Alcohol at the bar : the highest medical and scientific testimony concerning its use / compiled by G.W. Bacon.

Date:
[between 1880 and 1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alcohol at the bar : the highest medical and scientific testimony concerning its use / compiled by G.W. Bacon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their habits of eating been corrected their habits of drinking would have followed suit inevitably. “ Whenever a man begins to eat gluttonously, he creates for himself that appetitive desire for stimulants which it is next to impossible to control. Hence, it is important to give heed to the matter of eating. Simple habits in diet always lead to sobriety in respect to the use of stimu- lants, while highly seasoned food awakens the desire for stimulants, and thus creates an appetite which under social conditions favourable to indulgence is almost sure to over- come all moral considerations, and to cause the tempted and the tried to become victims “ From the eating of stimulating and exciting foods, affecting the nerves of the stomach, arises an irritable con- dition of the nerves of nutrition, and by reflex action, of the nerves of taste, and at length there is awakened a longing or desire for something to overcome the feeling of exhaustion, which when stimulants are not in use, is always noticeable, and sometimes imperious in its demands. “ It does not follow, however, that the appetite for strong drinks is attributable only to the irritation caused to the nerves of nutrition and taste by reason of the use of highly seasoned foods. Articles of diet which in them- selves lack the constituents to make good the waste to which the nerve structures are subjected in performing their proper office, have a direct effect in awaking and producing the desire for stimulating beverages. This cannot be otherwise while the staple articles of food in use by our population at large are, many of them, defective in those properties out of which nerve structure can be built A man can wear away his nerves by activit}^ or from want of proper nutriment to them, as readity as he can wear away his muscles; and when the nerves, that ought to be in their full development as large as a coarse thread, come to be not larger than a hair, they can no longer perform their office. From want of this capacity a great many diseases marked by debility ensue “ Under a great variety of circumstances exhibited in our
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