Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/384

370 reply to moral demand; able to do whatever is right and advantageous, simply because his reason shows that it is so. The sense of duty is to such a free man the only stimulus demanded for calling forth his uttermost energies.

If he again returns to his habitual tea, he will again be reduced to more or less of dependence upon it. This condition of dependence is a state of disease precisely analogous to that which is induced by opium and other drugs that operate by temporary abnormal cerebral exaltation. The pleasurable sensations enjoyed by the opium eater or smoker or morphia-injector are more intense than those of the tea drinker. Mr. Gaubert tells us that he enjoys his cup "immensely." The gin-drinker enjoys his half quartern "immensely," as anybody may see by "standing treat" and watching the result. The victim of opium has enjoyment still more immense, and in every case the magnitude of the mischief is measurable by the immensity of the enjoyment.

Again I say that I am not denouncing the proper use of any of these things. There are occasions when artificial stimulants or sedatives cautiously used are most desirable. My condemnation is applied to their habitual use, and the physical and moral degradation involved in the slavish dependence upon any sort of drug, especially when the drug operates most powerfully on the brain. To the brain-worker tea is worse than alcohol, because it exaggerates his special liability to overstrain. I can detect by physiognomical indications the habitually excessive tea-drinker as readily as I can detect the physiognomy of the opium-victim, as may anybody else who chooses to make careful observations.

I must not leave this subject without a word or two in reference to a widely prevailing and very mischievous fallacy. Many argue and actually believe that, because a given drug has great efficiency in curing disease, it must do good if taken under ordinary conditions of health.

No high authorities are demanded for the refutation of this. A little common sense properly used is quite sufficient. It is evident that a medicine, properly so called, is something which is capable of producing a disturbing or alterative effect on the body generally or some particular organ. The skill of the physician consists in so applying this disturbing agency as to produce an alteration of the state of disease, a direct conversion of the state of disease to a state of health, if possible (which is rarely the case), or more usually the conversion of one state of disease into another of milder character. But, when we are in a state of sound health, any such disturbance or alteration must be a change for the worse, must throw us out of health to an extent proportionate to the potency of the drug.

I might illustrate this by a multitude of familiar examples, but they would carry me too far away from my proper subject. There is.