An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body Quotes

“But the molt interesting part of this doctrine, is the combustion of the human body, produced by the long and immoderate use of spirituous liquors. Such cases are on record; and a collection of them, with remarks, is to be found in the Journal de Physic, year 8, by Pierre Aime Lair. I subjoin a copy of that memoir, taken from the Philosophical Magazine, vol. vi. p. 132. by Mr. Alexander Tilloch. It is in vain to request implicit faith to this narrative. The testimony on which the whole cases are given, seems nearly alike. But in the present state of chemistry, and what we know of the nature of spirituous liquors, it does not appear beyond credibility, that from their long and excessive use, such a quantity of hydrogen might accumulate in the body, as to sustain the combustion of it.”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“From these accounts, we must conclude the Sicilians are rather a frisky people in their drunken revels. We thus observe that the character of nations, as well as individuals, may be discovered in these moments. The description which Tacitus gives of a German carousal differs considerably from that of these volatile islanders; for, according to what he asserts, deliberations of the most serious kind seem to have been entered upon during ebriety, as well as quarrels and bloodshed,”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“I have known a drunken man whip a post till he was tired, which he took for a human being that would not move out of his way. An old gentleman of 80, when in his cups, became so amorous, as to take a lamp-post for a lady, and addressed it with all the language of passion and flattery.”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“In an uncommonly cold day, and when snow and fleet were falling, I found a seaman asleep on the road, most stupidly drunk. Afraid that he would soon perish, I ran to the guardhouse, and procured two soldiers to carry him into a house. We succeeded in getting him upright; but the moment he saw soldiers about him, the dread of becoming their prisoner so far operated, that he recovered the use of his limbs, and fled from them with the utmost speed, and did not slop till he thought himself out of their reach. I came up, and found him again asleep by the side of a wall. When I roused him he knew me, and humourously remarked, that he had a right to sleep where be pleased, for he came on shore on liberty!”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“Their feeble tongues, Unable to take up the cumbrous word, Lie quite dussolv'd. Before their maudlin eyes, Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance, Like the fun wading through the misty sky. THOMSOW.”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“Did the giddy votaries of Bacchus but stop here, some indulgence might be granted, that human nature should a while forget those ills which flesh is heir to.”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“Moreover, some fifty years before Lettsom, George Cheyne had been advancing comparable ideas, showing how old soaks eventually succumbed to alcohol ‘cravings’: 23 They begin with the weaker wines; These, by Use and Habit, will not do; They leave the Stomach sick and mawkish; they fly to stronger Wines, and stronger still, and run the Climax from Brandy to Barbados Waters, and double-distill'd Spirits, till at last they find nothing hot enough for them.”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body

“Mad-doctors blamed drunkenness in their aetiologies of insanity, and, not surprisingly, many practitioners commented upon the evils of the ‘gin craze’. Even so, Trotter's treatise seems to have been the first book-length analysis of drunkenness by a British doctor – though it should not be forgotten that the American, Benjamin Rush's influential An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body (1785), had already appeared, a work to which Trotter curiously seems never to refer. 20”
― Thomas Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body