The Use of Stimulants a Cause of Physical Degeneracy
By Daniel H. Kress
FEebleness and disease exist, and are gradually increasing, in all civilized lands, and from present indications there is little hope for improvement in this respect.
In the past we have been encouraged to regard disease as a natural and unavoidable providence. When the British government made an effort a few years ago to exterminate the plague in India, they met with very little encouragement from the natives. “Why,” said one, “the plague is our kismat. God is punishing us, and can man oppose his divine resolve? It is wickedness to try.” Much of the same feeling, though unexpressed, prevails everywhere, and as long as these ideas are entertained by the masses, apathy will exist, and disease will prevail. Many of the epidemic diseases which in the past have at times almost depopulated entire cities, have been partially suppressed by strict quarantine measures.
A few years ago Australia succeeded in keeping the plague from her shores by the enforcement of such measures. Quarantine protects the physically infirm who would naturally be weeded out by epidemic diseases, but quarantine measures can not afford permanent protection from germ diseases. While it is right to protect the physically degenerate, this protection will not build up the vitality of the weak nor arrest the progress of disease. This is seen from the fact that while germ diseases have decreased, deaths due to constitutional diseases and premature decay are on the increase. A nation's vitality can not be determined by her ability to keep alive for a few extra years feeble infants or degenerate adults. It must be determined by her power to fill the vacancies made by death, and to fill these with healthy and hearty stock. Here civilized nations are failing. It is a sad fact that in all civilized lands there is a steady decrease in the birth-rate, and those that are born lack vitality and die prematurely. The modern mother does not possess the vigor to nourish naturally her weakly offspring, and is consequently forced to resort to artificial feeding, and the infant has little chance of living more than a year or two at best. Quarantine measures may for a time increase the average age of life, but they can not add to racial vigor, or in reality prolong life.
Vigor and long life depend upon the correction of the physical habits which are responsible for disease and physical degeneracy. I shall be able to refer to only a few of the most common causes of the present enfeebled condition of the human race. It is estimated that in Great Britain the working classes on an average spend fully one seventh of their income on drink. It is not at all surprising therefore that one third of the men who reach the age of sixty are in need of public aid. While less distilled liquor is drunk in America, more wine and beer are consumed. The masses are unaware of the injury to health and morals caused by these beverages. The artificial stimulation, or the feverish state of the system produced by the use of stimulants, is interpreted by them as strength. The patent medicine and tobacco habits are two national evils, and stand pre-eminent as causative factors of physical degeneracy. Laws have been passed in most of our civilized lands forbidding the use of tobacco by youths. This is well; but if tobacco proves to be an injury or a curse to the boy of sixteen or twenty, how can it be an unmingled blessing to the man of twenty-five or thirty? The man of forty is in possession of the same delicate nervous mechanism that is possessed by the young man of eighteen. There can be no doubt that alcohol and tobacco are undermining national vigor, and are active causes in producing disease and physical decay.
The use of stimulants is becoming so universal, especially in civilized countries, that for the welfare of the race it seems imperative that the true nature of these drugs should be understood. The word “stimulant” is derived from a Latin word meaning to goad or to urge on. A stimulant acts as a goad or whip. It urges one on, enabling him to do that which he feels disinclined to do.
By some, alcoholic beverages are employed for this purpose, while others, who are acquainted with the injurious nature of alcohol, resort to stimulating beverages against which there exists no popular prejudice as yet,—beverages which are considered harmless,—as tea, coffee, and cocoa. But these are employed for the same purpose that leads to the use of alcoholic beverages, because of their stimulating influence upon the nervous system.
When a person feels a lack of energy or feels ambitious, a drink of wine or beer, or a cup of tea or coffee, appears to impart new life. This has naturally led to the belief that beverages that are capable of exerting such decided effects must in some way impart energy. In France, mothers who are under this deception, may be seen pressing the wine bottle to the lips of their tender, sickly infants. Beer is similarly employed in other countries, yet the food value of these beverages is practically nothing. Baron Liebig, a world-recognized authority in physiological chemistry, says: “The amount of nutriment contained in a gallon of the best beer could be represented by the amount of flour that could be held on the point of a knife.”
The beer drinker, judging from the feeling of well-being he experiences after indulging in his habitual glass, is led to think that beer must be especially nourishing and sustaining. It is, in fact, difficult to convince him to the contrary, for does not he feel stronger after taking his usual glass of beer than he does after partaking of a hearty meal?
Tea and coffee exert, apparently, the same sustaining and strengthening influence. To this any user of these beverages can testify. Yet they possess practically no nutrition. For instance, it would require all the strength-giving material contained in five hundred cups of the most nutritious tea to sustain man for a period of twenty-four hours. Tea, then, can not be reckoned as a food, and its popular use as a beverage is not due to its nutritive properties any more than is the use of beer. The wise man said, “Wine is a mocker,” not because it is wine, but because it is a poison and exerts a stimulating or deceptive influence. What is true of wine is equally true of tea and coffee; it is true of all stimulants. “He that is deceived thereby is not wise.”
The fact that stimulants are universally sought after is evidence that the vitality of the race is at a low ebb, and that men and women everywhere feel a lack of energy and a need of something to urge them on. Is it well, however, for one who lacks energy to resort to stimulants? The tired, worn-out horse, possessing little energy, attempting to draw a heavy load, may be “assisted” with a whip, and may appear greatly improved and strengthened thereby. The whip does not impart new energy; it dissipates, or draws upon, the little that nature would have wisely reserved for other and more important purposes.
The stronger the stimulant used, the more will the reserve energy be dissipated, and the more pronounced will be the resulting depression and exhaustion and the craving for more stimulants later on. During the sleeping hours the effect of the stimulants used on the preceding day wears off. This explains why users of stimulants awake in the morning feeling tired, unrefreshed, and exhausted. Many are unable to get out of bed without resorting to a cup of tea, or else they must have it immediately after rising. They feel that they could much better dispense with breakfast than with the accustomed morning cup of tea. This is due to the fact that it requires several hours for food to digest, and for the energy stored up in it to be liberated, while the stimulant affords an immediate supply of energy by drawing upon the partially depleted nerve-cells. The slave of stimulants is carrying on business on borrowed capital, and must eventually become a mental and nervous wreck, or come to physical bankruptcy; it can not be otherwise. This, no doubt, accounts in part for the many nervous diseases and the increase of insanity in modern times.