Study and Stimulants | Page 4

he used to discredit the effect of alcohol in soothing the
excitement of prolonged intellectual work. I have always considered,
however, that there is something in it. Excess of tea I have good reason
to deprecate; I take it only once a day. The difficulty that presses upon
me on the whole subject is this:--In organic influences, you are not at
liberty to lay down the law of concomitant variations without exception,
or to affirm that what is bad in large quantities, is simply less bad when
the quantity is small. There may be proportions not only innocuous, but
beneficial; reasoning from the analogy of the action of many drugs
which present the greatest opposition of effect in different quantities. I
mean this--not with reference to the inutility for intellectual stimulation,
in which I have a pretty clear opinion as regards myself--but as to the
harmlessness in the long run, of the employment of stimulants for
solace and pleasure when kept to what we call moderation. A friend of
mine heard Thackeray say that he got some of his best thoughts when
driving home from dining out, with his skin full of wine. That a man
might get chance suggestions by the nervous excitement, I have no
doubt; I speak of the serious work of composition. John Stuart Mill
never used tobacco; I believe he had always a moderate quantity of
wine to dinner. He frequently made the remark that he believed the
giving up of wine would be apt to be followed by taking more food
than was necessary, merely for the sake of stimulation. Assuming the
use of stimulants after work to aid the subsidence of the brain, I can
quite conceive that tobacco may operate in this way, as often averred;
but I should have supposed that any single stimulant would be enough:
as tobacco for those abstaining entirely from alcohol, and using little

tea or coffee.
ALEXANDER BAIN. March 6, 1882.

PROFESSOR ROBERT S. BALL, LL. D., F. R. S., ANDREWS
PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
DUBLIN, AND ROYAL ASTRONOMER OF IRELAND.
I fear my experience can be of little use to you. I have never smoked
except once--when at school; I then got sick, and have never desired to
smoke since. I have not paid particular attention to the subject, but I
have never seen anything to make me believe that tobacco was of real
use to intellectual workers. I have known of people being injured by
smoking too much, but I never heard of anyone suffering from not
smoking at all.
ROBERT S. BALL. February 13, 1882.

MR. HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, SAN FRANCISCO.
In my opinion, some constitutions are benefited by a moderate use of
tobacco and alcohol; others are not. But to touch these things is
dangerous.
H. H. BANCROFT. May 6, 1882.

MR. JOSEPH BAXENDELL, F. R. A. S.
I fear that my experience of the results of the use of stimulants will not
aid you much in your enquiry. Although I am not a professed teetotaler
or anti-smoker, practically I may say I am one: and when I am engaged
in literary work, scientific investigations, or long and complicated
calculations, I never think of taking any stimulant to aid or refresh me,
and I doubt whether it would be of any use to do so.
JOSEPH BAXENDELL. February 20, 1882.

DR. G. M. BEARD, FELLOW OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF
MEDICINE.
In reply to your enquiries, I may say--first: I do not find that alcohol is
so good a stimulant to thought as coffee, tea, opium, or tobacco. On
myself alcohol has rather a benumbing and stupefying effect, whatever

may be the dose employed; whereas, tobacco and opium, in moderate
doses, tea, and especially coffee, as well as cocoa, have an effect
precisely the reverse.
Secondly: there are many persons on whom alcohol in large or small
doses has a stimulating effect on thought: they can speak and think
better under its influence. The late Daniel Webster was accustomed to
stimulate himself for his great speeches by the use of alcohol.
Thirdly: these stimulants and narcotics, according to the temperament
of the person on whom they are used, have effects precisely opposite,
either sedative or stimulating; while coffee makes some people sleepy,
the majority of persons are made wakeful by it. Some are made very
nervous by tobacco in the form of smoking, while on others it acts as a
sedative, and induces sleep. General Grant once told me 'that, if
disturbed during the night, or worried about anything so that he could
not sleep, he could induce sleep by getting up and smoking a short
time--a few whiffs, as I understood him, being sufficient.
If I were to judge by my own experience alone--which it