cutaneous vessels, causing diaphoresis. Age modifies this action, but most of the rum used in this country is newly imported."*

The comparative strength of Intoxicating liquors.

The analysis of wines has of late years occupied considerable attention. The following, according to Professor Brande, is the average of spirit contained in some of our most popular vinous compounds.

Professor Beck of America found the average of port and sherry to be as follows:

Proportion of alcohol.

Madeira, 14 different kinds 21.75 per cent. by measure. Port 22.60 ditto ditto

3 ditto

From these tables it appears that the three wines most in general use contain nearly one half their quantity of proof spirit. "I has been demonstrated," remarks Dr. Paris, "that port, madeira, and sherry, contain from onefourth to one-fifth of their bulk of alcohol, so that a person who takes a bottle of either of them will thus take nearly half a pint of alcohol, or almost a pint of pure brandy."

The quantity of alcohol found in malt liquors is considerably less than what is contained in wines, but in the practice of drinking, this difference avails little, inasmuch as some classes in particular, indulge more frequently in wines and malt liquors. These liquors, moreover, are, in general, drank in larger quantities. The following is the average of Mr. Brande's calculation :

Alcohol.

The calculations of Professor Beck are as follows:

• Thompson's Materia Medica et Therapeutics.

Stephenson, in a popular treatise on alimentary food, states, that some years ago, a Winchester quart of old sound porter would yield nearly six ounces of "good proof spirits" by careful distillation; but that the beer of the present day will not yield four ounces of the same spirit.* Modern brewers have found out a ready method of economizing their malt, by substituting in its place a variety of intoxicating and pernicious drugs. Hence, the use of malt liquors is doubly injurious.

The amount of alcohol contained in ardent spirits in general use, is more easily ascertained; although, as will afterward be shown, they are extensively, and when re tailed, almost universally, adulterated. The following are the calculations of Professors Brande and Beck.

From these calculations, it appears that the proportion of proof spirit in wines averages from one fourth to onefifth of the whole; ales rather more than one-seventh; cider rather less than one-seventh, and porter about eleven three fourths. More than half the quantity of distilled liquors consists of alcohol in its pure state.

It is in general understood, that the alcohol contained in fermented liquors exists in a peculiar state of combina tion; and that the vegetable matter contained in wines and malt liquors prevents to a considerable extent the injurious effects of the alcohol

Dr. Paris appears to be of this opin

• Medical and Economica. Advice, by J. Stephenson, p. 117.

ion. "Daily experience," observes that physician, "convinces us that the same quantity of alcohol, applied to the stomach under the form of natural wine, and in a state of mixture with water, will produce very different effects upon the body, and to an extent which it is difficult to comprehend; and moreover, that different wines, although of the same specific gravity, and consequently containing the same absolute proportion of ardent spirit, will be found to vary very considerably in their intoxicating powers." In explanation of this assumed phenomena, Dr. Paris supposes the alcohol to be so combined with the extractive matter of the wine, that it is probably incapable of exerting its full specific effects upon the stomach, before it becomes altered in its properties, or in other words, digested;" and he remarks, "this view of the subject may be fairly urged in explanation of the reason why the intoxicating effects of the same wine are so liable to vary in degree, in the same individual, from the peculiar state of his diges tive organs at the time of his potations." Dr. Paris is not singular in this opinion. Wines, however, it must be remembered, are in general sipped in small, but frequently repeated quantities; the system is thus gradually elevated to the required pitch of excitement: hence, the grosser effects of fermented liquors are less easily perceived. The remarks of Professor Beck on this subject are interesting and important. "A half-pint glass of brandy and water, of common strength, contains an amount of alcohol, but little less than the same measure of ordinary Madeira, and, if these portions of wine and of brandy and water should be drunk in the same manner, the effects on the animal economy would not be so different as is generally supposed. Wine is usually taken in small quantities, and at intervals-circumstances which must have a great effect in modifying its action on the system, and to these may also be added the fact, that its habitual use impairs the susceptibility of the system to its intoxicating power.

The attenuation† of alcohol with water appears to exer

* Researches on Wines and other Fermented Liquors, by L. C. Beck, Professor of Chemistry and Botany in the University of the city of New York, &c. &c.

†The inference of Dr. Paris, that wine is less injurious than the same proportion of ardent spirit taken pure, is wholly unsustained by proof, and seems to be derived solely from the fact, that it is less intoxicating. Now, it does not follow that the injurious effects of two different liquors, is always proportioned to the degree of intoxication produced by them. The one may intoxicate to a considerable degree, and the effects pass off hastily, while the other may produce but slight exhilaration, if any, and be followed

cise the most powerful influence in preventing that grosser and more immediate power of intoxication which has been observed to attend more recently combined portions of spirit and water. In proof of this, Mr. Brande affirms as the result of his experience, that when brandy and water are mixed, and allowed to remain in combination for some time, the intoxicating power of the mixture would not be greater than that of wine containing a similar portion of brandy or alcohol. Hence, the diminished power of gross intoxication in wine depends principally on the process of attenuation. Professor Beck states, that in his opinion, it is "to this, more than the controlling effects of the other vegetable matter that we are to ascribe their less decided intoxicating powers; and on the contrary, it is to the imperfect union that the ordinary mixtures of brandy and water owe their more energetic action on the system."†

Spirituous mixtures are in general taken before the attenuation in question can be even partially effected; and for this reason, the effect produced does not very ma terially differ from that of the same proportion taken alone. The generally observed fact, that newly fermented wines are more powerfully intoxicating than old, may be attributed to the same cause. The alcohol of the latter, by their age becomes more intimately attenuated with the

water.

One of the principal arguments adduced in favour of the use of fermented liquors is thus found to be based on

by a serious derangement of the health. We have exposed this fallacy on other occasions, and we have found that wine drinkers themselves, have concurred in the correctness of our conclusions. They know the evils at tendant on gorging the stomach with acids, resinous, oily and extractive matter with alcohol, and when they take stimulus because they think they require it, they are apt to take brandy or whiskey-wine is taken chiefly out of complaisance and fashion's sake; and if we wonder that men should be willing to encounter the gout, and other diseases, for such a reason, we should remember that the same arbitrary rule compels the Chinese lady to torture her feet with wooden shoes, and civilized females to endanger life by compressing the vital organs of respiration and circulation. What our author calls attenuation, is equivalent to chemical combination, and the latter term is on many accounts preferable. The former is often understood as synonymous with dilution. That it modifies the effects of alcoholic mixtures is well ascertained, but we believe the peculiar effects of wines, are more dependant on the other ingredients combined with alcohol, than on the combination of this with water.-AM. ED.

"If the residuum afforded by the distillation of 100 parts of port wine, be added to twenty-two parts of alcohol, and seventy-eight of water, in a state of perfect combination, the mixture is precisely analogous, in its intoxicating effect, to port wine of an equal strength."-Professor Brande. Transactions of the Royal Society, 1812.

† Researches on Wines, by Professor Beck.

erroneous calculations. The difference in question does not arise from the extractive matter with which they are combined, but from the mere fact of more intimate attenuation having taken place. The conclusion we arrive at is, that the two kinds of mixtures under consideration, if taken under equal circumstances, would differ little in their effects on the animal economy.

The delusion regarding the nutritious properties of fermented, and especially of malt liquors, is astonishing, when it is considered how slight a proportion of solid and nutritious matter they contain, in addition to the alcoholic stimulus which all of them possess. Malt liquor has been extolled by British statesmen as "liquid bread," and as a "highly nutritious beverage." Franklin greatly contributed to the exposure of this popular fallacy. When a journeyman printer in London, he informs us that he endeavoured to convince his fellow-workmen, that the bodily strength furnished by the beer could only be in proportion to the solid part of the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was composed; and that there was a larger portion of flour in a penny loaf, and that consequently if they ate the loaf, and drank a pint of water with it, they would derive more strength from it than from a pint of beer. In proof of the correctness of this position, Dr. Franklin states as follows:-"On my entrance I worked at first as a pressman, conceiving that I had need of bodily exercise, to which I had been accustomed in America. I drank nothing but water. The other workmen, to the number of about fifty, were great drinkers of beer. I carried occasionally a large form of letters in each hand, up and down stairs, while the rest employed both hands to carry one. They were surprised to see by this and many other examples, that the American aquatic, as they used to call me, was stronger than those who drank porter."

Dr. Cheyne, in his usually quaint and forcible manner, adverts to the innutritious property of the extract contained in malt liquors.*

This glutinous composition cannot certainly be supposed to contain any very large proportion of nutritious matter.

"As to malt liquors, they are not much in use, excepting small beer, with any but mechanics and fox-hunters. The French very justly call them barley soup. I am well satisfied, that a weak stomach can as readily and with less pain digest pork and pease-soup as Yorkshire or Nottingham ale. They make excellent bird-lime, and when simmered some time over a gentle fire, make the most sticking, and the best plaster for old strains that can be contrived."-Essay on Health and Long Life, by Dr. Cheyne, 9th ed. p. 60,