The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter.

Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    INTRODUCTION. The following pages contain the results of inquiries in which the author has now been for several years engaged, in regard to the influence of Alcoholic liquors upon the Human system. When he first entered upon this investigation, he had adopted no foregone conclusion or rule of practice; and had, consequently, no disposition to make the facts square with preconceived views. He has throughout endeavoured to treat the subject as one of purely scientific inquiry ; and has avoided mixing up, in his discussion of it, any other con- siderations than those which presented themselves to him as a Physiologist and a Physician. To the conclusions which he has been thus led to form, he has availed himself of every appropriate opportunity of giving unhesitating expression;— equally disregarding the opposition of those, who, without giving themselves the trouble of examining the evidence he has adduced, or of mastering the arguments he has built-up on the sure foundation of facts, dogmatically affirm that he has gone a great deal too far, in stigmatizing as injurious ■what is really beneficial or at least innocent;—and indiffe- rent, on the other hand, to the assertions of such, as, with a like contempt of whatever does not accord with their cherished opinions, accuse him of inconsistency in not denouncing the use of alcohol in all forms and under all circumstances. In setting forth the following Propositions as expressive of what he deems to be the true relation of Alcohol to the living Human body, the author is peculiarly desirous that he should be distinctly understood as not having adopted them for his creed in the first instance, and set himself to prove thern afterwards; and also as by no means desiring that any of his readers should take them upon trust, and acquiesce