Study and Stimulants | Page 7

and must be
taken occasionally. In my opinion, all intellectual productions are due
to a special disposition of the cerebro-spinal system, upon which
tobacco and alcohol can have no salutary action. I fear that my answer

will be of little help to you; for in these matters I esteem theory nothing.
There are, as the Germans say, idiosyncrasies.
MAXIME DU CAMP. Feb. 17, 1882.

DR. W. B. CARPENTER, C. B., LL. D., F. R. S.
In reply to your enquiry, I have to inform you that I have never felt the
need of alcoholic stimulants as a help in intellectual efforts; on the
contrary, I have found them decidedly injurious in that respect, except
when used with the strictest moderation. For about eleven years of the
hardest-working period of my life, that in which I produced my large
treatises on Physiology, edited the Medical Quarterly Review, and did a
great deal of other literary work, besides lecturing, I was practically a
total abstainer, though I never took any pledge. I undoubtedly injured
myself by over-work during that period, as I have more than once done
since under the pressure of official duty; but the injury has shown itself
in the failure of appetite and digestive power. After many trials, I have
come to the practical conclusion that I get on best, while in London, by
taking with my dinner a couple of glasses of very light Claret, and
simply as an aid in the digestion of the food which is required to keep
up my mental and bodily power. But when "on holiday" in Scotland, or
elsewhere, I do not find the need of this. I have never smoked tobacco,
or used it in any form. I need scarcely say that I have never used any
other "nervine stimulants." You are at perfect liberty to make use of
this communication.
WM. B. CARPENTER. Feb. 17, 1882.

MR. WILLIAM CHAMBERS, LL. D.
In reply to your note, I have only time to say that I never used tobacco
in any form all my life, and I can say the same thing regarding my
brother, Robert.
WILLIAM CHAMBERS. February 10, 1882.

MR. GEORGE W. CHILDS, PHILADELPHIA.
I fear I shall be unable to add to your fund of information. Never
having used spirituous or vinous stimulants, or tobacco in any form, I
have no personal "experience" of the way they affect the mental

faculties of those who use them.
G. W. CHILDS. Sept. 30, 1882.

M. JULES CLARETIE, PARIS.
I should have been glad to reply to your question from my personal
experience, but I do not smoke, and have never in all my life drunk as
much as a single glass of alcohol. This plainly shows that I require no
"fillip" or stimulant when at work. Tobacco and alcohol may cause
over-excitement of the brain, as does coffee, which I am very fond of;
but, in my opinion, that alone is thorough good work which is
performed without artificial stimulant, and in full possession of one's
health and faculties. The reason we have so many sickly productions in
our literature arises probably from the fact that our writers, perhaps,
add a little alcohol to their ink, and view life through the fumes of
nicotine.
M. JULES CLARETIE. Feb. 26, 1882.

MR. HYDE CLARKE, F. S. S.
As I am not an adherent of the teetotal abstinence movement, I beg that
everything I write may be accepted with this reservation. I have never
seen that any great thinker has found any help or benefit from the use
of stimulants-either alcohol or tobacco. My observations and
experiences are unfavourable to both classes of stimulants. In my own
case, I gave up smoking before my scientific work began. Alcoholic
drinks I used moderately, but I was a water drinker chiefly. Of late
years, from illness, I have given up alcoholic drinks; but were I in full
health, I should use them moderately. In the course of a public life of
about forty years, I have seen the ill-effects of drinking upon many
journalists and others; but it appears to me that smoking produces still
greater evil. A man knows when he is drunk, but he does not know
when he has smoked too much, until the effects of accumulation have
made themselves permanent. To smoking are to be traced many
affections of the eyes, and of the ears, besides other ailments. I have
heard much said in favour of smoking and drinking, but never saw any
favourable result. The communication of the evil results of these
stimulants to offspring appears to me to constitute a further serious

objection to them, I approve fully of your object, but as I do not go to
the length of total abstinence advocates, I am desirous