The Errors of Prohibition; An Argument Delivered in the Representatives' Hall, Boston, April 3, 1867, Before a Joint Special Committee of the General Court of Massachusetts (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1867 Excerpt: ... stimulus is invariably followed by reaction. It is not true that stimulus is of itself provocative of subsequent depression; but there are circumstances in which this might easily appear to be the case. For instance, when the superabundant mental energy of a man whose physical frame is weak, induces him to make violent and continued physical efforts, he is apt to find, at the end of a short 'spurt' of exertion, that his energy is exhausted. But here the exhaustion is no recoil from a state of stimulation. And the case of drunkenness, that is, of alcoholic narcotism--affords another excellent example of the fallacy we are considering. The narcotic dose of alcohol, is alone responsible for the symptoms of depressive reaction. Had a merely stimulant dose been administered, no depression would have occurred, any more than depression results from such a gentle stimulus of the muscular system as is implied in a healthy man taking a walk of three or four miles. What depression is there, as an after consequence, of a glass or two of wine taken at dinner, or of a glass of beer taken at lunch, by a healthy man? What reaction from a teaspoonful of sal-volatile swallowed by a person who feels somewhat faint? What recoil from the stimulus of heat, applied in a hot bath, or of oxygen administered by Marshall Hall's process, to a half-drowned man? Absolutely none whatever." (pp. 146-7.) Doctor Brinton says in his Treatise on Food and Digestion: --"From good wine, in moderate quantities, there is no reaction whatever. That teetotalism is compatible with health, it needs no elaborate facts to establish; but if we take the customary life of those constituting the masses of our inhabitants of towns, we shall find reason to wait before wo assume that this result wil...