Erasmus Darwin

“ Opium and alcohol increase all the secretions and absorptions. The increase of the secretion of sensorial power appears from the violent exertions of drunken people; the secretion of sweat is more certainly excited by opium or wine than by any other medicine; and the increase of general heat, which these drugs produce, is an evidence of their effect in promoting all the secretions; since an increase of secretion is always attended with increase of heat in the part, as in hepatic and other inflammations. ”

“ The necessity of much exercise has perhaps been more insisted upon by physicians, than nature seems to demand. Few animals exercise themselves so as to induce visible sweat, unless urged to it by mankind, or by fear, or hunger. ”

“ This requires to be explained; after the stimulus of opium or of alcohol ceases, as after common drunkenness, a consequent torpor comes on; and the whole habit becomes less irritable by the natural stimuli. Hence the head-achs, sickness, and languor, on the next day after intoxication, with cold skin, and general debility. Now in pains from excess of motion, called inflammatory pains, when opium is given, the pain is not relieved, till the debility comes on after the stimulus ceases to act; for then after the greater stimulus of the opium has exhausted much of the sensorial power ”

“ Franklin, the American philosopher, was in England many years ago, I recommended to him the use of a warm-bath twice a week to prevent the too speedy access of old age, which he then thought that he felt the approach of, and I have been informed, that he continued the use of it till near his death, which was at an advanced age. ”

“ Opium, when taken as a luxury, not as a medicine, is as pernicious as alcohol; as Baron de Tott relates in his account of the opium-eaters in Turkey.
10. It must be observed, that a frequent repetition of the use of this class of medicines so habituates the body to their stimulus, that their dose may gradually be increased to an astonishing quantity, such as otherwise would instantly destroy life; as is frequently seen in those, who accustom themselves to the daily use of alcohol and opium ”

“ The second mode of exercise is seen in the play of all young animals, as kittens, and puppies, and children; and is so necessary to their health as well as to their pleasure, that those children, which are too much confined from it, not only become pale-faced and bloated, with tumid bellies, and consequent worms, but are liable to get habits of unnatural actions, as twitching of their limbs, or of some parts of their countenance ”

“ Whereas the perspiration being secreted on the surface of the body is visible in its increased quantity, before it can be reabsorbed; whence arises that erroneous opinion, that opium increases the cutaneous secretion, and lessens all the others.
3. It must however be noted, that after evacuations opium seems to promote the absorptions more than the secretions; if you except that of the sensorial power in the brain, which probably suffers no absorption. Hence its efficacy in restraining hæmorrhages, after the vessels are emptied, by promoting venous absorption. ”

“ The pernicious effects of a continued use of much vinous spirit is daily seen and lamented by physicians; not only early debility, like premature age, but a dreadful catalogue of diseases is induced by this kind of intemperance ”

“ The manner in which ether and the essential oil operate on the system when applied externally, is a curious question, as pain is so immediately relieved by them, that they must seem to penetrate by the great fluidity or expansive property of a part of them, as of their odoriferous exhalation or vapour, and that they thus stimulate the torpid part, and not by their being taken up by the absorbent vessels, and carried thither by the long course of circulation ”

“ As oxygen penetrates the fine moist membranes of the air-vessels of the lungs, and unites with the blood by a chemical attraction, as is seen to happen, when blood is drawn into a bason, the lower surface of the crassamentum is of a very dark red so long as it is covered from the air by the upper surface, but becomes florid in a short time on its being exposed to the atmosphere ”

“ And vinegar, as it contains much vinous spirit, is probably a noxious part of our diet. And the distilled vinegar, which is commonly sold in the shops, is truly poisonous, as it is generally distilled by means of a pewter or leaden alembic-head or worm-tube, and abounds with lead ”

“ These pains from excess of motion are attended with increased heat of the whole, or of the affected part, and a strong quick pulse; the pains from defect of motion are attended with cold extremities, and a weak pulse; which is also generally more frequent than natural, but not always so.
8. Opium and alcohol are the only two drugs, we are much acquainted with, which intoxicate; and by this circumstance are easily distinguished from the secernentia and sorbentia. Camphor, and cicuta, and nicotiana, are thought to induce a kind of intoxication ”

“ Another kind of exercise is that of swinging, which requires some exertion to keep the body perpendicular, or pointing towards the center of the swing, but is at the same time attended with a degree of vertigo ”

“ Externally the application of heat, as the warm bath, by its stimulus on the skin excites the excretory ducts of the perspirative glands, and the mouths of the lymphatics, which open on its surface, into greater action ”

“ The stronger or less diluted the spirit is taken, the sooner it seems to destroy, as in dram-drinkers; but still sooner, when kernels of apricots, or bitter almonds, or laurel-leaf, are infused in the spirit, which is termed ratafia ”

“ Agitation in a carriage or on horseback, as it requires some little voluntary exertion to preserve the body perpendicular, but much less voluntary exertion than in walking, seems the best adapted to invalids ”