How to Cure Drunkards (1868)

AUTHOR: Jackson, James Caleb

https://archive.org/details/101190009.nlm.nih.gov

The title page gives the title as indicated above. The header to the text proper has the more flamboyant title: “The Philosophy of Drunkenness, and Its Cure” (3).

KEYWORDS: alcohol, food, Temperance

SUMMARY (Aïcha Bouchelaghem & Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

In this short tract, Jackson links alcoholism to bad eating habits, particularly gluttony. The first sentence states that he has never met an alcoholic who “was not an inordinate eater” (3) and gluttony often precedes, and leads to, habitual alcohol use. This is so because, just like alcohol, many items of food are stimulants, including tea, coffee, condiments, and meat (4-5):

If drunkenness is the product of moderate drinking of ardent spirits, or of brewed or fermented liquors, and moderate drinking is created under the use of tobacco and drug narcotics, and the use of these is aided by the use of the tea and coffee, and these are used under desire created by the use of animal food and vegetable spices, how can he who uses all of these himself and advocates their use by others, both well and sick, though he abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages, expect to see the day, or to have his descendants see it, when drunkenness will not exist? (8)

Jackson insists that “[w]here, in childhood, excitants like the flesh of fattened animals are used daily for food, and irritants like pepper, allspice, mustard, cinnamon and cloves are also used, and nervines like tea and coffee are also used, it may be considered as absolutely certain that with advancing years the person, thus accustomed to these things, will feel the need of stimulants” (5). Thus, the “best way to cure the drunkard is to see to it that he never becomes one, and the best way to do this is to keep him from having an appetite or desire or feeling of need of stimulants” (9). Hence, “[t]o prevent drunkenness, control the food and table beverages, condiments and drug medicaments of the sober. To cure it, do the same thing” (13). Above all, Jackson advocates veg*ism – “farinaceous food only” (13) – as a preventative and cure for alcoholism.