Study and Stimulants Part 16

But leader writing, or any other kind of writing, done under the influence of any kind of stimulants, is, remarks Blackie, unhealthy work, and tends to no good. "It may safely be affirmed," thinks the editor of the _Contemporary Review,_ "that no purely conscientious writing was ever produced under stimulation from alcohol. Harriet Martineau was one of those workers who could not write a paragraph without asking herself, 'Is that wholly true? Is it a good thing to say it? Shall I lead anyone astray by it? Had I better soften it down, or keep it back?

Is it as well as I can say it?' Writing like that of Wilson's 'Noctes,' or Hoffman's madder stories, may be produced under the influence of wine, but 'stuff of the conscience', not." The workman himself is injured, as well as the quality of his work lessened. Mr. Hamerton says he has seen terrible results from the use of stimulants at work; and anyone who has read literary history, or who has had any experience of literary life in London, knows that the rock upon which many men split is--drink.

Whatever journalists may gain from alcohol, other writers who have tried it say nothing in its favour. Mr. Howells does not take wine at all, because it weakens his work and his working force. To Mark Twain wine is a clog to the pen, not an inspiration. "I have," he says, "never seen the time when I could write to my satisfaction after drinking even one gla.s.s of wine." Dr. Bain finds abstinence from alcohol and the tea group essential to intellectual effort. They induce, he says, a false excitement, not compatible with severe application to problems of difficulty; and the experience of other workers, whether literary or scientific, is precisely similar. But the use of alcoholic stimulants at work is one thing; at dinner, another.

The former practice is absolutely injurious; and the highest medical authorities have p.r.o.nounced against the latter. Some of the most vigorous thinkers and laborious workers, however, find that wine aids digestion and conduces to their power of work. To Mr. Gladstone it is "especially necessary at the time of greatest intellectual exertion."

As a rule, it is taken at the end of the day, when work is over; but when he resumes literary composition the quality of a writer's work seems deteriorated. One of the most esteemed novelists of the present day informs Dr. Brunton that, although he can take a great deal of wine without its having any apparent effect on him, yet a single gla.s.s of sherry is enough to take the fine edge off his intellect. He is able to write easily and fluently in the evening, after taking dinner and wine, but what he then writes will not bear his own criticism next morning, although curiously enough it may seem to him excellent at the time of writing. The perception of the fingers, as well as the perception of the mind, seems blunted by the use of alcohol. Dr.

Alfred Carpenter relates that a celebrated violin player, as he was about to go on the platform, was asked if he would take a gla.s.s of wine before he appeared, "Oh, no, thank you," he replied, "I shall have it when I come off." This answer excited Mr. Carpenter's curiosity, and he inquired of the violinist why he would have it when he came off in preference to having it before his work commenced, and the reply was, "If I take stimulants before I go to work, the _perception of the fingers is blunted,_ and I don't feel that nicety and delicacy of touch necessary to bring out the fine tones requisite in this piece of music, and therefore I avoid them." "But to touch these things is dangerous, "says Mr. Hubert Bancroft, though less dangerous to touch them _after_ work than _before_ work. The most careful man is sometimes thrown off his guard, and drinks more than his usual allowance. It is, Mr. Watts believes, an admitted fact that even people who are considered strictly temperate habitually take more than is good for them. What quant.i.ty _is_ good for every man, no one can say with certainty. So far as wine is taken to aid digestion, Blackie, who considers that wine "may even be necessary to stimulate digestion," holds that "healthy _young_ men can never require such a stimulus."

A belief exists that men who abstain from alcohol indulge to excess in some other stimulant. There is some foundation for this belief.

Balzac, for instance, abstained from tobacco, which he declared injured the body, attacked the intellect, and stupefied the nations; but he drank great quant.i.ties of coffee, which produced the terrible nervous disease which shortened his life. Goethe was a non-smoker, but, according to Bayard Taylor, he drank fifty thousand bottles of wine in his life-time. Niebuhr greatly disliked smoking, but took a tremendous quant.i.ty of snuff. A great number of teetotalers "make up for their abstinence from alcohol by excessive indulgence in tobacco,"

and abuse their more consistent brethren who venture to expostulate with them. John Stuart Mill "believed that the giving up of wine would be apt to be followed by taking more food than was necessary, merely for the sake of stimulation." Sir Theodore Martin, also, thinks the absence of alcohol likely to lead to increased eating, and to an extent likely to cause derangement of the body. The power of alcohol to arrest and preserve decomposition may, it is admitted by temperance writers, r.e.t.a.r.d to some extent the waste of animal tissue, and diminish accordingly the appet.i.te for food; but they contend that the effete matter which has served its purpose and done for the body all that it can do is retained in the body to its loss and damage. "The question comes to be," says Professor Miller, "whether shall we take alcohol, eat less, and be improperly nourished, or take no alcohol, eat more, and be nourished well? Whether shall we thrive better on a small quant.i.ty of new nutritive material with a great deal of what is old and mouldy, or on a constant and fresh supply of new material? ...

The most perfect health and strength depend on frequent and complete disintegration of tissue with a corresponding constant and complete replacement of the effete parts by the formation of new material."

"This is not a question which can be settled by reasoning: it must be decided entirely by experience. No one who has always been in the habit of using stimulants can be heard on this point, because, having had no experience of life without alcohol, such a person cannot draw a comparison between life with and life without that agent." These are the words of Dr. Buckle, of London, Ontario, and this practical way of testing the question will commend itself to all. What is the experience, then, of those who have tried both moderation and total abstinence? The Rev. Canon Farrar found that "even a single gla.s.s of wine, when engaged in laborious work, was rather injurious than otherwise." Mr. A. J. Ellis did not find that wine increased his power of work, and Professor Skeat says the less stimulant he takes the better. Contrary to medical advice, Dr. Martineau reverted to abstinence, and for twelve or fifteen years he has been practically a total abstainer, and, at 77, he retains the power of mental application. For many years, the Rev. Mark Pattison found great advantage from giving up wine. Lieutenant-Colonel Butler finds that a greater amount of _even_ mental work is to be obtained without the use of alcohol. The belief that alcohol invigorated the body was held by Mr. Cornelius Walford, but he now finds that it does not do so, and believes that in sedentary occupations it is positively injurious even when taken with meals. Professor Skeat has given up beer with benefit to himself, and has almost given up wine. M.

Barthelemy St. Hilaire has abstained from wine for many years, indeed, for nearly a life-time, with great advantage. Mr. Hamerton has abstained for long periods from stimulants, feeling better without them.

Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's practice approaches nearer to abstinence as he grows older. The Bishop of Durham finds that, on the whole, he can work for more consecutive hours, and with greater application, than when he used stimulants. This, too, is the testimony of Bishop Temple. The Rev. Stopford Brooke is enthusiastic in his praise of total abstinence: it has enabled him to work better; it has increased the pleasure of life; and it has banished depression. Sir Henry Thompson declares himself better without wine, and better able to accomplish his work. Dr. Richardson declares that he never did more work, or more varied work; that he never did work with so much facility, or with such a complete sense of freedom from anxiety and worry as he has done during the period he has abstained from alcohol.

On the other hand, Sir Erskine May's experience of abstinence was that it made him "dyspeptic and stupid;" and Dr. W. B. Carpenter "can get on best, while in London, by taking with his dinner a couple of gla.s.ses of very light claret, as an aid to digestion." But when on holiday, he says, he does not need it. A _natural_ stimulant then takes the place of an artificial one; and so long as a man is healthy, eating well, and sleeping well, he is, Dr. Brunton declares, better without alcohol.

Although there is no comparison between the evils of smoking and those of drinking, most of the writers seem to attach more importance to the question of smoking, and some regard the question of alcohol as of no consequence. Mr. Cornelius Walford considers tobacco a more insidious stimulant than alcoholic beverages. It can, he points out, be indulged in constantly without visible degradation; but surely it saps the mind. Mr. Hyde Clarke is of the same opinion, and remarks, "a man knows when he is drunk, but he does not know when he has smoked too much, until the effects of acc.u.mulation have made themselves permanent." There is a growing conviction that tobacco does quite as much harm to the nervous system as alcohol. [Footnote: There can be no room to question the presumption that an excessive use of tobacco _does_ occasionally deteriorate the moral character, as the inordinate use of chloral or bromide of pota.s.sium may deprave the mind, by lowering the tone of certain of the nervous centres, in narcotising them and impairing their nutrition. Whether the nicotine of the tobacco can act on nerve-cells as alcohol acts may be doubtful, but the victim of excess in the use of tobacco certainly often very closely resembles the habitual drinker of small drams--the tippler who seldom becomes actually drunk--and he readily falls into the same maudlin state as that which seems characteristic of the subject of slow intoxication by chloral, or of the victim of bromide.--_The Lancet_, Nov. 12, 1881.]

The question is often asked, "Does tobacco shorten life?" No evidence has yet been adduced proving that moderate smoking is injurious, though Sir Benjamin Brodie believed that, if accurate statistics could be obtained, it would be found that the value of life in inveterate smokers is considerably below the average; and the early deaths of some of the men whose names are so frequently quoted in defence of smoking, favours the idea that all smoking is injurious. Few literary men live out their days. It is a matter of general belief that Mr.

Edward Miall weakened his body and shortened his life through his habit of incessant smoking. "Bayard Taylor," says Mr. James Parton, "was always laughing at me for the articles which I wrote in the _Atlantic Monthly_, one called 'Does it pay to smoke?' and the other, 'Will the Coming Man drink Wine?' I had ventured to answer both these questions in the negative. He, on the contrary, not only drank wine in moderation, but smoked freely, and he was accustomed to point to his fine proportions and rosy cheeks, comparing them with my own meagre form, as an argument for the use of those stimulants. 'Well,'

he would say, on meeting me, glancing down at his portly person, and opening wide his arms, with a cigar in his fingers, 'doesn't it pay to smoke? How does _this_ look? The coming man may do as he likes; but the man of the present finds it salutary."' Commenting on Mr.

Taylor's early death, Mr. Parton points out that some fifty New York journalists have either died in their prime or before reaching their prime. A similar mortality, he notes, has been observed in England.

d.i.c.kens died at 58, and Thackeray at 52. A "great number of lesser lights have been extinguished that promised to burn with long-increasing brightness." Mr. Parton asks, "Is there anything in mental labour hostile to life? Was it over-work that shortened the lives of these valuable and interesting men?" He thinks not, but that they died before their time because they did not know how to live.

Like Carlyle, William Howitt was scandalised by the tippling habits of some of the literary men whom he met, and equally scandalised by their smoking habits. Replying to a correspondent who urged that most literary men and artists smoke, he said, "No doubt; and that is what makes the lives of literary men and artists comparatively so short.

May not too much joviality and too much smoking have a good deal to do with it? I myself, who have not smoked for these seventy years, have seen nearly the whole generation of my literary contemporaries pa.s.s away. The other day (Dec. 7, 1878), I ascended in the Tyrol, a mountain of 5,000 feet, inducting a walk of six or seven miles to it, and as many back, in company with some friends. I did it easily, and felt no subsequent fatigue. I would like to see an old smoker of eighty-six do 'that." There can be no doubt that excessive smoking is one of the causes of the early deaths of literary men, though not the greatest The opponents of tobacco have tried to make capital out of the early death of Jules Noriac, who is reported to have died of smoker's cancer; but it transpired that he lived very irregularly.

[Footnote: Considerable difference of opinion would appear to exist among the "chroniqueurs" of the Parisian press as to the real nature of the malady to which M. Jules Noriac, the witty, humorous, and observant writer of "The Hundred and First Regiment," the essay on "Human Stupidity," and numerous dramatic pieces of a more or less ephemeral kind, has just fallen a victim. It has been generally understood that M. Noriac died from a mysterious malady which has not long since been recognised by French physicians as the "smoker's cancer." It is alleged that the deceased man of letters suffered for two whole years from the ravages of this dreadful and occult disease, and that his countenance became so transformed through the wasting action of the ailment that he could scarcely be recognised even by his most intimate friends. This statement, could it be substantiated, would serve as a very powerful argument to those who inveigh against the use of tobacco. Hitherto the fundamental point on which the opponents of the weed have dwelt is that as the active principle of tobacco, nicotine, is acknowledged to be in its isolated form a poison, its introduction into the system in any shape or form must be injurious, and that it is difficult to point to any human organ which may not be detrimentally affected by smoking, snuffing, or chewing.

From a cognate point of view, it is worthy of remark that a contemporary, in a curiously interesting study of the originals of the characters in the famous "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," draws attention to the circ.u.mstance that Henri Murger's consumption of coffee was so excessive as to bring on fever and delirium. Exhaustion and nervousness followed; and finally he was attacked by an obscure disorder of the sympathetic nerves which control the veins, at times turning his whole body to the colour of purple. The doctors who treated him seem to have known nothing of the ailment, for they dosed him with sulphur and aconite. He died a horrible--and very painful death, at the age of thirty-eight. This was in 1860; but only four years afterwards we find the English physician quoted above, Dr.

Anstie, in his "Stimulants and Narcotics," recognising "a kind of chronic narcotism, the very existence of which is usually ignored, but which is, in truth, well marked and easy to identify as produced by habitual excess in tea and coffee." The common feature of the disease is muscular tumour; and out of fifty excessive consumers of tea and coffee whose cases were noted by Dr. Anstie, there were only five patients who did not exhibit the symptom named. They were suffering, in fact, from "theine" poisoning. The paralysing effects of narcotic doses of tea was further displayed by a particularly obstinate kind of dyspepsia; while the abuse of coffee disordered the action of the heart to a distressing degree. The friends and biographers of M.

Jules Noriac are unanimous as to the fact that he was inveterate in the use of tobacco. He was wont to smoke to the b.u.t.t-end, one after the other, the huge cigars sold by the French "Regie," and known as "Imperiales," and a cynic might opine that if the deceased gentleman had smoked fragrant Havanas in lieu of the abominable stuff vended by the "Regie" he would not have been afflicted with the "cancer des fumeurs," nor with any kindred ailment He kept fearfully late hours, he worked only at night and he smoked "all the time." If towards morning he felt somewhat faint he would refresh himself with crusts of bread soaked in cold water, thus imitating to a certain extent our William Ptynne, who would from time to time momentarily suspend his interminable scribble to recruit exhausted nature with a moistened crust; only the verbose author of "Histriomastix" used to dip his crusts in Strong ale. And the bitter old pamphleteer, for all that his ears had been cropped and his cheeks branded by the Star Chamber, lived to be nearly seventy. Jules Noriac was never to be seen abroad until noon. His breakfast, like that of most Frenchmen, was inordinately prolonged; and afterwards rehearsals, business interviews, dinner, and the play would occupy him until nearly midnight. His delight was to accompany some friend home, and then walk the friend, arm-in-arm, backwards and forwards in front of his, the friend's, door, discoursing of things sublunary and otherwise until two in the morning. Then he would enter his own house and sit down, pipe in mouth, to the hard labour of literature until six or seven in the morning. What kind of slumber could a man, leading such a life as this, be expected to enjoy? On the whole, it would appear that M. Jules Noriac's habits were diametrically opposed to the preservation of health and the prolongation of life, and that he died quite as much from too much Boulevard and too much night work, as from too much smoking. There are vast numbers of French journalists and men of letters who, without being necessarily "Bohemians,"

consume their health and shorten their lives by this continuous and feverish race against time. Their days are spent chiefly on the Boulevards or in the cafes, and it is only at the dead of night that they devote themselves to serious work. The French "savant," On the other hand, is rarely seen on the Boulevards. It is by day that he works, and he spends his evening in some tranquil "salon," and lives, as a rule, till eighty. The painter, again, must be a day worker, if he wishes to excel as a colourist. He is but a holiday "flaneur" on the Boulevards. They are but a part of his life; but of the "chroniqueur" and the "feuilletonniste" out of the small hours devoted to f.a.gging at the production of "copy," those Boulevards are the whole existence.--_Daily Telegraph_, October 9, 1882.] On the other hand, the advocates of tobacco cite Carlyle as a proof that tobacco does not shorten life. They credit him with saying that he could never think of this miraculous blessing without being overwhelmed by a tenderness for which he could find no adequate expression. No wonder, therefore, that he called his doctor a "Jacka.s.s," who advised him to give up smoking in order to cure dyspepsia. In Carlyle's case long life was a doubtful advantage, and in the matter of smoking he did not practice what he preached.

[Footnote: Describing the German Smoking Congress, he said:--Tobacco, introduced by the Swedish soldiers in the Thirty-years' War, say some, or even by the English soldiers in the Bohemian or Palatine beginnings of said war, say others, tobacco once shown them, was enthusiastically adopted by the German populations, long in want of such an article, and has done important multifarious functions in that country ever since. For truly in politics, morality, and all departments of their practical and speculative affairs we may trace its influences, good and bad, to this day. Influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging you in idle, cloudy dreams; still worse, promoting composure among the palpably chaotic and discomposed; soothing all things into lazy peace; that all things may be left to themselves very much, and to the laws of gravity and decomposition. Whereby German affairs are come to be greatly overgrown with funguses in our time, and give symptoms of dry and of wet rot wherever handled.--_History of Frederick the Great,_ vol. I, p. 387.] Many cases are known to us, however, where dyspepsia in smokers has been completely cured by the abandonment of smoking.

The most recent case is that of Dr. Richardson, who was a dyspeptic during the whole time he was a smoker. "At length," he says, "I resolved to give up smoking. It was hard work to do so, but I eventually succeeded, and I have never been more thankful than for the day on which it was accomplished." In Carlyle's case a six months'

abstinence could not drive out his enemy, which he declared was the cause of nine-tenths of his misery. A more successful ill.u.s.tration of the "harmlessness" of stimulants is supplied in Mr. Augustus Mongredien, well-known as an able expositor of the principles of Free Trade. He is now 75 years of age, and has smoked moderately all his life, and for the last fifty years has never, except in rare and short instances of illness, retired to bed without one tumbler of whiskey-toddy. But this is an exceptional case of longevity. All the evidence favours the opinion that tobacco, like alcohol, shortens life. It is certain that abstinence is beneficial, as shown by the long lives of some of our hardest brain-workers. It is worthy of note, too, that all the tough old Frenchmen still in the enjoyment of unimpaired mental faculties never smoked. M. Dufaure, M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Victor Hugo, M. Etienne Arago, brother of the astronomer, Abbe Moigno, belong to the non-smoking school of public men. So did M.

Thiers, M. Guizot, M. Cremieux, M. Raspail, and the octogenarian, Comte Benoit-D'Azy, who died in full possession of his mental faculties.

Reference has been made to idiosyncrasy, a matter of great importance, which should be borne in mind when considering the influence of any habit on the organism, whether animal or human. Professor Christison cites a remarkable case in which a gentleman unaccustomed to the use of opium took nearly an ounce of laudanum without any effect. This form of idiosyncrasy is very rare. Not only are some const.i.tutions able to bear large doses of poison, but others cannot take certain kinds of food. Milk, for instance, cannot be taken by one person; pork by a second; porridge by a third. In the use of the various stimulants, as in the use of the various foods, the Same difference prevails among men. "The more I see of life," says Sir Henry Thompson, "the more I see that we cannot lay down rigid dogmas for everybody;"

and I have come to the same conclusion that it is unsafe to make one man's experience another man's guide. Kant could work eight hours a day after drinking a cup of tea and smoking a pipe of tobacco.

Professor Mayor finds that a day or two's fasting does him no harm, and he thrives on "dry bread and water." Professor Boyd Dawkins finds quinine the best stimulant; Darwin found a stimulant in snuff; Edison finds one in chewing; Professor Haeckel finds coffee the best, and Mr.

Francillon and Mark Twain bear testimony to the value of smoking.

These differences point to the conclusion that the same rules cannot be laid down for all. One thing is clear, however, that our best writers, clearest thinkers, and greatest scholars do not regard the use of alcohol as essential to thinking, and very few find tobacco an aid. With one or two exceptions, the writers take care to minimise the dangers incurred in the use of stimulants. Though they smoke, they smoke the weakest tobacco; though they drink, they drink only at meals. They work in the day time, take plenty of out-door exercise, and rest when they are tired. Many regard tobacco as a snare and a delusion; and all regard it as unnecessary for the brain of the youthful student. The greatest workers and thinkers of the middle ages, Dr. Russell remarks, never used it; [Footnote: Homer sang his deathless song, Raphael painted his glorious Madonnas, Luther preached, Guttenberg printed, Columbus discovered a New World before tobacco was heard of. No rations of tobacco were served out to the heroes of Thermopylae, no cigar strung up the nerves of Socrates.

Empires rose and fell, men lived and loved and died during long ages, without tobacco. History was for the most part written before its appearance. "It is the solace, the aider, the familiar spirit of the thinker," cries the apologist; yet Plato the Divine thought without its aid, Augustine described the glories of G.o.d's city, Dante sang his majestic melancholy song, Savonarola reasoned and died, Alfred ruled well and wisely without it. Tyrtaeus sang his patriotic song, Roger Bacon dived deep into Nature's secrets, the wise Stagirite sounded the depths of human wisdom, equally unaided by it Harmodius and Aristogeiton twined the myrtle round their swords, and slew the tyrant of their fatherland, without its inspiration. In a word, kings ruled, poets sung, artists painted, patriots bled, martyrs suffered, thinkers reasoned, before it was known or dreamed of.--_Quarterly Journal of Science_, 1873.] and Mr. Watts thinks that its introduction by civilised races has been an unmixed evil. It is a remarkable fact that out of 20 men of science, only two smoke, one of whom, Professor Huxley, did not commence until he was forty years of age. Even among those who smoke there is a considerable difference in the times chosen for smoking. Though the Rev. A. Plummer declares himself a firm believer in the use of tobacco, he smokes _before_ work, _after_ work, rarely while at work. Mr. Wilkie Collins smokes after work, and Mr. James Payn smokes all the time he is working. Mr.

Francillon's consumption of tobacco, and his power of work, are in almost exact proportion. Similar testimony comes from Mark Twain.

a.s.suming that the prince of American humorists is not joking, his experience of cigar-smoking is unique. When Charles Lamb was asked how he had acquired the art of smoking, he answered, "By toiling after it as some men toil after virtue." I hope that young smokers will not conclude that by following the example of Mark Twain, their brain will become as fertile as his. To them tobacco is bad in any form. It poisons their blood, stunts their growth, weakens the mind, and makes them lazy. "It is not easy," says Mr. Ruskin, "to estimate the demoralizing effect of the cigar on the youth of Europe in enabling them to pa.s.s their time happily in idleness." It has been forbidden at Annapolis, the Naval School, and at West Point, the Military Academy of the United States, having been found injurious to the health, discipline, and power of study of the students. "At Harvard College,"

says Dr. Dio Lewis, "no young man addicted to the use of tobacco has graduated at the head of his cla.s.s;" and at the lycees of Douai, Saint Quentin, and Chambery it has been found that the smokers are inferior to non-smokers. No public enquiry has yet been made as to the influence of tobacco upon English youths, but I am a.s.sured by several leading schoolmasters that the smokers are invariably the worst scholars. It cannot be too widely known, therefore, that tobacco, like alcohol, is of no advantage to a healthy student, and I advise young men to avoid it altogether. Darwin regretted that he had acquired the habit of snuff taking, and Mr. Sala says that had he his life to live over again, he would never touch tobacco in any shape or form. Never begun, never needed. "I do not advise you, young man," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "to consecrate the flower of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me a.s.sure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you think. I have seen the green leaf of early promise grown brown before its time under such nicotian regimen, and thought the amber'd meerschaum was dearly bought at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved."

My conclusions, then, are as follows:--

1.--Alcohol and tobacco are no value to a healthy student.

2.--That the most vigorous thinkers and hardest workers abstain from both stimulants.

3.--That those who have tried both moderation and total abstinence find the latter the more healthful practice.

4.--That almost every brain-worker would be the better for abstinence.

5.--That the most abstruse calculations may be made, and the most laborious mental work performed, without artificial stimulus.

6.--That all work done under the influence of _alcohol_ is unhealthy work.

7.--That the only pure brain stimulants are _external_ ones-- fresh air, cold water; walking, riding, and other out-door exercises.