I shall not attempt to prove, that to drink ardent spirits is always a sin against God, or our neighbor. I shall not appeal to your sympathies, or harrow up your feelings by horrid pictures of the consequences of intemperance, for which there are so many materials at hand. I am not going to discuss the subject in its relation to political economy, to show how much crime and pauperism, and taxation, are owing to the use of alcohol. Neither shall I express any opinion with regard to the manufacture or sale of ardent spirits.

I intend to address you rather as individuals than as members of a community, to appeal, not so much to the social feelings, as to the understanding, and the prudence; the self-love, and the instinct of self-preservation in every one who hears me. I mean to show that the habitual use of intoxicating liquors, is, under all circumstances, unnecessary; often immediately injurious; and always, in the highest degree, dangerous, to the physical, intellectual, and moral well-being of those who indulge in it. . . .

The effect of alcohol . . . is that of a stimulant, always sudden, and even instantaneous. . . . The primary effect of alcohol upon the brain, through the nerves of the stomach, is analogous to that produced upon the same organ through the external senses. Joy, anger, music, exciting news, produce effects much more resembling those of alcohol, than those of alcohol are like the stimulus of food. Since ardent spirits furnish no nourishment to the body, they cannot add permanently to its ability to perform labor or sustain fatigue. And, although in some rare cases of disease, they may be useful in rousing the torpid nervous system, they cannot be necessary, or safe, in ordinary life; because it cannot be safe often to awaken unnatural excitement, nor necessary, except in extraordinary emergencies, and then the occasion itself is always a sufficient excitement.

What then are the effects of alcohol? It increases the action of all the organs by which the strength is expended, wasting rapidly the vital energies. It injures, weakens, and finally destroys the organs of digestion; thus diminishing the supply of strength in proportion as it creates a necessity for it. It exhausts, deranges, and stupefies the whole nervous system. It destroys the healthy, equable, pleasurable feeling of every organ of the body; substituting for it restlessness, discontent, and pain.

To understand how this is so, let us look at a single example. Of a company who have set down to drink take an individual. One or two of the first glasses seem to produce little effect, but closer observation may show us that even now the poison is beginning to operate. His eye assumes an unusual brightness, he listens more attentively to the conversation around him—he begins to take part in it—his words flow from his tongue with unwonted ease—as the bottle circulates he recollects that gesture is the ornament of speech, or by way of confirmation to what his hearers may seem to doubt, and at the same time to relieve his muscles impatient to be employed, he brings down his hand violently upon the table. Every glass now does its work. If you choose to fight, he is ready, whether the war be one of words, or of fists, or of knives. He sings—he dances—he shouts—he throws the bottles into the looking-glass, and the chairs through the windows. His internal organs are equally excited. His nostrils are dilated—his breath is deep and strong—his heart throws forth its blood almost with the rapidity of lightning—his face is flushed, and every nerve and fiber of his body is mad with excitement.

Without waiting to see how this process of exhaustion will end, let us look at him on the following morning and see how many of his organs have been the sufferers by it. His head is stupid and painful—his eye is unmeaning—his whole face is relaxed and inexpressive—he answers your questions with a monosyllable—his heart beats feebly and quick—there is pain in his joints and an indisposition to move—his mouth is parched—his stomach loathes food—and his whole appearance indicates discontent, and suffering, of body, and mind.

Source: Leonard Marsh, M.D., The Physiology of Intemperance: An Address before the Temperance Society of the University of Vermont, June 29, 1841 (Burlington, VT: Chauncey Goodrich, 1841).