taken, Dr. Beaumont found, on looking into St. Martin's stomach that it was immediately changed into curd, the solid parts were detained and digested, while the whey, or liquid part, was instantly absorbed by the venous capillaries which open upon the surface of the stomach that they may carry away the fluids, and thus remove them from an organ where they are not wanted, and in which they would injure digestion. It is now a well known fact, that the gastric juice is the only fluid employed in digesting our food. This is produced by nature in a pure state, and in the exact quantity needed to chyme the food. To dilute this most marvellous fluid, would be to injure it, and therefore the liquids, whatever may be the kind we may drink with our meals, must be removed out of the way before digestion can go on. Hence alcohol, which is thinner

* Parliamentary Report on Drunkenness, p. 223. t p. 224. p. 219.

and lighter than water, is at once taken up by the venous absorbent capillaries and circulated through our frame.* It has been found in the blood and the brain, and has, in such circumstances, actually ignited on light being applied to it. If conveyed into the stomach in connexion with any nutritious matter, as in the case of beer or wine, in which we shall hereafter show there is a very small portion of nutriment indeed, the substantial part is left in the stomach, while the alcohol is circulated through the frame. But as it is an acrid fiery poison, it irritates and stimulates the whole system. In an instant it affects the nerves, and through them the brain; it moves the heart and pulse with an unnatural rapidity, and communicates its fire to the very extremities of our bodies. Who has not felt his head in one moment affected by a mere taste, yea, by the smell of a small quantity of wine, or his feet warmed in an instant by a glass of gin? Now we have in these instances examples or proofs that this pestilential drug paces through the length and breadth of our constitution. It leaves no part unvisited, unstimulated or uninjured. We may apply to it the words of Shakspeare,

"The leprous distilment, whose effect
Holds such enmity with the blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And, with accursed poison, it doth infect
The thin and wholesome blood."

We have good evidence that it leaves no part, which it visits, as sound as it found it. We may tell the reader who has not heard of the circumstance, that St. Martin, to whom we have before alluded, was a young Canadian, who was shot across the stomach. The ball took off a portion of one of his ribs, a part of his liver, and left an orifice which never closed. Dr. Beaumont, who was attached to the army as surgeon, undertook to cure him. The wound healed, but the hole in his stomach remained, so that it was necessary to bind on it a little pad to prevent his food from coming out. After the cure he went home and married. But Dr. Beaumont considering that such an opportunity for investigating the mysterious process of digestion might not again occur, sent for him, and kept him between two and three years under his roof. The result of his observations are most valuable; so much so, that we cannot but believe that Providence intended the event for the good of the human family. Now, among the experiments which Dr. Beaumont made, one was to discover the effects of fermented liquors on the organs of digestion, and he found that when St. Martin drank these, "the mucous membrane of the stomach was covered with inflammatory and ulcerous patches, the secretions were vitiated,

Dr. Combe on Digestion, &c., 78, 79.