“In describing the effects of the alcohol habit,” says Dr. Isaac Jennings, “I want to impress the reader with another feature of it—its perpetuity. It can never be put off during the lifetime of the individual; it may be covered up to appearance, but it can not be effaced.… It seems to be a common impression that alcohol circulates through the body, excites the action of the heart and liver, quickens and enlivens the animal spirits, and then passes off, and leaves no trace of its visitation, or at most only a temporary loss of power, which is soon restored by a self-moved power pump. This is a great and fundamental error. Every drop of alcohol that enters the stomach inflicts an injury that will continue as long as the old stock lasts, and reach even to the young sprouts. It may not be enstamped on them in precisely the same way, but it will affect essentially the same parts.” (“Medical Reform,” pp. 173-175.) “If a man was sent to hell,” says Dr. Rush, “and kept there for a thousand years as a punishment for drinking, and then returned, his first cry would be, ‘Give me rum, give me rum!’” “The infernal powers blindfold the victims of their altars,” says Lessing, and the stimulant vice seems, in fact, to weaken not only the physical constitution of its votaries, but their moral power of resistance, and often even the faculty of realizing the perils of their practice, as if the poison had struck its roots into the very souls of its victims. But the alcohol habit grows outward, as well as inward. We have seen that each gratification of the poison vice is followed by a depressing reaction. But his feeling of exhaustion is steadily progressive, and the correspondingly increased craving for a repetition of the stimulant dose forces its victim _either to increase the quantity of the wonted tonic, or else to resort to a stronger poison_. The experience of individual drunkards probably corresponds to the international development of the alcohol habit. Its first devotees contented themselves with moderate quantities of the milder stimulants: must, hydromel and light beer. But such tonics soon began to pall, and the jaded appetite of the toper soon resorted to strong wines, to hard cider, and finally to brandy and rum. Others increased the quantity, and learned to drink horse-pails full of beer, in which “diluted and harmless form” many German students manage to absorb a quart of alcohol per day.