JOSEPH BAXENDELL.
February 20, 1882.
DR. G. M. BEARD,
FELLOW OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE.
In reply to your enquiries, I may say--first: I do not find that
alcohol is so good a stimulant to thought as coffee, tea, opium, or
tobacco. On myself alcohol has rather a benumbing and stupefying
effect, whatever may be the dose employed; whereas, tobacco and opium,
in moderate doses, tea, and especially coffee, as well as cocoa, have
an effect precisely the reverse.
Secondly: there are many persons on whom alcohol in large or small
doses has a stimulating effect on thought: they can speak and think
better under its influence. The late Daniel Webster was accustomed to
stimulate himself for his great speeches by the use of alcohol.
Thirdly: these stimulants and narcotics, according to the temperament
of the person on whom they are used, have effects precisely opposite,
either sedative or stimulating; while coffee makes some people sleepy,
the majority of persons are made wakeful by it. Some are made very
nervous by tobacco in the form of smoking, while on others it acts as
a sedative, and induces sleep. General Grant once told me 'that, if
disturbed during the night, or worried about anything so that he could
not sleep, he could induce sleep by getting up and smoking a short
time--a few whiffs, as I understood him, being sufficient.
If I were to judge by my own experience alone--which it is not fair to
do--I should say that coffee is the best stimulant for mental work;
next to that tobacco and quinine; but as I grow older, I observe that
alcohol in reasonable doses is beginning to have a stimulating effect.
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