The anatomy of drunkenness / [Robert Macnish].

  • Robert Macnish
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    35 perament seems to feel most intensely the excite- ment of the bottle. Persons of this stamp have usually a ruddy complexion, thick neck, small head, and strong muscular fibre. Their intellect is in general mediocre, for great bodily strength and cor- responding mental powers are rarely united to- gether. In such people, the animal propensities prevail over the moral and intellectual ones. They are prone to combativeness and sensuality, and are either very good-natured or extremely quarrelsome. All their passions are keen: like the Irish women, they will fight for their friends or with them as ocea- sion requires. They are talkative fromthe beginning, and, during confirmed intoxication, perfectly obstre- perous. It is men of this class who are the heroes of all drunken companies, the patrons of masonic lodges, the presidents and getters-up of jovial meet- ings. With them, eating and drinking are the grand ends of human life. Look at their eyes, how they sparkle at the sight of wine, and how their lips smack and their teeth water in the neighbour- hood of a good dinner: they would scent out a ban- quet in Siberia. When intoxicated, their passions are highly excited: the energies of a hundred minds then seem concentrated into one focus. Their mirth, their anger, their love, their folly, are all equally in-
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