Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    177/210 (page 171)
    CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE. t7t, Thus every indisposition, however trifling or however caused, is made an excuse for crowding down, in some form or other, alcohol and the most stimulating articles which the materia medica fur- nishes. As if the nurse were making an expe- riment to see how much injury, moral, intellectual, and physical she could contrive to inflict on the helpless being committed to her charge! Is it not a natural result from such a course, that the sto- mach being accustomed to a stimulating diet in infancy when the system is susceptible to impres- sions, and easily controlled by habit, should ata more mature age require a continuance of the same stimulus? The natural delicacy of the mucous membrane of the mouth and stomach being impaired and injured by’a long course of stimulation—food of the ordinary kind becomes insipid and tasteless, and recourse must be had to bitters and tonics in order to supply the deficiency. T have no doubt that many a sot has been made by the injudicious use of alcoholic medicines, and a stimulating regimen in infancy and early youth. Allied to this practice is another perhaps not less fatal—that of using spirituous tinctures and alcoholic bitters for the cure of dyspepsia and its attendant evils. The unhappy victim is thus led on blindfold to the very brink of destruction. He does not know that, while he is thus endeavoring to relieve his dyspeptic evils, he is forming a habit, and creating a taste which will never desert him till they have wrought his ruin, and brought him to an early and untimely grave. Females are particularly exposed in this way to form intempe- rate habits, and I am inclined to believe that more