Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/281

 foreign to the present objects, may be excited from causes residing in the brain, stomach, &c. just as in sleep.

Of Drunkenness.

The common and immediate effect of wine is to dispose to joy, i.e. to introduce such kinds and degrees of vibrations into the whole nervous system, or into the separate parts thereof, as are attended with a moderate continued pleasure. This it seems to do chiefly by impressing agreeable sensations upon the stomach and bowels, which are thence propagated into the brain, continue there, and also call up the several associated pleasures that have been formed from pleasant impressions made upon the alimentary duct, or even upon any of the external senses. But wine has also probably a considerable effect of the same kind, after it is absorbed by the veins and lacteals, viz. by the impressions which it makes on the solids, considered as productions of the nerves, while it circulates with the fluids in an unassimilated state, in the same manner, as has been already observed of opium; which resembles wine in this respect also, that it produces one species of temporary madness. And we may suppose, that analogous observations hold with regard to all the medicinal and poisonous bodies, which are found to produce considerable disorders in the mind; their greatest and most immediate effect arises from the impressions made on the stomach, and the disorderly vibrations propagated thence into the brain; and yet it seems probable, that such particles as are absorbed, produce a similar effect in circulating with the blood.

Wine, after it is absorbed, must rarefy the blood, and consequently distend the veins and sinuses, so as to make them compress the medullary substance, and the nerves themselves, both in their origin and progress; it must therefore dispose to some degree of a palsy of the sensations and motions; to which there will be a farther disposition from the great exhaustion of the nervous capillaments, and medullary substance, which a continued state of gaiety and mirth, with the various expressions of it, has occasioned.

It is moreover to be noted, that the pleasant vibrations producing this gaiety by rising higher and higher perpetually, as more wine is taken into the stomach and blood-vessels, come at last to border upon, and even to pass into, the disagreeable vibrations belonging to the passions of anger, jealousy, envy, &c. more especially if any of the mental causes of these be presented at the same time.

Now it seems, that, from a comparison of these and such like things with each other, and with what is delivered in other parts of these papers, the peculiar temporary madness of drunken persons might receive a general explanation. Particularly it seems natural to expect that they should at first be much