On ether-drinking and extra-alcoholic intoxication / [Benjamin Ward Richardson].

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
[between 1876 and 1896?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On ether-drinking and extra-alcoholic intoxication / [Benjamin Ward Richardson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    / y 1 ON ETHER-DRINKING AND EXTRA- ALCOHOLIC INTOXICATION. HOSE who like to find excuses for indulgence in the use of X alcoholic drinks are apt to argue that the taste for intoxicants is a part of natural man. Some go further and declare that the said part, more clearly than anything else, distinguishes man from the beast. The beast has no taste for strong drink; the beast never gets drunk of its own will and pleasure; the beast knows nothing of the enjoyment of the wine cup, of wine that maketh glad the heart of man : therefore, the poor beast is a little lower than man, as man is a little lower than the angels. It is a pity to break this delusion, but it must be broken. Beasts are not so much lower in intelligence than man that they cannot enjoy wine. Man is not so much above the beast that he alone can enjoy it. With both man and beast the taste for and enjoyment of alcoholic drink are mere matters of education. You can educate either of them to take strong drink, and the world, if it liked the amusement, could train up menageries of drunken beasts that would rival the gin palaces of Liverpool, Manchester, or London itself. There is a disease common amongst the hard drinkers of the human family which has gained the common name of gin-drinker’s liver,” and which the learned members of the Faculty of Medicine call ‘‘ cirrhosis of the liver.” The disease consists of an indurated condition of the liver which impedes, and as a rule fatally impedes, the function of that vital organ, with dropsy as a further condition, and death in due time, which is not often a long time. Amongst my pathological specimens I have the cirrhosed liver of a cat. This cat was taught by some young children to drink alcohol. The cat would amuse a company at dessert by taking her share of old port, and by becoming first excited and then very stupid, unsteady, and sleepy. In a few months this feline drunkard became dropsical and soon died. Her liver presented one of the most typical examples of cirrhosis.