March 30, 1871.
_Hygiene of the Brain_, New York, 1878.
DR. KING CHAMBERS,
HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF WALES.
"The physiology of the action of alcohol has a very practical bearing
on the physical regimen of the mental functions. Alcohol has the power
of curbing, arresting, and suspending all the phenomena connected with
the nervous system. We feel its influence on our thoughts as soon as
on any other part of the man. Sometimes it brings them more completely
under our command, controls and steadies them; sometimes it confuses
or disconnects them; then breaks off our power and the action of the
senses altogether. The first effect is desirable, the others to be
avoided. When a man has tired himself with intellectual exertion a
moderate quantity of alcohol taken with food acts as an anaesthetic,
stays the wear of the system which is going on, and allows the nervous
force to be diverted to the due digestion of the meal. But it must be
followed by rest from mental labour, and is, in fact, a part of the
same regimen which enforces rest--it is an artificial _rest_. To
continue to labour and at the same time to take the anaesthetic is an
inconsistency. It merely blunts the painful feeling of weariness, and
prevents it from acting as a warning. I very much doubt the quickening
or brightening of the wits which bacchanalian poets have
conventionally attributed to alcohol.
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