The anatomy of drunkenness / By Robert Macnish.

  • Robert Macnish
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of drunkenness / By Robert Macnish. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    adopted. Dr. Johnson fled for years to wine under his habitual gloom. He found that the pangs were re- moved while its immediate influence lasted, but he also found that they returned with double force when that influence passed away. He saw the dangerous precipice on which he stood, and, by an unusual effort of volition, gave it over. In its stead he substituted tea; and to this milder stimulus had recourse in his melancholy. Voltaire and Fontenelle, for the same purpose, used coffee. The excitements of Newton and Hobbes were the fumes of tobacco, while Demosthenes and Haller were sufficiently stimulated by drinking freely of cold water. Such are the differences of constitution. “ As good be melancholy still, as drunken beasts and beggars.” So says old Burton, in Iris Anatomy of Melancholy, and there are few who will not subscribe to his creed. The same author quaintly, but justly remarks, “ if a drunken man gets a child, it will never, likely, have a good brain.” Dr. Darwin, a great authority on all subjects connected with life, says, that he never knew a glutton affected with the gout, who was not at the same time addicted to liquor. He also observes, “ it is remarkable that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation,
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