DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/errorsofprohibit01andr 'TER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING The Errors. of Prohibition. AN ARGUMENT DELIVERED IN THE REPRESENTATIVES’ HALL, BOSTON, APRIL 3, 1867, BEFORE A JOINT SPECIAL COMMITTEE OE THE GENERAL COURT OE MASSACHUSETTS. No' By JOHN A. ANDREW. BOSTON: TICKNOR & FIELDS, 124 TREMONT ST 1 8 6 7. . ' - INTRODUCTORY. At the present annual session of the General Court of Massachusetts, commencing in January, 1867, petitions were presented by Alpheus Hardy and others, praying for enact- ment of a judicious license law for the regulation and control of the sale of spirituous and fermented liquors in the Commonwealth. The number of these Petitioners during the session already (April, 1867,) comprises thirty thousand legal voters, and is increasing daily. A petition was also presented by the principal inn-keepers in the city of Boston, praying for such changes in existing laws concerning the sale of wines and liquors as shall allow them to supply the wants of the guests of their houses, yet under such excise and regulation and subject to such super- vision as shall be deemed needful for the public good. A further petition was presented by the officers and trus- tees of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, representing that under the present statutes it is impossible legally to conduct that business and perform its duties to the medical profession and the sick, and praying for such amendment of the law as that apothecaries may be enabled to conduct their business in a legal manner. Various petitions, numerously signed, were also presented to the General Court, remonstrating against any amendment of the existing prohibitory statutes. 4 All these petitions were referred ;o a Joint Special Com- mittee of the two branches of the legislature, composed of Messrs. Morse, of Norfolk, Alexander, of Hampden, Fay, of Suffolk, Dow, of Middlesex, Swan, of Bristol, On tie part of the Senate ; and Messrs. Jewell, of Boston, Aldrich, of Worcester, Shexman, of Lowell, Wright, of Lawrence, Ayery, of Braintree, Flinn, of Chatham, McClellan, of Grafton, Bartlett, of Roxbury, Madden, of Boston, On the part of the House of Representatives. The Petitioners were represented before the Committee by Hon. John A. Andrew and Hon. Linus Child, as counsel; and the Remonstrants were in like manner represented before the Committee by Hon. Asahel Huntington, Rev. A. A. Miner, D. D., and William B. Spooner, Esq., as counsel. The hearings were continued for four days in each week, (besides two evening sessions,) beginning February 19th, and ending April 3d, at first in the Senate Chamber, and afterwards in the Representatives’ Hall, in the State House, at Boston. The opening argument for the Petitioners was made by Hon. Linus Child, and the following witnesses were called, sworn and examined in their behalf : — 5 John Q. Adams, Esq., of Quincy, (Trial Justice for Norfolk County.) Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D. D., of Boston. Prof. Louis Agassiz, of Cambridge, (Prof, of Zoology and Geology in the Scientific School of Harvard College.) Rev. William R. Alger, of Boston. Joseph Andrews, Esq., of Boston. Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., of New Haven, Conn., (Professor of Didactic Theology in Yale College.) Rev. Charles F. Barnard, of Boston. Dr. George F. Bigelow, of Boston, (Secretary of the Howard Benevolent Association, and Physician at the Washingtonian Home.) Prof. Henry J. Bigelow, M. D., of Boston, (Professor of Surgery in the Medical School of Harvard College.) Hon. Henry W. Bishop, of Lenox, (Ex-Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.) Rev. George W. Blagden, D. D., of Boston, (Senior Pastor of the Old South Church.) Hon. J. C. Blaisdell, of Fall River. Rev. John A. Bolles, D. D., of Boston, (Rector of the Church of the Advent.) Prof. Francis Bowen, of Cambridge, (Alford Professor of Natural Theology, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity in Harvard College.) Rev. Robert Brady, of Boston, (Pastor of St. Mary’s Church.) Augustus O. Brewster, Esq., of Boston, (Ex-Assistant District-Attorney for Suffolk County.) A. M. Brownell, Esq., of New Bedford, (Municipal Marshal of that city.) Hon. E. P. Buffington, of Fall River, (Ex-Mayor of that city.) Brigadier-General Isaac S. Burrell, of Roxbury, (Ex-Municipal Marshal of that city.) Rev. B. F. Clark, of Chelmsford. Prof. Edward H. Clarke, M. D., of Boston, (Professor of Materia Medicain the Medical School of Harvard College.) Hon. John H. Clifford, of New Bedford, (Ex-Governor and Ex-Attorney-General of the Commonwealth.) John C. Cluer, Esq., of Boston. Hon. Charles G. Davis, of Plymouth. 6 E. Hasket Derby, Esq., of Boston. Rev. Manassas Doherty, of Cambridge. Hon. J. H. Duncan, of Haverhill. Right Rev. Manton Eastburn, D. D., of Boston, (Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Massachusetts.) Frank Edson, Esq., of Hadley, (Chairman of the Selectmen and Liquor Agent of that town.) Rev. Theodore Edson, D. D., of Lowell. Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., of Charlestown. Rev. Rufus Ellis, of Boston. M. J. Fassin, Esq., of New York. Hon. Francis B. Fay, of Lancaster, (Ex-Mayor of Chelsea, and Trustee of the State Reform School for Girls at Lancaster.) Hon. Henry F. French, of Cambridge, (Ex-Assistant-District-Attorney for Suffolk County.) Addison Gage, Esq , of West Cambridge. Thomas Gaffield, Esq., of Boston. Hon. E. B. Gillette, of Westfield, (District-Attorney for the Western District.) Albert G. Goodwin, Esq., (Secretary' of the Boston Provident Association.) Hon. Alpheus Hardy, of Boston. Benjamin W. Harris, Esq., of Milton, (Ex-District-Attorney for the South-Eastern District.) Rev. Michael Hartney, of Salem. Rev. George F. Haskins, of Boston, (Head of the House of the Angel Guardian.) Rev. James A. Healey, of Boston. Rev. Frederick H. Hedge, D. D., of Brookline, (Prof, of Ecclesiastical History in the Divinity School of Harvard College. ) Henry Hill, Esq., of Braintree. Hon. George S. Hillard, of Boston, (Lnited States District-Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.) Prof. Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D., of Boston, (Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard College.) Prof. E. N. Horsford, of Cambridge, (Ex-Rumford Professor of the Application of Science to the Art of Life in the Scientific School of Harvard College.) Capt. David Hoyt, of Deerfield. 7 Eev. G. B. Ide, D. D., of Springfield. Prof. Charles T. Jackson, M. D., of Boston. Prof. J. B. S. Jackson, M. D., of Boston, (Shattuek Professor of Morbid Anatomy in the Medical School of Harvard College.) Eev. John Jones, of Pelham. Col. John Kurtz, of Boston, (Chief of Police of the city.) Wm. M. Lathrop, Esq., of Boston. Eev. Thomas E. Lambert, of Charlestown. Louis Lapham, Esq., of Fall Eiver, (Judge of the Police Court of that city.) Hon. George Lewis, of Boxbury, (Mayor of that city.) Hon. D. Waldo Lincoln, of Worcester, (Ex-Mayor of that city.) Hon. Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr., of Boston, (Ex-Mayor of the city.) Eev. Increase S. Lincoln, of Warwick. Eev. Samuel K. Lothrop, D. D., of Boston. Eev. J. C. Lovejoy, of Cambridge. Hon. Alfred Macy, of Nantucket, enry A. Marsh, Esq., of Amherst. Samuel F. McCleary, Esq., of Boston, (City Clerk.) Eev. Lawrence McMahon, of New Bedford. Hon. William S. Messervy, of Salem, (Ex-Mayor of that city.) Eev. Bollin H. Neale, D. D., of Boston. Lyman Nichols, Esq., of Boston. Hon. Otis Norcross, of Boston, (Mayor of the city.) Eev. J. B. O’Hagan, of Boston. P. L. Page, Esq., of Pittsfield, (Judge of the Police Court of that town.) Hon. Henry W. Paine, of Cambridge. Hon. John C. Park, of Boston. Charles Henry Parker, Esq., of Boston, (Manager of the Suffolk Institution for Savings.) 8 Hon. Joel Parker, of Cambridge, (Royall Professor in the Law School of Harvard College; formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Hew Hampshire.) E. B. Patch, Esq., of Lowell. Prof. Andrew P. Peabody, D. D., LL. D., of Cambridge, (Preacher to the University, and Plummer Professor of Christian Doctrine and Morals in Harvard College.) Hon. J. H. Perry, of New Bedford, (Mayor of that, city.) Chase Philbrick, Esq., of Lawrence, (Municipal Marshal of that city.) Edward L. Pierce, Esq., of Milton, (District-Attorney for the South-Eastern District.) Rev. John Power, of Worcester. Rev. George Putnam, D. D., of Roxbury. Hon. George C. Richardson, of Cambridge, (Ex-Mayor of that city; Pres, of the Board of Trade of the city of Boston.) Rev. John P. Robinson, of Boston. Hon. Charles Russell, of Princeton. Hon. Charles Theodore Russell, of Cambridge, (Ex-Mayor of that city.) Hon. George P. Sanger, of Boston, (District-Attorney for Suffolk County.) Edward A. Savage, Esq., of Boston, (Deputy-Chief of Police of the city.) Rev. Thomas Shehan, of Taunton. J. E. Souchard, Esq., French Consul at Boston. Oliver Stackpole, Esq., of Boston. Prof. D. Humphreys Storer, M. D., of Boston, (Professor of Obstetrics and of Medical Jurisprudence in the Medical School of Harvard College.) Rev. Patrick Strain, of Lynn. Rev. Edward T. Taylor, D. D., of Boston, (Pastor at the Seamens’ Bethel in that city.) Minot Tirrell, Jr., Esq., of Lynn. Rev. John Todd, D. D., of Pittsfield. Rev. John E. Todd, of Boston. Rev. Joseph Tracy, D. D., of Beverly, (Lately Editor of the Boston Recorder.) Hon. George B. Upton, of Boston. Theodore Voelckers, Esq., of Boston. 9 Hon. G. Washington Warren, of Charlestown, (Judge of the Police Court, and Ex-Mayor of that city.) Hon. Emory Washburn, of Cambridge, (Bussey Professor in the Law School of Harvard College; Ex-Governor of the Commonwealth; and formerly Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.) Rev. E. M. P. Wells, of Boston, (Rector of St. Stephen’s Church.) Proff James C. White, M. D., of Boston, (Assistant-Professor of Chemistry in Harvard College.) H. W. B. Wightman, Esq., of Chelmsford, (Treasurer of the Chelmsford Foundry Company.) Hon. Joseph M. Wightman, of Boston, (Ex-Mayor of the city.) Rev. Thomas Worcester, D. D., of Boston. In support of the petition of the College of Pharmacy, which was represented by Messrs. Thomas Hollis, President, Samuel M. Colcord, Vice-President, and Henry W. Lincoln, Recording Secretary, as a special committee of its Board of Trustees, the following gentlemen appeared as witnesses : — Charles Edward Buckingham, M. D., (Surgeon of City Hospital, Boston.) Charles C. Bixby, of North Bridgewater, (Apothecary.) Isaac T. Campbell, of Boston, (Examiner of Drugs.) S. M. Colcord, of Boston, Apothecary, (Vice-President of Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.) Thomas Hollis, Apothecary, Boston, (President of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.) James L. Hunt, Apothecary, (Town Liquor Agent of Hingham.) Henry W. Lincoln, Apothecary, Boston, (Recording Secretar}' of Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.) William T. Rand, Dedham, (Formerly an apothecary.) Sampson Reed, Druggist, (Formerly an Alderman of Boston.) Frank W. Simmons, Apothecary, Boston. 2 10 The opening argument for the Remonstrants was then made by Hon. Asahel Huntington, who was followed by William B. Spooner, Esq., and after the examination of their witnesses, the Rev. A. A. Miner, on Tuesday, April 2d, delivered the closing argument in their behalf. He was followed, on Wednesday, April 3, by Hon. John A. Andrew, in behalf of the Petitioners, who closed the hearing with the following ARGUMENT. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : — A measure so extreme and unusual as the statute of Massachusetts — prohibiting the sale of spirituous and fermented liquors, notwithstanding that they are confessedly commercial articles — can rest only on some proposition in science or morals of corresponding sweep. And, although our legis- lation is not entirely consistent in its details with any theory, yet it does in fact rest on a theory which involves these two positions, viz. : The essentially poisonous character of alcoholic bever- ages , and The immorality of their use. It assumes that any law which permits (and regulates) their sale is " immoral and an educator of immorality.” * I. The advocates of Prohibition base their argument in part upon the assumption that alcohol is a poi- son , in the sense in which strychnine or arsenic is poison , to be administered to the human system only * Minority Report of 1866, House Document 359, p. 33. 12 under the restrictions applicable to the administra- tion of fatal drugs. They affirm this of alcohol taken in whatever doses, averring, as it has been concisely expressed by another, " that whatever is true of the excessive use of alcohol is true also in proportionate degree of the moderate and occasional use. v Dr. Car- penter, Registrar of the University of London, and the leading scientific authority with the advocates of prohibition, declares in set terms that " The action of Alcohol upon the animal body in health is essentially poisonous . ” Let us therefore at the outset investigate this assumption that alcohol is necessarily a poison, with an eye to see, (in the language of Liebig concerning tea and coffee, substances akin to, though differing somewhat frojn, alcohol in their working on the human frame,) " whether it depend on sensual and sinful inclinations merely that every people of the globe has appropriated some such means of acting on the nervous life.” * Twenty years ago alimentary substances were classified by Liebig as Respiratory Food, and as Plastic Food, the line of distinction between them, in composition, being the absence or presence of * Liebig’s Letters on Chemistry, 3d London edition, p. 456. 13 nitrogen, and the line of distinction between them in their transformation in the human body, being according t'o Liebig’s theory, that though both are burned by the inhaled oxygen, yet the former is % burned directly by it, without previous transforma- tion into the human tissues, while part of the lat- ter, before final consumption, becomes human tissue. Concisely stated, Liebig’s two classes of food are, therefore, I. Certain non-azotized substances, which, from their large amount of carbon, serve (as fuel,) to keep up the animal heat, and which he names the elements of respiration. II. Certain nitrogenized substances, which are adapted to the formation of blood, (out of that, muscle, and the tissues,) and which he terms the plastic elements of nutrition. Liebig’s theory of combustion or oxidation, and the sharpness of his distinction between his classes, have been modified by recent scientific disputants; but his position that alcoholic beverages taken in fit combinations, and in due moderation, perform the functions of food, remains unshaken. 14 He says,-*- “ Besides fat and those substances which contain carbon and the elements of water, man consumes, in the shape of the alcohol of fermented liquors, another substance, which in his body, plays exactly the same part as the non-nitrogen- ized constituents of food. “ The alcohol, taken in the form of wine or any other similar beverage, disappears in the body of man. Although the elements of alcohol do not possess by themselves the property of combining with oxygen at the temperature of the body, and forming carbonic acid and water, yet alcohol acquires, by contact with bodies in the condition of erema- causis or absorption of oxygen, such as are invariably pres- ent in the body, this property to a far higher degree than is known to occur in the case of fat and other non-nitrogenized substances.” * !N"ot only have many physiologists and chemists adopted this general theory, but even those others, who modify the theory of Liebig as stated by himself, nevertheless classify alcoholic drinks in the category of foods.f * Animal Chemistry, 3d edition : London, pp. 97, 98. f See, among other authorities, Clinical Medicine, by W. T. Gairdner, Physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and Lecturer on the Practice of Medicine ; and Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical ; or< the Conditions and Course of the Life of Man, by Prof. John W. Draper, pp. 27, 28. See, also, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for January 31, 1867, which contains a brief account of Dr. Frankland’s deductions from his own experiments and those of Professors Fiqk and Wislicenus, con- cerning the capacity of non-azotized food to supply power and repair waste. 15 In the result which we shall reach concerning alcohol, it makes no practical difference whether Liebig’s division of food stands or falls. If alco- hol be food, it matters not to the question of a Prohibitory Law, whether it be Respiratory Food or Plastic Food. Dr. Carpenter himself, admits alcohol, in one work,* into the category of foods, classifying it with the oleaginous group of foods, although in another work,f denouncing it as poison. As Mr. Lewes tersely says of him on just this point: — "We have only to disentangle his confusion and we find him an ally.” Alcohol contains the carbon and hydrogen which belong to the normal elements of the body, and common experience in all wine-growing and beer- drinking countries, and the experience of invalids and convalescents everywhere, who are often sup- ported almost entirely on alcoholic fluids, show that they are assimilated. Therefore (though not proper, undiluted, any more than saltpetre, or oxygen are good food by themselves,) it is capable of acting, and does act, in certain beverages, as a food. * Human Physiology, p. 475. f Physiology of Temperance and Total Abstinence. 16 That light wines, ale, beer and cider act (when moderately used,) as a poison, is contradicted also by common experience , by examples like the life- long practice of Cornaro, and the testimony of entire nations and successive ages. Cornaro from his fortieth year to his death, restricted himself to a daily allowance of twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of wine. Of him Dr. Carpenter writes:* — " The smallest quantity of food upon which life is known to have been supported with vigor during a prolonged period, is that on which Cornaro states himself to have subsisted. This was no more than twelve ounces a day chiefly of vegetable matter, with fourteen ounces of light wine, for a period of fifty-eight years.” Born at Venice in 1467, he died at Padua in 1566. Commenting upon this statement by Dr. Car- penter, Mr. George Henry Lewes, (author of the Physiology of Common Life,) says :f — “Observe the proportion of wine in this diet, and then ask how it is in the face of such facts, that Dr. Car- penter can deny the nutritive value of alcohol.” Concerning wine Liebig says : — X * Human Physiology, p. 387. t Westminster Review, No. cxxv., July, 1855. { Letters on Chemistry, 3d London edition, p. 454. 17 “ As a restorative, a means of refreshment when the powers of life are exhausted, of giving animation and energy where man has to struggle with days of sorrow, as a means of correction and compensation where misproportion occurs in nutrition , wine is surpassed by no product of nature or of art. * * * In no part of Germany do the apothecaries’ establishments bring so low a price as in the rich cities on the Rhine ; for there wine is the universal medicine of the healthy as well as the sick. It is considered as milk for the aged.” Pereira writes as follows concerning beer: — “ Considered dietetically, beer possesses a threefold prop- erty ; it quenches thirst ; it stimulates, cheers, and if taken in sufficient quantity, intoxicates ; lastly, it nourishes or strengthens. * * * Beer proves a refreshing and salubrious drink (if taken in moderation,) and an agreeable and valu- able stimulus and support to those who have to undergo much bodity fatigue.” In the article " Diet,” in Chambers’s Encyclopae- dia,* the writer says : — “ The laboring man, who can hardly find bread and meat enough to preserve the balance between the formation and decay of his tissues, finds in alcohol an agent which, if taken in moderation, enables him, without disturbing his health, to dispense with a certain quantity of food, and yet keeps up the weight and strength of his body.” * Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, Vol. iii., p. 552. Art. Diet. See also the Anatomy of Drunkenness, by Dr. Macnish, p. 225. 3 18 !N"ay, at the close of Dr. Carpenter’s work on the Physiology of Temperance and Total Absti- nence, — a work which is the scientific manual of the Prohibitionists, — occurs the following passage. He is arguing upon a thesis which he expresses as follows, viz. : that “ whilst the habitual use of alco- holic liquors, even in the most moderate amount, is likely, (except in a few rare cases,) to be injurious, great benefit may be derived in the treatment of disease , from the medicinal use of alcohol in appro- priate cases.” And he comes finally to speak of " a class of individuals, who,” he says, " can scarcely be regarded as subjects of disease, but in whom the conditions are essentially different from those of health.” " These are such,” he contin- ues, " as, from constitutional debility, or early hab- its, or some other cause that does not admit of rectification, labor under an habitual deficiency of appetite and digestive power, even when they are living under circumstances generally most favora- ble to vigor, and when there is no indication of dis- ordered action in any organ, all that is needed being a slight increase in the capacity for preparing the aliment which the body really needs. Experience affords ample evidence that there are such cases, especially among those engaged in avocations which t 19 involve a good deal of mental activity; and that, with the assistance of a small but habitual allow- ance of alcoholic stimulants, a long life of active exertion may be sustained, whilst the vital powers would speedily fail without their aid, not for the want of direct support from them, but for the want of the measure of food which the system really needs, and which no other means seems so effectual in enabling it to appropriate. * * * To withhold the assistance of alcoholic stimulants, (it is in their very mildest form, such as that of bitter ale, that they are most beneficial,) would often be to con- demn the individuals in question to a life-long debility, incapacitating them from all activity of exertion in behalf of themselves or others, and ren- dering them susceptible to a variety of other causes of disease. For it seems to be the peculiar charac- ter of this condition, that no other medicine can supply what is wanting, with the same effect as a small quantity of an alcoholic beverage, taken with the principal meal of the day.” This extract, from Carpenter, leads us to consider now, what is a stimulant f It is often alleged against alcohol that it is stimulating; that it is even more stimulating than almost any other substance in ordi- nary use for diet. But what is a stimulant? Is a » 20 substance intrinsically deleterious for diet because it is stimulating? Is it justly a reproach to a man that he uses stimulants? Let us not be deceived by words. Let us probe this question. And first, for a brief, clear, sharp, incisive definition of the term “ stimulant.” This has been well expressed thus: — " StimuZcmZs are only energetic stimuZZ. X o w all living acts require stimuli, — the eye light, the egg and seed heat or heat and moisture, the stomach food, sometimes condiments. It is hard to draw the line. Xinon de l’Enclos said her soup made her tipsy, and convalescents have been said to get drunk on a beefsteak. That which is a stimuZws to one person is a stimuZcmZ to another. The last term means only a more concentrated form of stimulus, or one which acts more vigorously than ordinary stimuli, for any reason in itself or in the person.” Mr. Lewes, in the " Westminster Review,” * sums up the question concerning alcohol as a stimulant, as follows: — * Westminster Review, Xo. cxxv., July, 1S55, American edition pp. 59, 60. See also the Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 577, hv Prof. John W. Draper, concerning the use of food by animals, for the force it contains. Also the able paper by Dr. Edward Smith, On the Actions of Alcohols, printed with the Transactions of the Xational Association for the Promotion of Social Science. London, 1860. 21 “ Life is only possible under incessant stimulus. Organic processes depend on incessant change, and this change is dependent on stimuli. The stimulus of food, the stimulus of fresh air, the stimulus of exercise, are called natural, ben- eficial ; the stimulus of alcohol seems selected for special reprobation without cause being shown, except that people choose to say it is not natural. How not natural ? The phrase can have two significations, and it can have but two : first, that alcohol is not a stimulus which man employs in a state of nature ; second, it is not consonant with the nature of his organism. The second is a pure begging of the ques- tion ; and the first is in flat contradiction with experience. * * * No nation known to us has ever passed into the inven- tive condition of even rudimentary civilization without dis- covering, and, having discovered, without largely indulging in, the stimulus of alcohol. Man discovers fermentation as he discovers the tea-plant and the coffee-plant. “ Of two things, one ; either we must condemn all stimu- lus, and alcohol, because it is a stimulus ; or we must prove that there is something peculiar in the alcoholic stimulus which demarcates it from all others. Here, again, the reader sees the question narrowed and brought within an arena of precise debate. Only two positions are possible ; indeed, we may say, only one ; for who is mad enough to condemn all stimulus ? The ground thus cleared, the fight narrowed to this one point, let us do justice to the strength of our antag- onist ; let us confess at once that there is a peculiarity in alcohol which justifies in some degree its bad reputation, a peculiarity upon which all the mischief of intoxication de- pends ; one which causes all the miseries so feelingly laid to its door. And what is this peculiarity ? Nothing less than the fascination of its virtue, the potency of its effect ; were 22 it less alluring, it would not lure to excess ; were it less potent, it would not leap into such flames of fiery exaltation.” Prof. J. F. TV. Johnson, in his Chemistry of Com- mon Life,* one of the most useful works of that distinguished chemist, says: — “ It is ascertained of ardent spirits, First. That they directly warm the body, and, by the changes they undergo in the blood, supply a portion of that carbonic acid and watery vapor which, as a necessity of life, are constantly being given off by the lungs. They so far, therefore, supply the place of food — of the fat and starch for example — which we usually eat. Hence a schnapps, in Germany, with a slice of lean dried meat, make a mixture like that of the starch and gluten in our bread, which is capable of feeding the body. So we either add sugar to milk, or take spirits along with it, (old man’s milk,) for the purpose of adjusting the proportions of the ingredients more suitably to the con- stitution, or to the circumstances in which it is to be consumed. “ Second. That they diminish the absolute amount of matter usually given off by the lungs and the kidneys. They thus lessen, as tea and coffee do, the natural waste of the fat and tissues, and they necessarily diminish in an equal degree the quantity of ordinary food which is necessary to keep up the weight of the body. In other words, they have the property of making a given weight of food go further in sustaining the strength and bulk of the body. And, in addition to the saving of material thus effected, they ease and * Vol. i., p. 349. 23 lighten the labor of the digestive organs, which, when the stomach is weak, is often a most valuable result. “ Hence fermented liquors, if otherwise suitable to the constitution, exercise a beneficial influence iipon old people, and other weakly persons whose fat and tissues have begun to waste. * * * This lessening in weight or substance is one of the most usual consequences of the approach of old age. It is a common symptom of the. decline of life. * * * Weak alcoholic drinks arrest or retard, and thus diminish the daily amount of this loss of substance. * * * Hence poets have called wine 1 the milk of the old,’ and scientific philosophy owns the propriety of the term. If it does not nourish the old so directly as milk nourishes the young, yet it certainly does aid in supporting and filling up their failing frames. And it is one of the happy consequences of a temperate youth and manhood, that this spirituous milk does not fail in its good effects when the weight of years begins to press upon us.” And now, with especial reference to alcohol both as food and as stimulus, the latest, and certainly one of the ablest, scientific authorities, is the recent work on " Stimulants and ^Narcotics ” by Dr. Francis E. Anstie, lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics, and formerly on Toxicology, at Westminster. Dr. Anstie says : — “ If anything deserves the name of a food , assuredly oxygen does, for it is the most necessary element in every process of life. It is highly suggestive, then, to find that 24 that very same quiet and perfect action of the vital functions, without undue waste, without hurry, without pain, without excessive material growth, is precisely what we produce, when we produce any useful effect, by the administration of stimulants , though, as might he expected, our artificial means are weak and uncertain in their operation, compared with the great natural stimulus of life.” (p. 145.) “ A stimulus promotes or restores some natural action, and is no more liable to be followed by morbid depression than is the revivifying influence of food. And if it he sought to distinguish foods by the peculiar characteristic of being transformed in the body , then I answer that this is the worst definition of food that can be given ; since water, which is not transformed in the body at all, is nevertheless, the most necessary element of nutrition, seeing that human life can- not only not be maintained without it, but may subsist for weeks on water as its only pabulum besides the atmosphere and tissues.” (p. 149.) “ Alcohol taken alone or with the addition alone of small quantities of water, will prolong life greatly beyond the period at which it must cease if no nourishment or water only had been given ; that in acute diseases it has repeat- edly supported not only life, hut even the hulk of the body during many days of abstinence from common foods ; and that, in a few instances persons have supported themselves almost solely on alcohol and inconsiderable quantities of water for years.” “ We may be at a loss to explain the chemistry of its action on the body, but we may safely say that it acts as a food.” *(p- 138.) “ Another grand argument against the propriety of com- paring stimulants with true foods has always been that 25 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 super- abundant 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 con- sidering. 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 tea- spoonful 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 Mar- shall 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 com- * Treatise on Food and Digestion , by William Brinton, M. D., F. R. S., Physician to St. Thomas’ Hospital. (English.) 4 26 patible 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 we assume that this result will extend to our population at large. And, in respect to experience, it is singular how few healthy teetotallers are to be met with in our ordinary inhabitants of cities. Glancing back over the many years during which this question has been forced upon the author by his professional duties, he may estimate that he has sedulously examined not less than 50,000 to 70,000 persons, including many thousands in perfect health. "Wish- ing, and even expecting to find it otherwise, he is obliged to confess that he has hitherto met with but very few perfectly healthy middle-aged persons, successfully pursuing any arduous metropolitan calling under teetotal habits. On the other hand, he has known many total abstainers, whose apparently sound constitutions have given way with unusual and frightful rapidity when attacked by a casual sickness.” The emphasis of this opinion will be more fully appreciated, if one will but examine Dr. Brin- ton’s book ” On Diseases of the Stomach,” which exhibits him in a most cautious and conservative light, iu the remedial prescription of alcoholic drinks. I come now very briefly to consider certain recent experiments upon which the prohibitionists mainly rely, to control the scientific opinions to which I have already alluded. I mean those of MM. Lallemand, Perrin, and Durov. These inge- 27 nious French chemists, after a series of original experiments, supposed themselves to have proved that " alcohol is eliminated from the organism in totality and in nature ,” and that it " is never trans- formed, never destroyed in the organism .” Their conclusion therefore, is, that " alcohol is not food,” as a scientific proposition, although as matter of practice they do go for light wines. In a pamphlet entitled "Is Alcohol Food or Physic,” which I bought at the rooms of the “ Temperance Alliance ” in Boston, in which these gentlemen are upheld as supposed destroyers of the theory of which Liebig may he termed the father, I find that their experi- ments are contrasted favorably with others, because they were made on an empty stomach; and that these French experiments are confessedly patho- logical, rather than dietetic. The argument drawn from them, assumes, in great part, that inferences can be fairly drawn from effects produced by narcotic, or poisonous doses, (as for instance, the case of a man who died thirty-two hours after drinking a pint of brandy,) to the case of a person, using with temperance as a part of his meal, and in due proportion with other food, an article of mild drink in which it is combined. The same reasoning would in like manner, justify the argu- 28 merit that, because a decoction of green tea, of a given strength, will surely cause death, therefore a cup of weak tea taken with supper, — containing as it does, a portion of theine , the characteristic prin- ciple of tea, — is a deleterious drink, and propor- tionally poisonous. It also overlooks the mysteri- ous subtleties of animal life, and those, still more mysterious and elusive, which connect the moral with the animal economy. It fails to observe the existence of a vital chepiistry, some of the phe- nomena of which are observable, but whose laws thus far defy our capacity for logical definition. It even overlooks the varying action of the different alcoholic drinks, disclosed in the experiments of Dr. Edward Smith; for example, brandy and gin lessening the quantity of carbonic acid evolved in respiration, while it was increased, on the other hand, by the use of ale, and by the use of rum. Animal chemistry is in its infancy. The positive knowledge on the points undertaken to be so dog- matically affirmed, on the strength of those recent French experiments, is relatively little; and men of science do not concur with their deductions. Dr. Anstie, after having discussed and examined the many experiments both of Smith and of Lalle- mand and his friends, nevertheless declares, in view 29 of tlieir facts and those disclosed by the experiments of himself and of Baudot and others, his non-concur- rence with the Lallemand theory; and, (comparing it with aether and chloroform,) he says of alcohol that it seems as if it " was intended to he the medi- cine of those ailments which are engendered of the necessary every day evils of civilized life, and has therefore been made attractive to the senses, and easily retained in the tissues, and in various ways approving itself to our judgment as a food / while the others, which are more rarely needed for their stimulant properties, and are chiefly valuable for their beneficent temporary poisonous action, by the help of which painful operations are sustained with impunity, are in a great measure deprived of these attractions, and of their facilities for entering and remaining in the system.” * One of the most able English scientific critics of these French experiments further says :f “ Dr. Brinton, [in his work on Food and Digestion,] who is I)}' no means unreasonably prejudiced in favor of alcohol, has given it as the result' of his very large experience, that persons who abstain altogether from alcohol, break down, almost invariably, after a certain number of years, if they * Stimulants and Narcotics, p. 401. f Cornhill Magazine, No. 33, September, 1862. Art., Does Alcohol act as a Food ? p. 329. 30 are constantly employed in any severe intellectual or phys- ical labor. Either their minds or their bodies give way suddenly, and the mischief once done is very hard to repair. This is quite in accordance with what I have myself observed, and with what I can gather from other medical men : and it speaks volumes concerning the way in which we ought to regard alcohol. If, indeed, it be a fact, that in a certain high state of civilization men require to take alcohol every day, in some shape or other, under penalty of breaking down prematurely in their work, it is idle to appeal to a set of imperfect chemical or physiological experiments, and to decide, on their evidence, that we ought to call alcohol a medicine or a poison, but not a food. In the name of com- mon sense, why should we retain these ridiculous distinc- tions for any other purpose than to avoid catastrophes ? If it be well understood that a glass of good wine will relieve a man’s depression and fatigue sufficiently to enable him to digest his dinner, and that a pint of gin taken at once will probably kill him stone dead, why haggle about words ? On the part of the medical profession, I think I may say that we have long since begun to believe that those medicines which really do benefit our patients act in one way or another as foods, and that some of the most decidedly poi- sonous substances are those which offer, in the form of small doses, the strongest example of a true food action ? “ On the part of alcohol, then, I venture to claim that though we all acknowledge it to be a poison, if taken during health in any but quite restricted doses, it is also a most valuable medicine-food. I am obliged to declare that the chemical evidence is as yet insufficient to give any complete explanation of its exact manner of action upon the system ; but that the practical facts are as striking as they could well 31 be, and that there can be no mistake about them. And I have thought it proper that, while highly-colored statements of the results of the new French researches are being some- what disingenuously placed before the lay public, there should not be a total silence on the part of those members of the profession who do not see themselves called upon to yield to the mere force of agitation.” And just a dozen years ago, Dr. James Jackson, the venerable, beloved and most eminent ^Nestor of the medical profession in America, bore this public testimony concerning the medicinal employ- ment of spirits and wines: — “ 1 would never order them to one whom I suspected to be deficient in prudence and self-control. But, keeping these things in mind, I have often directed the use even of brandy. In doing this, I have been in the habit of saying to the patient, ‘ If I ever hear of your indulging to excess in the use of this, or any similar article, I will call on you and exhort you to stop.’ In one instance, and only one in the course of a long life, have I been called upon to redeem my pledge. This was in the case of a worthy lady, some twenty years after I had directed the measured use of brandy. At my request, she immediately gave up the use of all spirituous and fermented liquors, and I have reason to believe that she never resumed them. I do not, then, call the risk very great of such prescriptions, when made with proper caution. In regard to the benefit, in some cases of dyspepsia, and in various other cases, I have .not any doubt. And, that I may tell the whole, let me say, that 32 I have repeatedly seen very great benefit from giving wine to young children. The benefit has been particularly marked in some children struggling feebly through the period of dentition, and I can name some to whom I had made this prescription more than forty years ago, among whom not one has shown any peculiar fondness for wine in subsequent years. I exhort all young people in health not to adopt the practice of drinking wine. I deprecate every- thing which shall tend to intemperance, and I believe that many men suffer from the use of wine and spirits, even in a moderate way. But I love to tell the truth, even when it is unfashionable. I believe that very many persons are benefited by the juice of the grape, and I choose to say so. Moreover, I believe that persons disposed to intemperance are not to be restrained from indulging their vicious propensity, by the abstinence of their more prudent neighbors.” * Professor Gairdner, of Edinburgh — while wholly opposing the theory of retarding the metamorpho- sis of tissue as a desirable end, and while admitting that to the perfect ideal man, living in the enjoy- ment of all natural and wholesome vital stimuli, amid perfect hygienic conditions, such liquors are probably worse than superfluous — declares his desire to leave all the physiological abstractions, * Letters to a Young Physician just entering upon Practice, by Dr. James Jackson, M. D., LL.D., Professor Emeritus of the Theory and Practice of Physic in the University of Cambridge, late Physician Massa- chusetts General Hospital, Honorary Member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Medicine at Paris, &c., &c., &c. 33 and to take his stand on the great broad series of recognized facts, which prove their relieving, reviv- ing and supporting power under difficulties and in emergencies; claiming the right of reason to discriminate between their use and abuse. In that spirit he quotes in his work on " Clinical Medicine ” this paragraph, from the " Letters to a Young Phy- sician,” calling it " the whole matter in a nutshell .” Yot content with my own unlearned reflections, nor even to leave the matter with Dr. Anstie, I called the subject as it is presented by Lallemand, to the attention of Dr. James C. "White, the learned assistant-professor of chemistry in Harvard College. The report made by that gentleman, confirms the belief, in 'which Anstie had also concurred, that some alcohol is eliminated unchanged through the channels indicated by Lallemand and his friends; thus establishing an error in the previously held theory that, with the exception of a small amount which escaped by the lungs, during expiration, this substance was entirely consumed within the organ- ism. But he affirms that these experiments in no way prove that alcohol is eliminated in totality from the system ; for the experiments on which that con- clusion is based, furnish the strongest possible evi- dence of its unwarrantableness. The very experi- 5 34 ments on which alone they rest the conclusion that all which is taken into the animal economy escapes again unchanged, fail to discover any but a very small percentage discharged through the various channels of elimination. Yet the assertion is, that all has been thus eliminated; while if anything is proved at all, it is proved that alcohol is nearly all consumed within the organism, and that a very small percentage escapes unchanged. But it should be remembered that an excessive quantity of either salt or sugar being taken into the system, the excess is disposed of in the same way. Of the proposition that " alcohol is never trans- formed, never destroyed ” in the organism, Dr. White reports thus: — “ Former investigators had come to the conclusion that alcohol was converted into aldehyde and acetic acid, pro- gressive products of oxygenation of alcohol, which in turn underwent further transformation, and that it finally escaped as carbonic acid and water. Lallemand,