At all periods this degrading vice appears to have been more or less prevalent. We find it frequently mentioned in the early history of the Jews. Tacitus informs us that it was common amongst the ancient Germans; and in Greece and Rome it was not only common, but frequently extolled as beneficial—as medicinal:

Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
Hor matutin rebibas, et erit medicina.

Socrates considered the indulgence in wine pardonable. Thus, C. Gallus:

Hoc quoque virtutem quondam certamine, magnum
Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt.

According to Horace, Cato the Censor had often recourse to its exhilarating virtues:

Narratur et prisci Catonis
SÆpe mero incaluisse virtus.Seneca informs us that even the Roman ladies frequently indulged in these potations. The drunkenness of the ancients bore all the disgusting character of the present day, and was thus admirably described by Lucretius:

Cum vini penetravit—
Consequitur gravitas membrorum, prÆpediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
Nant oculi; clamor, singultus, jurgia gliscunt.

However, from the language of the ancients, we cannot come to the conclusion that Socrates, and other great men who were accused of inebriety, were habitual drunkards, or even that, under the influence of their potations, they were occasionally deprived of their reason. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the ancients both ate and drank a great deal during their repasts; and thus mingling their wine and their food, like most of the continental nations, they were less subject to the inconveniences that arose from their indulgence in liquor. Indeed, the term sobriety applies to a proper regulation of our ingesta, according to our constitution and our state of health. Extreme abstinence on some occasions may prove as prejudicial as intemperance; and there are peculiar idiosyncrasies where a certain quantity of stimulus is absolutely requisite to keep up the animal spirits, and at the same time assist assimilations which become languid under mental depression. No doubt, this necessity has arisen from habit,—most probably a very bad habit; still, when it does exist, physicians should be cautious in suddenly forbidding customary indulgences: we must also consider on such occasions the pursuits of different individuals. The laborious classes, who require more frequent refection, from the constant exhaustion to which their avocations expose them, can bear with impunity a moderate use of strong liquors. Such a practice would destroy the sedentary and the studious. Temperance is essentially requisite to perfect not only our intellectual faculties, but many of our physical functions. The senses both of man and the brute creation are rendered much more keen by abstinence. The scent of the dog, the vision of the hawk, are less acute after feeding; and this is one of the chief causes of the greater perspicuity in our ideas when fasting in the morning. The ancients had an axiom founded upon observation, “if you wish to become robust, eat and labour; if you wish to become wise, fast and meditate.” The Greeks called sobriety, s?f??s???; or, according to Aristotle, as though they said, s????sa? t?? f????s??, it assisted our intellectuals. Plato tells us that Socrates termed this quality s?t???a? t?? ?????se??, or the health of the mind. Xenophon maintained that it prevented men from spitting or blowing their noses, as we were not in need of superfluities when we decreased the consumption of what was necessary. The ancients looked upon sobriety as a bent bow, that required occasional relaxation.

It is said, but I know not on what authority, that Hippocrates recommended an indulgence in potations once a month. Celsus recommends persons in perfect health not to be too rigorous in their diet; sometimes to fast, and at others to live more freely. In more modern times this supposed precept of Hippocrates has been advocated, and we find two theses on the subject, entitled “Non ergo singulis mensibus repetita ebrietas salubris,” and “Non ergo unquam ebrietas salubris,” by Hammet and Langlois. Zacchias, in his medical questions, asks if a physician can recommend such a departure from the laws of temperance without committing a sin. This query has been also debated by divines. Frederick Hoffmann maintained that poets required this indulgence, and attributes in a great measure the falling off of genius amongst the modern Greeks to the destruction of their vineyards by the Turks. In ancient Iconography we oftentimes find Bacchus placed near Minerva. The allusions of Heathen mythology to drunkenness, its effects, and the means of tempering its influence, are curious. Silenus, the preceptor of Bacchus, although represented as always intoxicated, was a philosopher, who accompanied his pupil in his Indian expedition, and aided him by the soundness of his judgment. Virgil makes him deliver the principles of the epicurean doctrines on the formation of the world, and the nature of things. Ælian gives us his conversation with Midas regarding the unknown world of Plato and other philosophers. He was also considered an able warrior and a wit. Ælian derives his name from Sillainein. The nymphs who follow his train were considered as typical of the water necessary to dilute his potations, and the influence of love in checking intemperance.

Montaigne informs us that the celebrated Sylvius recommended an occasional debauch; and the late Dr. Gregory was of opinion than an occasional excess is, upon the whole, less injurious to the constitution than the practice of daily taking a moderate quantity of any fermented liquor or spirit. Experience, however, does not uphold the doctor’s opinion; and, as I have observed in a preceding article, occasional excesses are far more injurious than habitual indulgences, under which, in the most unfavourable climates, men attain advanced years. An occasional excess actually brings on a state of sickness, which, in persons habitually sober, may not only last for several days, incapacitating them from any pursuit, but be frequently followed by serious accidents. Of course I am not alluding to a constant state of intoxication, which will often bring on delirium, tremor, apoplexy, and other destructive accidents.

The appearances after death in drunkards exhibit great derangement in organic structure. The brain is generally firmer than usual. Serum is not unfrequently found effused in its cavities; and, what is singular, this watery fluid is often impregnated with the odour of the deceased’s potations, such as rum, gin, or brandy. Schrader relates several instances of the kind. Æther has also been detected after the medicine had been freely exhibited. Dr. Ogston states that above four ounces of fluid were found in the ventricles of a drunkard’s brain, that had all the physical qualities of alcohol. He thinks that this effusion takes place previously to the coma of intoxication, as he found it in considerable quantities in two cases of drowning in the stage of violent excitement from spirituous liquors. The mucous coats of the stomachs of drunkards, instead of being “worn out,” according to the vulgar expression, are thickened, and sometimes softened; but in most cases they are found hardened. This condition is not likely to accelerate death; on the contrary, the stomach is less susceptible of the action of stimulating articles of diet, or excess in eating or drinking, than when in a healthy state of excitability. When drunkenness proves fatal, it appears that a portion of the spirituous part of the liquor is actually absorbed and carried into the circulation and the brain. Dr. Copeland has given the following very luminous and correct view of the pathology of drunkenness. “During the general nervous and vascular excitement consequent on the stimulus, increased determination to the head takes place, attended by excited vascular action, which soon terminates in congestion as the excitement becomes exhausted, and gives rise to drowsiness, sopor, and coma. With this state of the disorder effusion of serum takes place in the ventricles and between the membranes, heightening the sopor and coma. When the congestion or effusion amounts so high as to impede the functions of the organs at the basis of the encephalon and of the respiratory nerves, respiration becomes unfrequent and laborious, and consequently the changes produced by it on the blood insufficiently performed. In proportion as the blood is less perfectly changed in the lungs, the circulation through them is retarded, and the phenomena of asphyxy,—congestion of the lungs, right side of the head, brain, and liver; the circulation of unarterialized blood; the imperfect evolution of animal heat, and sedative effects upon the brain and nervous system generally,—follow in a more or less marked degree, according to the quantity of the intoxicating fluid that has been taken, and either gradually disappear after some time, or increase until life is extinguished. These phenomena are heightened by cold, which depresses the vital action in the extremities and surface to which it is applied, and increases the congestion in the above organs. The fatal consequences of intoxication are often averted by the occurrence of vomiting, the stomach thereby being relieved from a great part of the poison.”

Besides wine and spirituous liquors various other substances have been employed to bring on this supposed pleasurable state. The Syrian rue (Peganum Harmala), was constantly used by Sultan Solyman. The Hibiscus Saldarissa of the Indians, which furnishes their bangne, is supposed to be the Nepenthes of the ancients. The Penang or Indian beetle, the Hyosciamus Niger. The Belladonna, the Cocculus Indicus, are drugs that have been resorted to by various nations. The last ingredient has made the fortune of many of our wealthy brewers, at the expense of public sobriety and health.

In the accidents that follow intoxication, bleeding has frequently been resorted to. Nothing can be more hazardous than this practice, justly condemned by Darwin, Trotter, and most physicians, who have had frequent opportunities of witnessing the distressing train of symptoms that inebriety brings on. Coffee and green tea will be found the most efficacious antidotes, when no sickness prevails. Nausea is counteracted by effervescent and aromatic draughts, such as soda-water, (so highly appreciated by Byron, when accompanied by a sermon, after a night’s conviviality,) spruce-beer, Seidlitz powders, &c. The ancients had recourse to various means to counteract the effects of wine, and amongst others we find olives and olive oil, wormwood, and saffron. The Greeks used a solution of salt, a common remedy among seafaring men to the present day; and the Romans surrounded their heads with wreaths of various refreshing plants. When Aristotle tells us that Dionysius of Syracuse remained in a state of intoxication for eighty days, we must suppose that he got drunk every morning.

That the ancients were in the habit of diluting their wine with water, there cannot be a doubt. The LacedÆmonians accused those who drank it pure of acting like Scythians,—an expression introduced ever since Cleomenes the Spartan had learned to drink freely amongst them. The Thracians were also accused of this practice, which clearly proves that it was not general. Philochorus reports that Amphictyon, king of Athens, learned to mix wine and water from Bacchus himself, on which account he dedicated an altar to the god. According to AthenÆus, this dilution was of various strength; sometimes in the proportion of one to two, at others of one to five. The LacedÆmonians used to boil their wine till the fifth part was consumed, under the impression that they thus deprived it of its spirituous qualities. Sometimes this boiled wine was laid by for four years.

To add to the intoxicating power of wine various means were resorted to, and a mixture of myrrha was supposed to produce this effect. Such was the murrhina of the Romans, mentioned in St. Mark’s gospel, and which was given to malefactors before their execution.

Notwithstanding the sobriety of the ancients, my fair readers may perhaps be glad to know that the ladies were allowed to indulge in an occasional stoup; and the Greek matrons and virgins were by no means restricted in a moderate use of the grape’s delicious juice, as illustrated by Homer in Nausica and her companions. In the ancient entertainments the first libation was offered up to Vesta, as being, according to Cicero, rerum custos intimarum, or keeper of things most concealed; or, according to Aristocritus, for the services rendered by this goddess to Jupiter in his war against the Giants. However, without any erudite comments, it is very probable that even the poor Vestals were sometimes delighted when they could take a drop of wine to beguile their solitude.

The phenomena of drunkenness have been so ably described by Macnish, that I most gladly transcribe the following passage from that author’s excellent work, called the “Anatomy of Drunkenness.”

“First an unusual serenity prevails over the mind, and the soul of the votary is filled with a placid satisfaction. By degrees he is sensible of a soft and not unmusical humming in the ears, at every pause of the conversation. He seems, to himself, to wear his head lighter than usual upon his shoulders. Then a species of obscurity, thinner than the finest mist, passes before his eyes, and makes him see objects rather indistinctly. The lights begin to dance and appear double, a gaiety and warmth are felt at the same time about the heart. The imagination is expanded, and filled with a thousand delightful images. He becomes loquacious, and pours forth, in enthusiastic language, the thoughts, which are born, as it were, within him.

“Now comes a spirit of universal contentment with himself and all the world. He thinks no more of misery: it is dissolved in the bliss of the moment. This is the acme of the fit—the ecstasy is now perfect. As yet the sensorium is in tolerable order, it is only shaken, but the capability of thinking with accuracy still remains. About this time the drunkard pours out all the secrets of his soul. His qualities, good or bad, come forth without reserve; and now, if at any time, the human heart may be seen into. In a short period, he is seized with a most inordinate propensity to talk nonsense, though he is perfectly conscious of doing so. He also commits many foolish things, knowing them to be foolish. The power of volition, that faculty which keeps the will subordinate to the judgment, seems totally weakened. The most delightful time seems to be that immediately before becoming very talkative. When this takes place a man turns ridiculous, and his mirth, though more boisterous, is not so exquisite. At first the intoxication partakes of sentiment, but, latterly, it becomes merely animal.

“After this the scene thickens. The drunkard’s imagination gets disordered with the most grotesque conceptions. Instead of moderating his drink, he pours it down more rapidly than ever, glass follows glass with reckless energy. His head becomes perfectly giddy. The candles burn blue, or green, or yellow, and when there are perhaps only three on the table, he sees a dozen. According to his temperament, he is amorous, or musical, or quarrelsome. Many possess a most extraordinary wit, and a great flow of spirits is generally attendant. In the latter stages, the speech is thick and the use of the tongue in a great measure lost. His mouth is half open, and idiotic in the expression; while his eyes are glazed, wavering and watery. He is apt to fancy that he has offended some one of the company, and is ridiculously profuse in his apologies. Frequently he mistakes one person for another, and imagines that some of those before him are individuals who are in reality absent or even dead. The muscular powers are all along much affected; this indeed happens before any great change takes place in the mind and goes on progressively increasing. He can no longer walk with steadiness, but totters from side to side. His limbs become powerless and inadequate to sustain his weight. He is, however, not always sensible of any deficiency in this respect, and while exciting mirth by his eccentric motions, imagines that he walks with the most perfect steadiness. In attempting to run, he conceives that he passes the ground with astonishing rapidity. In his distorted eyes all men and even inanimate nature itself, seem to be drunken, while he alone is sober. Houses reel from side to side, as if they had lost their balance; trees and steeples nod like tipsy bacchanals; and the very earth seems to slip under his feet and leave him walking and floundering in the air.

“The last stage of drunkenness is total insensibility. The man tumbles, perhaps, beneath the table, and is carried off in a state of stupor to his couch dead drunk.

“No sooner is his head laid upon the pillow, than it is seized with the strongest throbbing. His heart beats quick and hard against his ribs. A noise like the distant fall of a cascade, or rushing of a river is heard in his ears—rough—rough—rough—goes the sound. His senses now become more drowned and stupified. A dim recollection of his carousals, like a shadowy and indistinct dream, passes before the mind. He still hears, as in echo, the cries and laughter of his companions. Wild fantastic fancies accumulate thickly around the brain. His giddiness is greater than ever; and he feels as if in a ship tossed upon a heaving sea. At last he drops insensibly into a profound slumber.

“In the morning he awakes in a high fever. The whole body is parched; the palms of the hands, in particular, are like leather. His head is often violently painful. He feels excessive thirst; while his tongue is white, dry, and stiff. The whole inside of the mouth is likewise hot and constricted, and the throat often sore. Then look at his eyes—how sickly, dull and languid! The fire which first lighted them up the evening before is all gone. A stupor like that of the last stage of drunkenness still clings about them, and they are disagreeably affected by the light. The complexion sustains as great a change: it is no longer flushed with gaiety and excitation, but pale and wayworn, indicating a profound mental and bodily exhaustion. There is probably sickness, and the appetite is totally gone.

“Even yet the delirium of intoxication has not left him, for his head still rings, his heart still throbs violently, and if he attempt to get up, he stumbles with giddiness. The mind also is sadly depressed, and the proceedings of the previous night are painfully remembered. He is sorry for his conduct, promises solemnly never again so to commit himself, and calls impatiently for something to quench his thirst.“Persons of tender and compassionate minds are particularly subject, during intoxication, to be affected to tears at the sight of any distressing object, or even on hearing an affecting tale. Drunkenness, in most characters, may be said to melt the heart and open the fountain of sorrow. Their sympathy is often ridiculous, and aroused by the most trifling causes. Those who have a lively imagination, combined with this tenderness of heart, sometimes conceive fictitious cases of distress, and weep bitterly at the woes of their own creating.

“There are also some persons on whom drunkenness calls forth a spirit of piety, or rather of religious hypocrisy, which is both ludicrous and disgusting. They become sentimental over their cups, and while in a state of debasement most offensive to God and man, they will weep at the wickedness of the human heart, entreat you to eschew swearing and profane company, and have a greater regard for the welfare of your immortal soul. These sanctimonious drunkards seem to consider ebriety as the most venial of offences!”

Inebriety has sometimes a curious effect upon the memory. Actions committed during intoxication may be forgotten on a recovery from that state.

Drunkenness differs materially according to the nature of the intoxicating potation. Wine in general may be considered as less injurious, and its effects more transient than spirituous liquors, that produce great excitement, followed by indirect debility and visceral obstruction. The inebriety produced by alcoholic preparations, moreover, is attended with a delirious state, furious and uncontrollable, or followed by congestion and torpor. Malt liquors render their victims heavy, stupid, and more obstinate than violent, and a long continuance in their use produces a state of imbecility, observed so early as Aristotle.

Similar differences are observable in the effects of different liquors on the imagination. Wine most undoubtedly produces a greater vivacity of ideas and a more brilliant scintillation of wit and fancy. Hoffmann, indeed, considered the juice of the grape as indispensable to poetic inspiration, and it is very doubtful whether Pegasus was ever benefited by a draught of beer. But, alas! of what avail are the considerations regarding the effects of the pernicious habit of drinking? When once accustomed to the cheering stimulus of liquor, it matters not what the drunkard takes, and if Champagne or Burgundy are not at hand, gin or rum will prove a substitute, perhaps less grateful, but still not unwelcome. Drinking becomes the only refuge from those cares which owe their very origin to excesses, and they must be drowned in any bowl that can be filled to drive away the blue devils.

Vina parant animos, faciuntque caloribus aptos,
Cura fugit, multo diluiturque mero:
Tunc veniunt risus, tunc pauper cornua sumit;
Tunc dolor et curÆ, rugaque frontis abit,
Tunc aperit mentis Ævo, rarissima nostro
Simplicitas, artes excutiente Deo.