Many people injure their health by drinking, who seldom get drunk. The continual habit of soaking, as it is called, though its effects be not so violent, is not less pernicious. When the vessels are kept constantly full and upon the stretch, the different digestions can neither be duly performed, nor the humours properly prepared. Hence most people of this character are afflicted with the gout, the gravel, ulcerous sores in the legs, &c. If these disorders do not appear, they are seized with low spirits, hypochondriacal affections, and other symptoms of indigestion. Consumptions are now so common, that it is thought one-tenth of the inhabitants of great towns die of that disease. Hard drinking is no doubt one of the causes to which we must impute the increase of consumptions. The great quantities of viscid malt liquor drank by the common people of England, cannot fail to render the blood sizy and unfit for circulation; from whence proceed obstructions, and inflammations of the lungs. There are few great ale-drinkers who are not phthisical: nor is that to be wondered at, considering the glutinous and almost indigestible nature of strong ale. Those who drink ardent spirits or strong wines run still greater hazard; these liquors heat and inflame the blood, and tear the tender vessels of the lungs to pieces; yet so great is the consumption of them in this country, that one would almost be induced to think that the inhabitants lived upon them[43]. The habit of drinking proceeds frequently from misfortunes in life. The miserable fly to it for relief. It affords them indeed a temporary ease. But, alas! this solace is short-lived; and when it is over, the spirits sink as much below their usual tone as they had before been raised above it. Hence a repetition of the dose becomes necessary, and every fresh dose makes way for another, till the unhappy wretch becomes a slave to the bottle, and at length falls a sacrifice to what at first perhaps was taken only as a medicine. No man is so dejected as the drunkard when his debauch is gone off. Hence it is, that those who have the greatest flow of spirits while the glass circulates freely, are of all others the most melancholy when sober, and often put an end to their own miserable existence in a fit of spleen or ill humour. Drunkenness not only proves destructive to health, but likewise to the faculties of the mind. It is strange that creatures who value themselves on account of a superior degree of reason to that of brutes, should take pleasure in sinking so far below them. Were such as voluntarily deprive themselves of the use of reason, to continue ever after in that condition, it would seem but a just punishment. Though this be not the consequence of one act of intoxication, it seldom fails to succeed a course of it. By a habit of drinking, the greatest genius is often reduced to a mere idiot[44].