the
blood-vessels of the brain are dilated ; so that this seat of thought,
and of mental perceptions, is for a brief time flushed with blood, and
vivified beyond its wont. But presently such intellectual activity
becomes overpowered by the stupefying narcotic effects of the alcohol,
as intoxicating, to a degree more or less intense. When treating about
this topic, Dr. Robert Hutchison has related (in his Food and Dietetics, 1902),
that " Thackeray is said to have remarked he got some of his best
thoughts ' when driving home from dining out,—with his skin full of
wine.' " " We need not doubt it; " adds Dr. Hutchison, " for the
statement embodies a physiological truth. It was his skin which
was full of wine, since alcohol dilates the surface blood-vessels, and
along with them the vessels of the brain also. But, by the time
Thackeray got home one may expect that the narcotising effects of the
alcohol would have begun to assert themselves, and the brilliant
thoughts would have fled."
Concerning
the efficacy of alcohol towards maintaining the physical stamina during
health, or recuperating it during illness, some remarkable views,
supported by positive facts, have been lately adduced by Dr. Josiah
Oldfield, who is a thoroughly qualified physician ; also D.C.L. Oxford,
and has been for many years in medical charge of the Lady Margaret
Fruitarian Hospital, at Bromley, Kent. He writes : " There is a point
on which temperance people will probably misunderstand me, but I am
bound to say it;—I look upon the liquor of grain as one of the most
important causes of the stamina of the English people ; that is to say,
the ' beer' of old England. But, to my mind it is not the alcohol in
the beer, but it is the mineral salts which
