Study and Stimulants | Page 9

do my utmost to dissuade young and old
alike to abstain from even the moderate use of tobacco and stimulants,
as in the course of a long and laborious life, speaking much and
preaching without notes, I have always felt able to grapple with my
subject, with pleasure to myself and with profit, I trust, to my hearers.
A. J. D. D'ORSEY. March 17, 1882.

MR. EDMUND O'DONOVAN, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF
THE "DAILY NEWS."
As far as my experience goes, the use of stimulants enables one at
moments of severe bodily exhaustion to make mental efforts of which,
but for them, he would be absolutely incapable. For instance, after a
long day's ride in the burning sun across the dry stony wastes of
Northern Persia, I have arrived in some wretched, mud-built town, and
laid down upon my carpet in the corner of some miserable hovel,
utterly worn out by bodily fatigue, mental anxiety, and the worry
inseparable from constant association with Eastern servants. It would
be necessary to write a long letter to the newspapers before retiring to
rest. A judicious use of stimulants has, under such circumstances, not
only given me sufficient energy to unpack my writing materials, lie on
my face, and propped on both elbows, write for hours by the light of a
smoky lamp; but also produced the flow of ideas that previously
refused to come out of their mental hiding places, or which presented
themselves in a flat and uninteresting form. I consider, then, the use of
alcoholic and other stimulation to be conducive to literary labours
under circumstances of physical and mental exhaustion; and very often
the latter is the normal condition of writers, especially those employed
on the press. Perhaps, too, in examining into the nature of some
metaphysical and psychological questions the use of alcohol, or some

similar stimulant, aids the appreciation of nuances of thought which
might otherwise escape the cooler and less excited brain. On the other
hand, while travelling in the East during the past few years, and when,
as a rule, circumstances precluded the possibility of obtaining
stimulants, I found that a robust state of health consequent on an
out-door life, made the consumption of alcohol in any shape quite
unnecessary. In brief, then, my opinion is, that at a given moment of
mental depression or exhaustion, the use of stimulants will restore the
mind to a condition of activity and power fully equalling, and in some
particular ways, surpassing its normal state. Subsequently to the dying
out of the stimulation the brain is left in a still more collapsed situation
than before, in other words, must pay the penalty, in the form of an
adverse reaction, of having overdrawn its powers, for having, as it were,
anticipated its work.
E. O'DONOVAN. Feb. 17, 1882.

PROFESSOR DOWDEN, LL. D.
I distinguish direct and immediate effect of alcohol on the brain from
its indirect effect through the general health of the body. I can only
speak for myself. I have no doubt that the direct effect of alcohol on me
is intellectually injurious. This, however, is true in a certain degree, of
everything I eat and drink (except tea). After the smallest meal I am for
a while less active mentally. A single glass even of claret I believe
injures my power of thinking; but accepting the necessity of regular
meals, I do not find that a sparing allowance of light wine adds to the
subsequent dulness of mind, and I am disposed to think it is of some
slight use physically. From one to two and a half small wine glasses of
claret or burgundy is the limit of what I can take--and that only at
dinner--without conscious harm. One glass of sherry or port I find
every way injurious. Whisky and brandy are to me simply poisons,
destroying my power of enjoyment and of thought. Ale I can only drink
when very much in the open air. As to tobacco, I have never smoked
much, but I can either not smoke, as at present, or go to the limit of two
small cigarettes in twenty-four hours. Any good effects of tobacco
become with me uncertain in proportion to the frequency of smoking.
The good effects are those commonly ascribed to it: it seems to soothe
away small worries, and to restore little irritating incidents to their true

proportions. On a few occasions I have thought it gave me a mental
fillip, and enabled me to start with work I had been pausing over; and it
nearly always has the power to produce a pleasant, and perhaps
wholesome, retardation of thought--a half unthinking reverie, if one
adapts surrounding circumstances to encourage this mood. The only
sure brain stimulants with me are plenty of fresh air and tea;