which occasioned the exhaustion; because the common exciting powers
can scarcely act upon his exhausted excitability.

But though the excitability be in this way exhausted, it will in the
course of a day or two be again accumulated, and it may, perhaps, be
suspected that this exhaustion can do no harm to the constitution;
but this is a premature conclusion, and quite contrary to fact and
experience, as well as to reason; for, just in the same manner that
a pendulum, made to vibrate in the arc of a circle, will never
return exactly to the same height, but fall a little short of it
every time; so, though the excitability may be again accumulated, it
never can be brought back to what it was before; and every fresh
debauch will shorten life, probably two or three weeks at least,
besides debilitating the body, and bringing on a variety of
diseases, with premature old age.

Those who drink only a moderate quantity of wine, so as to make them
cheerful, as they call it, but not absolutely to intoxicate, may
imagine that it will do them no harm. The strong and robust may
enjoy the pleasures of the bottle and table with seeming impunity,
and sometimes for many years may not find any bad effects from them;
but depend upon it, if a full diet of animal food be every day
indulged in, with only a moderate portion of wine, its baneful
influence will blast the vigour of the strongest constitution.

While we are eating, water is the best beverage. The custom of
drinking fermented liquors, and particularly wine, during dinner, is
a very pernicious one. The idea that it assists digestion, is false;
those who are acquainted with chemistry know, that food is hardened,
and rendered less digestible by these means, and the stimulus which