Alcohol -- Physiological effect; Alcoholism; Church and social problems; Temperance
Something reproduces these scars as the system throws off and changes
its particles. That something must have been affected by the scarring.
There is a strange connection between scars and the immaterial portion
of us. It is a mysterious fact, right before us daily, and absolutely
incontrovertible, that something in that part of us which does not
change reproduces these scars. Newton, when the apple fell on his
head--according to the fable, for I suppose that story is not
history--found in it the law of the universe; and so in the simple fact
that scars will not wash out or grow out, although the particles of the
flesh are all changed, we find two colossal propositions; the one is
that there is somewhat in us that does not change, and is not matter;
the other is, that this somewhat is connected mysteriously with the
inerasability of scars, which, therefore, may be said to exist in some
sense in the spiritual as well as in the material substance of which we
are made.
2. It is as true of scars on the brain and nervous system as of those on
any less important parts of the body, that they will not wash out, nor
grow out.
3. Scars on the brain or nervous system may be made by physical or
mental habits, and are the basis of the self-propagative power of
habits.
4. When the scars or grooves in which a habit runs are made deep, the
habit becomes automatic or self-acting and perhaps involuntary.
5. The grooves worn or scars made by good and bad habits may be
inherited.
Physical identity of parent and offspring, spiritual identity of parent
and offspring--these mysteries we have discussed here; and this two-fold
identity is concerned in the transmission of the thirst for drink. When
the drunkard who has had an inflamed stomach, is the father of a child
that brings into the world with it an inflamed stomach, you have a case
of the transmission of alcoholic scars.
6. While self-control lasts, a bad habit is a vice; when self-control is
lost, a bad habit is a disease.
7. When a bad habit becomes a disease, the treatment of it belongs to
physicians; while it is a vice, the treatment of it belongs to the
Church.
8. In probably nine cases out of ten, among the physical difficulties
produced by the use of alcohol, and not inherited, the trouble is a vice
and not a disease.
9. Alcohol, by its affinity for water, hardens all the albuminous or
glue-like substances in the body.
10. It thus paralyzes the small nerves, produces arterial relaxation,
and deranges the circulation of the blood.
11. It produces thus an increased quickness in the beating of the heart,
and ruddiness of countenance which are not signs of health, but of
disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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