Pick Your Poison

Bacchus: an essay on the nature, causes, effects, and cure of intemperance

Grindrod paints a comprehensive picture of drunkenness in his work that gives a history of alcohol abuse throughout human civilization, and expounds on its characteristics and causative factors. He describes the toll of overindulgence on the body, the spirit, the family, and the nation, characterizing alcohol abuse as a threat to personal health, moral character, and the stability and prosperity of the US. Grindrod’s damning perspective on alcohol use was a common one in his time, and such thinking informed temperance movements in North America and throughout the world.