Brain-work, Alcohol, and Tobacco.
James Parton concludes a recent very suggestive article upon the habits and death of Bayard Taylor, whom he had, as a personal friend, warned against the danger of wine and beer drinking and smoking, as follows:— “Mental labor is not hostile to health and life; but I am more than ever convinced that a man who lives by his brain is of all men bound to avoid stimulating his brain. In this climate, to stimulate the brain by alcohol and tobacco is only a slow kind of suicide. Even the most moderate use of the mildest wine is not without danger, because the peculiar exhaustion caused by severe mental labor is a constant and urgent temptation to increase the quantity and strength of the potation. I would say to every young man in the United States, if I could reach him, if you mean to attain one of the prizes of your profession and live a cheerful life to the age of eighty, throw away your dirty old pipe, put your cigars in the stove; never buy any more, become an absolute teetotaler, take your dinner in the middle of the day, and rest one day in seven.”