The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter.

Date:: 1853

Credit: The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

60/192 (page 52)

$the assumption that the teetotalers are to be regarded as men naturally possessed of self-control and free from vicious propensities,* Avho are therefore indisposed to criminal ac- tions ; whilst the intem])erate would all be mauvais sujets, even if they had no alcoholic liquors to stimulate their passions, and destroy their power of self-government. But it is obvious that, although this maybe true to a certain extent, the difterence is too marked, especially, as regards that between the temperate and the teetotallers, to be tlms explained away; and besides, it is a notorious fact, that a large proportion of the teetotallers are reclaimed drunkards, who, if the restraint of their pledge were removed, would rush into the wildest excesses. 51. A still more conclusive proof, however, is afforded by cases in which the conduct of the same populations or bodies of men may be compared, when on the two different systems, —the abstinence system not being voluntarily adopted, but forced upon them. Thus, the introduction of a law into the State of Maine (New Eugland), prohibiting the manufacture and sale of Alcoholic liquors, except under certain stringent regulations, has almost entirely done away witli the oppor- tunities of indulgence in the use of intoxicatiug drinl^s; and the result has been a most marked diminution in the number of offences, both against the person and against i property.—The following is a yet stronger case. It was the concurrent opinion of all the witnesses of rarious grades in the Naval service, who were examined before the Admiralty Committee of which mention has already been made, that a i state of either actual intoxication, or of irritability arising j out of half-drunkenness, is the immediate cause of from ; three-fourths to nine-tenths of the punishments which it is 1 found necessary to inflict on board a ship of war; and this I opinion, based upon common observation, was found to be | justified, not merely by the examination of the lists of \ offences, but by experiments made for the purpose of testing it. The decision of the Conmiittee, to recommend that the allowance'of spirits should be reduced one-half, and that it , should be issued only once instead of twice in the day, was ' perhaps the most practicable measure that could be devised luider the circumstances; and this has already worked a \iost important change. For the author has learned, on$