iting. The intimate relation which they sustain to the stomach
and nutritive functions is strikingly displayed in the habit of
alcoholic intoxication. Spirituous drinks deprave the appetite, derange
and destroy the stomach, poison the blood, and pervert all the functions
of mind and body; and their injurious influence upon the nerves and
basilar faculties is equally remarkable. They excite combativeness,
selfishness, irritability, and exaggerate the influence of the animal
organs. Intemperance results in disputes, fights, brawls, and
murders--the legitimate consequences of which are misunderstandings,
suits at law, criminal proceedings, imprisonment, and the gallows. It
is, therefore, evident that the ultimate tendencies of these faculties
are tyrannical, cruel, violent, and atrocious. They are opposed to the
noble, moral faculties--Faith, Love, and Devotion--and, whenever
temptation inordinately allures, the course of life is likely to be
characterized by dishonorable, deceptive, and treacherous conduct.

The pangs of hunger cause soldiers to act more like ravenous beasts,
than rational beings. It is animal instinct which impels the soldier to
seek first for the gratification of his appetite. Some persons,
instigated by carnivorous desires, yearn for raw meat, and will not be
satisfied unless their food is flavored with the flesh of animals. Their
bodies increase and thrive, even to repletion. Contrast these
individuals with pale, lean, anaemic people, who crave innutritious
articles of diet, and eat soft stones, slate, chalk, blue clay, and soft
coal. Such perversions of the appetite are manifested only when there is
either a diminution in the volume of blood, deficient alimentation,
defective assimilation, or a general depravity of the nutritive
functions. Morbid conditions generate vitiating tendencies and destroy
the natural appetite.

While alcoholic stimulants affect the medulla oblongata principally,
opium acts chiefly on the cerebrum, and excites reverie, dreamy
ideality, optical delusions, and the creative powers of the imagination;
some of these hallucinations are said to be grotesquely beautiful and
enjoyable. The effects of this agent differ from those of alcoholic
intoxication by not deadening the moral sensibilities, or arousing the
animal propensities. Opium smokers are dreamy and abstracted, not
quarrelsome or violent. Those who use ardent spirits lose their moral
delicacy, their intellect becomes dull