s
arterial properties for those of the venous blood. This is the cause of
the livid complexion of the inebriate, which so strongly marks him in
the advanced stage of intemperance. Hence, too, all the functions of his
body are sluggish, irregular, and the whole system loses its tone and
its energy. If ardent spirit, when taken into the system, exhausts the
vital principle of the solids, it destroys the vital principle of the
blood also; and if taken in large quantities, produces sudden death; in
which case the blood, as in death produced by lightning, by opium, or by
violent and long continued exertion, does not coagulate.

The principles laid down are plain, and of easy application to the case
before us.

The inebriate having, by the habitual use of ardent spirit, exhausted to
a greater or lesser extent the principle of excitability in the
solids--the power of reaction--and the blood having become incapable of
performing its offices also, he is alike predisposed to every disease,
and rendered liable to the inroads of every invading foe. So far,
therefore, from protecting the system against disease, intemperance ever
constitutes one of its strongest predisposing causes.

Superadded to this, whenever disease does lay its grasp upon the
drunkard, the powers of life being already enfeebled by the stimulus of
ardent spirit, he unexpectedly sinks in the contest, and but too
frequently to the mortification of his physician, and the surprise and
grief of his friends. Indeed, inebriation so enfeebles the powers of
life, so modifies the character of disease, and so changes the operation
of medical agents, that unless the young physician has studied
thoroughly the constitution of the drunkard, he has but partially
learned his profession, and is not fit for a practitioner of the present
age.

These are the true reasons why the drunkard dies so easily, and from
such slight causes.

A sudden cold, a pleurisy, a fever, a fractured limb, or a slight wound
of the skin, is often more than his shattered powers can endure. Even a
little excess of exertion, an exposure to heat or cold, a hearty repast,
or a glass of cold water, not unfrequently extinguishes the small
remains of the vital principle.

In the season that has just closed upon us, we have had a melancholy
exhibition of the effects of intemperance in the tragical death of some
dozens of our fellow-citizens; and had the extreme heat which prevailed
for several days continu