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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    6] them. They do not eat so well as their brother drunk- ards. An insatiable desire for a morning dram makes them early risers, and their breakfast amounts to almost nothing. The principal varieties of spirits, as already men- tioned, are rum, brandy, whisky, and gin. It is need- less to enter iitto any detail of the histoiy of these fluids. Brandy kills soonest; it takes most rapidly to the head, and, more readily than the others, tinges the face to a crimson or livid hue. Rum is pro- bably the next in point of fatality; and, after that, whisky and gin. The superior diuretic qualities of the two latter, and the less luscious sources from which they are procured, may possibly account for such differences. I am at the same time aware that some persons entertain a different idea of the relative danger of these liquors: some, for instance, conceive that gin is more rapidly fatal than any of them; but it is to be remembered, that it, more than any other ardent spirit, is liable to adultera- tion. That, from this circumstance, more lives may be lost by its use, I do not deny. In speaking of gin, however, and comparing its effects with those of the rest of the class to which it belongs, I must be understood to speak of it in its pure condition, and not in that detestable state of sophistication in which D
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