  I distinguish direct and immediate effect of alcohol on the brain from its indirect effect through the general health of the body. I can only speak for myself. I have no doubt that the direct effect of alcohol on me is intellectually injurious. This, however, is true in a certain degree, of everything I eat and drink (except tea). After the smallest meal I am for a while less active mentally. A single glass even of claret I believe injures my power of thinking; but accepting the necessity of regular meals, I do not find that a sparing allowance of light wine adds to the subsequent dulness of mind, and I am disposed to think it is of some slight use physically. From one to two and a half small wine glasses of claret or burgundy is the limit of what I can take—and that only at dinner—without conscious harm. One glass of sherry or port I find every way injurious. Whisky and brandy are to me simply poisons, destroying my power of enjoyment and of thought. Ale I can only drink when very much in the open air. As to tobacco, I have never smoked much, but I can either not smoke, as at present, or go to the limit of two small cigarettes in twenty-four hours. Any good effects of tobacco become with me uncertain in proportion to the frequency of smoking. The good effects are those commonly ascribed to it: it seems to soothe away small worries, and to restore little irritating incidents to their true proportions. On a few occasions I have thought it gave me a mental fillip, and enabled me to start with work I had been pausing over; and it nearly always has the power to produce a pleasant, and perhaps wholesome, retardation of thought—a half unthinking reverie, if one adapts surrounding circumstances to encourage this mood. The only sure brain stimulants with me are plenty of fresh air and tea; but each of these in large quantity produces a kind of intoxication: the intoxication of a great amount of air causing wakefulness, with a delightful confusion of spirits, without the capacity of steady thought; tea intoxication unsettles and enfeebles my will; but then a great dose of tea often does get good work out of me (though I may pay for it afterwards), while alcohol renders all mental work impossible. I have been accustomed to make the effects of tea and wine a mode of separating two types of constitution. I have an artist friend whose brain is livelier after a bottle of Carlowitz, which would stifle my mind, and to him my strong cup of tea would be poison. We are both, I think, of nervous organization, but how differentiated I cannot tell. My pulse goes always rather too quickly; a little emotional disturbance sets it going at an absurdly rapid rate for hours, and extreme physical fatigue follows. My conviction is that no one rule applies to all men, but for men like me alcohol is certainly not necessary, and at best of little use. I have a kindlier feeling towards tobacco, though I am only occasionally a smoker. P.S.—Since writing the above, I have asked two friends (each an intellectual worker of extraordinary energy) how alcohol affects them. Both agreed that a large dose of alcohol stimulated them intellectually, but that the subsequent physical results were injurious. E. DOWDEN. |
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