The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction, Winfield Scott Hall [latest ebook reader txt] 📗

b. Stimulants and Narcotics.—It will be noted that no provision is made for coffee or tea in the above menu. The general conditions of life in a student community serve as a sufficient stimulation. Tea and coffee are stimulants, and on general principles, it is not wise to use stimulants unless one needs them. The college student does not need any other stimulant than is afforded by the conditions in a college community.

It may be fairly said that stimulants never benefit anybody who does not need them. On the other hand, they may easily injure a person who does not need them. Coffee for example, or tea, not only does not assist digestion but actually retards it. All stimulants produce a quickening of brain activity which is uniformly followed by a reaction in which the brain activity is either slowed or confused. The coffee drinker is almost certain to experience within an hour after a cup of strong coffee an exhilaration, with heightened brain activity. If one could experience this stimulation without any reaction, it might be advisable, especially for those who need just such stimulation at just such a time. However, when one considers that he cannot experience stimulation without experiencing a compensatory depression, he will see that it certainly does not pay to get the one at the expense of the other, except under unusual conditions.

Now the question may naturally arise: What occasion would justify the drinking of a strong cup of coffee? Suppose that one were due in an examination and that he had only one examination in a day; suppose it came at 8 o'clock. Let the student retire early the night before, rise early, take a walk before breakfast and eat a very light breakfast. He may take a cup of strong unsweetened black coffee with the breakfast. He will find that this coffee proves a strong stimulant, particularly if he has not been using it regularly, and that it produces the stimulation just when he wants it. He will find that he is better able to marshal his thoughts and to recall the various facts that he may need to use in formulating his answers to the examination questions. Under such conditions the author believes that it is justifiable for a student to use coffee. But we must not forget that the coffee is a drug; used for its drug action; used to produce a physiological effect at a definite time. Having produced that effect, one may expect the depression to follow after the examination.

Now the natural tendency, and a tendency which causes many people to pass step by step into an excessive use of this stimulation, is to relieve the depression which follows the first cup of coffee by taking another cup and so on, taking coffee at each meal and perhaps occasionally between meals. While some people of phlegmatic temperament can stand such a drug habit for years without being very seriously injured, it is certainly a habit to be strongly discouraged. A person who does not use coffee or tea regularly, but wishes on rare occasions to get a stimulation, can resort to it to produce that effect, but after having gotten the effect let him get over the depression as best he can, and not relieve it by taking a second cup.

If he has a week of examinations, it might be permissible to follow such a regime as suggested above throughout the week. On the whole, however, the use of these stimulants is to be discouraged.

Narcotics are those drugs which cause narcosis or a dulling of the senses and a decreased activity of both the muscular and nervous system.

One of the most common and typical narcotics is opium. Derived from opium is morphine. Cocaine belongs also to the narcotics as do the anæsthetics, such as chloroform, ether and common alcohol.

It is hardly necessary to say anything about the use of alcohol to intelligent college men. Very seldom do college and university students resort to alcoholic drinks, either for their drug effect or in a spirit of conviviality.

The intelligent people of the country realize the dangers that follow the use of alcoholic beverages. It is very rare that educated people use any alcohol and when used it is only in most moderate quantities, and usually, on special occasions.

It is only comparatively recently that the absolute truth of the Bible dictum that, "Wine is a mocker" has been realized.

Brandy and whiskey were taken for generations to make one warm on a cold day because it gave one temporarily a flush of warm blood to the skin, only to cool down the temperature of the body later, so that instead of raising the temperature of the body, alcohol actually lowers the temperature of the body.

Many people took alcohol when excessively hot to cool the body, but if the temperature of the outside air is higher than the temperature of the body, as is the case on excessively hot days in summer, the rush of blood to the surface would only have the effect desired in the first few minutes of the action of the alcohol. The skin would tend to become dry, the temperature of the blood to rise, subject to the influence of the hot air. This heated blood striking the vital organs accounts for the fact that on those excessively hot days, when there are many sunstrokes, most of them are among men who not only habitually take alcohol, but who are under the influence of alcohol at the time.

Many people have taken alcohol to improve digestion, but scientific observations on digestion under the influence of alcohol have shown that the digestion is actually retarded.

Many people have taken alcohol to make their muscles strong, and one does actually imagine that he is stronger after a moderate dose of alcohol, but many careful experiments on the part of numerous observers have shown that the muscles are really less strong and can do progressively less work the larger the dose of alcohol.

Many thought that alcohol would stimulate the action of the brain and have taken it for that purpose; but experiments have shown that while there is temporarily a greater activity of the brain, this activity is less under control of the higher brain centers. The after dinner champagne may loosen the tongue of the post-prandial speaker but he may say many things which the judgment would not commend.

So, in all those applications that men have made of alcohol through the ages, we find on careful examination, that in every case the alcohol actually has an effect opposite to that which has been attributed to it. How true then are the words of the Bible: "Wine is a mocker."

If an alcoholic beverage actually helped the muscles, the brain or the glands, one would find it seriously commended by athletic trainers and coaches for preparation in athletic contests; one would find it commended by the trainers of prize fighters to help them in their preparation and in the final encounter; one would find it recommended by mountain climbers and by Arctic explorers, to stimulate the muscles for the exhausting ordeal of mountain climbing or to protect the system from the penetrating cold of the northern latitudes; alcoholic beverages are, however, not only not advised by these men for these purposes, but on the other hand, all participants in these activities are positively forbidden to use any alcoholic beverages, even in the smallest quantities.

So the young man who would develop a clear thinking brain and a sound body must leave alcoholic beverages alone. Further, the young man who would have absolute control of his sexual desires, must leave alcohol alone, for the first thing that alcohol does is to throw down the lines of control. It is under the influence of alcohol that the young man is almost sure to make his first visit to the house of prostitution. If a girl lose her virtue, it takes place in a majority of cases when she is under the influence of alcohol; but for this influence lessening her control, she could not be seduced. Hence one of the requirements of continence is TOTAL ABSTINENCE.

Under the head of narcotics must be classed also tobacco, though tobacco has several other effects than the narcotic one. It exerts upon the mucous membranes an irritation and that is the reason why the mucous glands of the mouth secrete so freely when one chews or smokes, but the influence upon the nervous system is distinctly of a narcotic character, and while tobacco is a mild narcotic, and while it can be used by the adult moderately without serious results; this is certain, that no man has ever been benefited by the use of tobacco. And while many men have been injured, even by the moderate use, all men are injured by the excessive use. Furthermore, boys and young men who have not attained the full stature of their physical development are very seriously injured and retarded in their development through even the moderate use of tobacco. There is not an educator in America who will not testify to the fact that the use of tobacco in any form by young boys, retards both the physical and mental growth.

So tobacco certainly is another thing that is altogether proper to leave alone, and its use at the very best cannot be defended on any grounds other than that it is a sense gratification. And while it must be admitted that it may serve as a sense gratification in the case of the individual who participates in it, it must also be remembered that tobacco smoke or the smell of tobacco is, in a very high degree distasteful if not actually loathsome, to a large proportion of society, and the young man who gratifies sense at the expense of his neighbors, certainly is on the defensive.

In so far as tobacco is a narcotic, in just so far does it disarm and put to sleep those aesthetic and moral impulses which are so helpful in the maintenance of the continent life.

c. The Dietetic Control of the Bowels.—A most important hygienic rule is to maintain a strict regularity of the bowels. By regularity of the bowels we mean, a free, normal passage of the bowels at least once in twenty-four hours. Two or three passages in twenty-four hours are not too many.

A tendency towards constipation may be hereditary. The writer finds that at least one case in four of persistent chronic constipation among college men seems to be due to a hereditary tendency.

Those individuals who have from early infancy and throughout their whole life suffered from a tendency to constipation and perhaps from actual chronic constipation, find it exceedingly difficult to produce normal regular daily movements of the bowels. Whether constipation is chronic or occasional or whether it is hereditary or acquired, in any case, it should be corrected if possible through modification of the diet, and of daily habits.

First of all, one must remember in this connection that the lower bowel or rectum is subject to education, and not by any means the least important factor in overcoming a tendency to constipation, is the regular morning visit to the water closet.

The author would discourage the habit which some have of "straining at stool." This act of straining at stool together with the pressure which the hard fecal masses make on the blood vessels, increases the blood pressure in the veins of the rectum to such a high degree that it is likely to cause hemorrhoids or piles. But if the position favorable to the passage of the bowels be taken regularly, every morning, and a reasonable time spent in that position, and if the daily passage is brought about at that time, the