far otherwise affected by the same medicine, than are others. Nor is the mere strength of the action displayed by the medicine, the best assurance of its success. That the intemperate may be cured, a more healthful state of the stomach is to be produced; and at the same time, a thorough disgust of the liquors with which they have intoxicated themselves. Nor is this all. The disgust which is given, must for a time be kept up by the same means by which it was produced. Several have been strongly affected by a single glass of medicated spirits, and have fancied themselves, and have been thought by others, to have been cured; but have soon returned to their old courses; and others, who have taken half, or two thirds of the portion prescribed, and who for a fortnight or three weeks revolted from the thought of drinking rum, have again drank it. This has done much to bring the work of curing the intemperate into disrepute. The medicine which is given to each one should be of a kind, which is suited to produce in him a disgust of ardent spirits; and this disgust should be kept up for 8, or 10, and sometimes perhaps for 12 days.* I have administered a considerable number of Chambers' powders. But a preparation has been made by Reed and Howard of this city, a principal ingredient of which, I suspect to be of a character which is more universally disgusting, than are any of the *There are two objects to be had in view in curing the intemperate of their love of intoxicating spirits. The first is, to restore the organs which have been diseased by these spirits to a healthful state. The second is, to produce a disgust of these spirits, as strong, and as permanent as can be produced. A temporary disgust of intoxicating spirits is easily produced; and, that better state of the digestive organs, which will give to the patient a new enjoyment of his food, a new vigor and activity, a new enjoyment of rest after fatigue, and a new happiness in all his employments, and in all his relations. But the patient is not to be considered as a recovered man, merely because he is brought to feel this disgust, and this happiness. There are cases in which these results have been obtained by taking medicated spi ingredients in Chambers' powders; or, at least, that this is a more prevailing ingredient in Reed and Howard's, than in the New York preparation. Their "cure for Intemperance," I therefore, decidedly prefer to that of Chambers'. I cannot but avail myself of this opportunity to enter my protest against the unchristian sentiment, which has of late been too often repeated, "let the confirmed drunkard alone. He is beyond the pale of hope. Let him therefore die in his drunkenness; and let all our cares be directed to the salvation of those, who have been brought within the influence, but who are not yet overrits only for two, or three days. But the good effects, in these cases, have been of short duration. I have indeed good reason to suppose, in all the cases in which those who have taken medicated spirits have not been thoroughly disgusted with them, either that the medicinal agent employed was not so well suited to produce a strong disgust in the patient, as might have been produced by some other medicine; or, which is by far the more common cause of failure, the disgust has not been kept up long enough to secure its permanence. Here then, the judgment, and I will add, the authority of the physician is wanted. Some of those whom I have attended, after two or three days have begged with all the importunity with which a starving man would beg for food, to be permitted "to stop, and to take no more. And it is where this permission has too soon been granted, that almost every case of failure has occurred. The few cases in which medicine has yet been administered for this object are to be considered as experiments; and these have demonstrated, that the work of recovering the intemperate by medicine is practicable. Nor are even failures to be considered as exceptions. They prove only, that the work may be more difficult in one, than in another; that a longer term of keeping up disgust is necessary in many cases, than was at first thought to be requisite; and that physicians should have the charge of this great means of doing good, that patients may be kept in subjection, and in endurance, till they may be safely released. If it shall be committed to judicious men, I have no doubt whether this work will prosper. But if it be left to the unskilled, and to empirics, it will soon fall into discredit, and come to nought. There are stages, also, in taking a course of medicated spirits, in which the poor broken down system of the confirmed drunkard requires rest, and other medicinal applications than are given for the cure of his intemperate appetite, which no other than a physician is competent to prescribe. I should not willingly have done what I have in this business, had I not been assisted with the advice, and the occasional visits, of a medical friend, to whom I am much indebted for his services on these occasions. come by the wiles, of the destroyer."-Too much, indeed, cannot be done to save, and to secure the young; to reclaim those who have but begun to go astray. But never let human nature be given up. God has not given up the drunkard, while yet he permits him to live, and to be within the reach of the sympathy, and aid, which christian solicitude and exertion can extend to him. And shall man give up his fellow sinner, however low the sinner may have fallen? So felt not that friend of sinners, whom we are taught to call Master and Lord. Besides, it is not among the least remarkable of the phenomena, which recent endeavours to cure intemperance have brought to our observation, that there are moral remains in the heart even of the habitual drunkard, which are manifested only by the extension to him of christian sympathy, in the endeavour to recover him. It is a very remarkable fact, which recent endeavours to cure the intemperate have developed, or at least have made known as it was not before known, that many habitual drunkards have so strong a desire to be cured of their intemperate, and unnatural thirst, that they are willing to go through any course, through which they may pass with safety as to life, for the sake of being cured. As they are seen by the casual observer, or as they are seen in their drunkenness, they seem indeed to have lost every moral element of the soul. But it is not so. Their misery, in a sense of their degraded and debased condition, and of the sufferings which they bring upon those who are connected with them, is often as acute as human nature can sustain; and not having sufficient resolution to maintain a denial of their appetite, they fly to the intoxicating draught, that, as soon as possible, they may obtain a temporary relief from their unutterable wretchedness. Go then to this drunkard, when he is not under the power of the enemy of his virtue and his happiness, and tell him that he may be made thoroughly disgusted with the poison which he loves, and offer your services to cure him; and you will very probably find, for so have I more than once found,that he will weep over his own degradation; and, with a gratitude which no other boon can excite, he will submit himself wholly to your directions. You will find that, unjust, and cruel, and insensible as he has seemed to be, he has yet in his heart the living principles of filial, conjugal and parental affection and duty. These principles have been overpowered by other, and very evil principles; and they have seemed to be dead. But they are not dead. The man has but to be recovered from his intemperance, and you will find that he has still in him the elements of a moral nature, and that he is still capable of returning to God, and of finding happiness in the relations and duties of life. And has God given up this man, while yet we cannot know, till we have seriously tried, whether he may not be recovered from his intemperance? Respectfully, JOSEPH TUCKERMAN. P. S. My poors' purse is, and for some time has been, empty; and though demands upon it are far less now, than they were in the winter, there are yet those among us, whom I ought to be able occasionally to relieve.-It may not be amiss also to renew the suggestion, that if we could be furnished with a cheap and permanent lecture room, the benefactors who should give it to us would have no cause to think that they had misapplied their benevolence. Boston, August 4th, 1827. |