W. B. Carpenter "can get
on best, while in London, by taking with his dinner a couple of
glasses 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 accumulation 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 potassium may deprave the
mind, by lowering the tone of certain of the nervous centres, in
narcotising them and impairing their nutrition.
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