TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at the end of the text. The original page numbering of each tract has been maintained; for ease of reference, the preparer of the e-text has assigned each tract a letter, and appended the identifying letters to the original page numbers.
* * * * *
SELECT TEMPERANCE TRACTS.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Pages
EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS. By Dr. Rush 8 [A]
TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS. By Rev. Dr. Edwards 32 [B]
REWARDS OF DRUNKENNESS 4 [C]
THE WELL-CONDUCTED FARM 12 [D]
KITTREDGE'S ADDRESS ON EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS 24 [E]
DICKINSON'S APPEAL TO YOUTH 8 [F]
ALARM TO DISTILLERS AND THEIR ALLIES 8 [G]
PUTNAM AND THE WOLF 24 [H]
HITCHCOCK ON THE MANUFACTURE OF ARDENT SPIRITS 28 [I]
M'ILVAINE'S ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN 24 [J]
WHO SLEW ALL THESE? 4 [K]
SEWALL ON INTEMPERANCE 24 [L]
BIBLE ARGUMENT FOR TEMPERANCE 12 [M]
FOUR REASONS AGAINST THE USE OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS 12 [N]
DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE ON ARDENT SPIRITS 16 [O]
BARNES ON TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS 24 [P]
THE FOOLS' PENCE 8 [Q]
THE POOR MAN'S HOUSE REPAIRED 12 [R]
JAMIE; OR A WORD FROM IRELAND FOR TEMPERANCE 16 [S]
THE WONDERFUL ESCAPE 4 [T]
THE EVENTFUL TWELVE HOURS 16 [U]
THE LOST MECHANIC RESTORED 4 [V]
REFORMATION OF DRUNKARDS 4 [W]
TOM STARBOARD AND JACK HALYARD 24 [X]
THE OX SERMON 8 [Y]
* * * * *
THE EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS UPON THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND.
BY BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.
By ardent spirits, I mean those liquors only which are obtained by distillation from fermented substances of any kind. To their effects upon the bodies and minds of men, the following inquiry shall be exclusively confined.
The effects of ardent spirits divide themselves into such as are of a prompt, and such as are of a chronic nature. The former discover themselves in drunkenness; and the latter in a numerous train of diseases and vices of the body and mind.
I. I shall begin by briefly describing their prompt or immediate effects in a fit of drunkenness.
This odious disease--for by that name it should be called--appears with more or less of the following symptoms, and most commonly in the order in which I shall enumerate them.
1. Unusual garrulity.
2. Unusual silence.
3. Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel.
4. Uncommon good-humor, and an insipid simpering, or laugh.
5. Profane swearing and cursing.
6. A disclosure of their own or other people's secrets.
7. A rude disposition to tell those persons in company whom they know, their faults.
8. Certain immodest actions. I am sorry to say this sign of the first stage of drunkenness sometimes appears in women, who, when sober, are uniformly remarkable for chaste and decent manners.
9. A clipping of words.
10. Fighting; a black eye, or a swelled nose, often mark this grade of drunkenness.
11. Certain extravagant acts which indicate a temporary fit of madness. Those are singing, hallooing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute animals, jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked, breaking glasses and china, and dashing other articles of household furniture upon the ground or floor. After a while the paroxysm of drunkenness is completely formed. The face now becomes flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the under lip is protruded--the head inclines a little to one shoulder--the jaw falls--belchings and hiccough take place--the limbs totter--the whole body staggers. The unfortunate subject of this history next falls on his seat--he looks around him with a vacant countenance, and mutters inarticulate sounds to himself--he attempts to rise and walk: in this attempt he falls upon his side, from which he gradually turns upon his back: he now closes his eyes and falls into a profound sleep, frequently attended with snoring, and profuse sweats, and sometimes with such a relaxation of the muscles which confine the bladder and the lower bowels, as to produce a symptom which delicacy forbids me to mention. In this condition he often lies from ten, twelve, and twenty-four hours, to two, three, four, and five days, an object of pity and disgust to his family and friends. His recovery from this fit of intoxication is marked with several peculiar appearances. He opens his eyes and closes them again--he gapes and stretches his limbs--he then coughs and pukes--his voice is hoarse--he rises with difficulty, and staggers to a chair--his eyes resemble balls of fire--his hands tremble--he loathes the sight of food--he calls for a glass of spirits to compose his stomach--now and then he emits a deep-fetched sigh, or groan, from a transient twinge of conscience; but he more frequently scolds, and curses every thing around him. In this stage of languor and stupidity he remains for two or three days, before he is able to resume his former habits of business and conversation.
Pythagoras, we are told, maintained that the souls of men after death expiated the crimes committed by them in this world, by animating certain brute animals; and that the souls of those animals, in their turns, entered into men, and carried with them all their peculiar qualities and vices. This doctrine of one of the wisest and best of the Greek philosophers, was probably intended only to convey a lively idea of the changes which are induced in the body and mind of man by a fit of drunkenness. In folly, it causes him to resemble a calf--in stupidity, an ass--in roaring, a mad bull--in quarrelling and fighting, a dog--in cruelty, a tiger--in fetor, a skunk--in filthiness, a hog--and in obscenity, a he-goat.
It belongs to the history of drunkenness to remark, that its paroxysms occur, like the paroxysms of many diseases, at certain periods, and after longer or shorter intervals. They often begin with annual, and gradually increase in their frequency, until they appear in quarterly, monthly, weekly, and quotidian or daily periods. Finally, they afford scarcely any marks of remission, either during the day or the night. There was a citizen of Philadelphia, many years ago, in whom drunkenness appeared in this protracted form. In speaking of him to one of his neighbors, I said, "Does he not sometimes get drunk?" "You mean," said his neighbor, "is he not sometimes sober?"
It is further remarkable, that drunkenness resembles certain hereditary, family, and contagious diseases. I have once known it to descend from a father to four out of five of his children. I have seen three, and once four brothers, who were born of sober ancestors, affected by it; and I have heard of its spreading through a whole family composed of members not originally related to each other. These facts are important, and should not be overlooked by parents, in deciding upon the matrimonial connections of their children.
II. Let us next attend to the chronic effects of ardent spirits upon the body and mind. In the body they dispose to every form of acute disease; they moreover excite fevers in persons predisposed to them from other causes. This has been remarked in all the yellow-fevers which have visited the cities of the United States. Hard-drinkers seldom escape, and rarely recover from them. The following diseases are the usual consequences of the habitual use of ardent spirits:
1. A decay of appetite, sickness at stomach, and a puking of bile, or a discharge of a frothy and viscid phlegm, by hawking, in the morning.
2. Obstructions of the liver. The fable of Prometheus, on whose liver a vulture was said to prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing fire from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful effects of ardent spirits upon that organ of the body.
3. Jaundice, and dropsy of the belly and limbs, and finally of every cavity in the body. A swelling in the feet and legs is so characteristic a mark of habits of intemperance, that the merchants in Charleston, I have been told, cease to trust the planters of South Carolina as soon as they perceive it. They very naturally conclude industry and virtue to be extinct in that man, in whom that symptom of disease has been produced by the intemperate use of distilled spirits.
4. Hoarseness, and a husky cough, which often terminate in consumption, and sometimes in an acute and fatal disease of the lungs.