The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

A lcoliol ait A efosthei5c.
anesthetic agents like chloroform and ether, whose
short excitant effect is succeeded by a depressing or
deadening influence upon the nervous system. Dr. King
Chambers, in his " Renewal of Life," challenges the right
of alcohol to the title of a true stimulant:" What is a
stimulant? It is usually held to be something which
spurs on an animal to a more vigorous performance of its
duties. It seems doubtful if, on the healthy nervous system, this is ever the effect of alcohol, even in the most
moderate doses, for the shortest period of time. A diminution of force is quite consistent with augmented
quickness of motion, or may it not be said that, in involuntary muscles, it implies it? The action of chloroform
is to quicken the pulse, yet the observations of Dr. Bedford Brown on the circulation in the human cerebrum
during anaesthesia clearly show that the propelling power
of the heart is diminished during that state." Dr. B. W.
Richardson, in his Sixth Report to the British Scientific
Association, reproduced in a lecture entitled "Physiological Research on Alcohols,"* discountenances and repels
the idea that alcoholic excitement is strength: "As soon
as the alcohol makes its way into the organism and diffuses through the fluids, so soon there is depression, so
soon respiration falls, carbonic acid gas from respiration
decreases, and muscular strength, consciousness, and
sensibility decline.... Speaking honestly, I cannot
admit the alcohols through any gate that might distinguish them as apart from other chemical bodies I can
no more accept them as foods than I can chloroform, or
ether, or methylal. That they produce a temporary ex citement is true; but, as their general action is quickly to
reduce animal heat, I cannot see how they can supply
animal force.... To resort for force to alcohol is, to
my mind, equivalent to the act of searching for the sun
in subterranean gloom, until all is night." That the
* Delivered Dec. 7, IS59; reported in Medical Times aezd Gazewte, Dec. iB8.
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