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Also in the Variorum Collected Studies Series:

PETER MEREDITH, edited by JOHN MARSHALL

The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging
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MEG TWYCROSS, edited by SARAH CARPENTER and PAMELA KING

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https://www.routledge.com/history/series/VARIORUMCS
 VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES

________________

The Practicalities of Early English Performance:

Manuscripts, Records, and Staging
________________
 Peter Meredith
Edited by John Marshall

________________

The Practicalities of Early English Performance:

Manuscripts, Records, and Staging
________________

Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies

First published 2018
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, John Marshall; individual chapters, Peter Meredith
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 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I: Matters of manuscript and text

1. ‘“Nolo mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae play of the Woman Taken in Adultery’, MÆ,
38 (1969), pp. 38–54
2. ‘A reconsideration of some textual problems in the N.Town manuscript (BL MS Cotton
Vespasian D viii)’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 9 (1976–77), pp. 35–50
3. ‘John Clerke’s hand in the York Register’, Essays in Honour of A.C. Cawley, ed. by Peter
Meredith, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 12 for 1980–81 (1981), pp. 245–71
4. ‘The York Millers’ pageant and the Towneley Processus Talentorum’, METh, 4.2 (1982),
pp. 104–14
5. ‘Scribes, texts and performances’, in Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula
Neuss (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1984), pp. 13–29
6. ‘The Towneley pageants’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre,
ed. by Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
revised edn, 2008), pp. 152–82.
7. ‘Establishing an expositor’s role: Contemplacio and the N.Town manuscript’, in The
Narrator, the Expositor, and the Prompter in European Medieval Theatre, ed. by Philip
Butterworth (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 289–306

Part II: Resuscitating records

8. ‘The development of the Mercers’ pageant waggon’, METh, 1.1 (1979), pp. 5–18
9. ‘“Item for a grone – iijd” – records and performances’, in Proceedings of the First
Colloquium at Erindale College, University of Toronto, 31 Aug.–3 Sept. 1978, ed. by
JoAnna Dutka (Toronto: Records of Early English Drama, University of Toronto, 1979),
pp. 26–60
10. ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the development of the York Tilemakers’ pageant’, Leeds
Studies in English, n.s. 11 for 1979 (1980), pp. 59–73
11. ‘“Make the asse to speake” or staging the Chester Plays’, in Staging the Chester Cycle,
ed. by David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s. 9 (1985), pp. 49–76
12. ‘The ffteenth-century audience of the York Corpus Christi play: Records and speculation’,
in ‘Divers Toyes Mengled’: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture in Honour of
André Lascombes, ed. by Michel Bitot, Roberta Mullini, and Peter Happé (Tours:
Université François Rabelais, 1996), pp. 101–11
13. ‘Professional travelling players of the ffteenth century: Myth or reality?’, in European
Medieval Drama 1997: Papers from the Second International Conference on Aspects of
European Medieval Drama, Camerino, 4–6 July, 1997, ed. by Sydney Higgins
(Camerino: Università Degli Studi di Camerino, 1997), pp. 25–40

Part III:Performance: Original and modern

14. ‘Original-staging production of English medieval plays – ideals, evidence and practice’,
in Popular Drama in Northern Europe in the Later Middle Ages: A Symposium.
Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium organized by the Centre for the
Study of Vernacular Literature in the Middle Ages held at Odense University on 17–18
September, 1986, ed. by Flemming G. Andersen, Julia McGrew, Tom Pettitt and Reinhold
Schröder (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), pp. 65–100
15. ‘Mankind in Camerino: Playing the very devil and other matters’, Studies in Theatre
Production, 16 (December, 1997), pp. 84–92
16. ‘Performance, verse, and occasion in the N-Town Mary Play’, in Individuality and
Achievement in Middle English Poetry, ed. by O.S. Pickering (Cambridge: Boydell &
Brewer, 1997), pp. 205–22
17. ‘Carved and spoken words: The angelic salutation, the Mary Play and South Walsham
Church, Norfolk’, in Porci ante Margaritam: Essays in honour of Meg Twycross, ed. by
Sarah Carpenter, Pamela King, and Peter Meredith, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 32
(Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 2001), pp. 369–98
18. ‘The sealing of the tomb: N-Town and its context’, in According to the Ancient Custom:
Essays presented to David Mills, ed. by Phil Butterworth, Pamela M. King, and Meg
Twycross, METh, 29 (2007), pp. 75–88
Bibliography
Index
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Author, Editor, and Publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce the original
publications that comprise this volume. The bibliographical details of those publications are
listed in full in the Contents. Reproduction of copyright images are also acknowledged beneath
each photograph.
 INTRODUCTION

In bringing together the volumes in this series the General Editors are attempting to bring to a
wider scholarly and student readership the most important twentieth- and twenty-first century
scholarship on English medieval drama/theatre. In the second half of the twentieth century there
were some fundamental shifts in our knowledge of medieval theatre and its practice. The first
authors in this series, Professor David Mills (Liverpool) Professor Alexandra Johnston
(Toronto) Professor Peter Meredith (Leeds) and Professor Meg Twycross (Lancaster) have
between them been responsible for some of the most important research in this field. The
purpose of the series is to widen the readership for their work and make it more accessible to
scholars in related areas. There are also many young scholars of medieval drama/theatre who
are not aware of the depth of investigation that has already been carried out in their field.
This volume presents selected works of Peter Meredith. As is the case with the other authors
in this series, much of Meredith’s work has been published in specialist publications that are,
in some instances, difficult to access. Peter Meredith is a major contributor to the revival of
academic and public interest in medieval English drama and theatre that followed the
groundbreaking publication in the late 1950s of Glynne Wickham’s first volume of Early
English Stages 1300 to 1660 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959). Wickham was also
responsible for recognizing the practical and research benefits of realizing in production
medieval play texts as a legitimate mode of study. He viewed practice as equivalent to
laboratory experiments in the sciences. Peter Meredith has raised this belief in the importance
of practice informing theory to new heights. Much of the work in this volume combines his
characteristic ability and enthusiasm to make clear the technical complexities of manuscript
and textual analysis with a remarkable insight into the practical implications of medieval
records of performance. This vision has, in no small part, informed his teaching and research
as well as being the driving force behind the initiation and active involvement in the movement
to recreate the original staging of medieval plays. Meredith’s knowledge and expertise in this
area ensured that his name was invariably one of the first to be attached to the organizing
committees dedicated to the production of medieval plays, particularly the cycles: the wagon-
staged York Cycle at Leeds University (1975), the Towneley Cycle in Wakefield (1980), the
Chester Plays at Leeds and Chester (1983), and the N.town production at the University of
Toronto (1988). These productions not only sought to test in practice modern theories of
medieval theatre but also to bring spectacular entertainment to a wide audience.
Born in Ross-on-Wye, Meredith attended schools in Southampton, Bideford, and Eastleigh.
Following National Service in the RAF, he went to Exeter College, Oxford (1953–7) where,
under the tutelage of Nevill Coghill, his interest in all things medieval was ignited. After a
period of school-teaching, Meredith returned to his love of the medieval world by researching
representations of the Christ Knight at University College of North Staffordshire at Keele
(1958–60). One of his supervisors, Ralph Elliott, was to further guide Meredith’s career by
encouraging him to apply for a post teaching Medieval Literature and the History of the English
Language at the University of Adelaide (1961–9). It was here that opportunity and resources
facilitated the exploration of medieval drama in practice with full-scale productions of
pageants from various cycles. Notable among them was the Chester Noah, presented in a
recreation of medieval costume, with a masked God, and using a demountable stage which
could be transformed into the ark; an early venture into the realm of original-staging
production. In 1969, Meredith returned to England and began a distinguished career as lecturer
and later Professor of Medieval Drama in the School of English, University of Leeds. It was
here, as with so many scholars of medieval drama, that Meredith was to experience the
kindness and influence of Arthur Cawley, Professor of English Language and Medieval
Literature at the University of Leeds. Knowing of Meredith’s passion for the N.town plays
nurtured in Adelaide, Cawley introduced him to Stanley J. Kahrl from Ohio State University
who was also working on the N.town plays. This collaboration resulted in the invaluable and
scholarly facsimile of MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII published as one of the Leeds Texts and
Monographs in 1977. Meredith’s unequalled knowledge and understanding of the manuscript
and text of N.town also generated two indispensable books on originally independent plays:
The Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript (London and New York: Longman, 1987), and
The Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript (London and New York: Longman, 1990). In
addition to these editions, Meredith published a number of articles on N.town; six of them are
reproduced in this volume in recognition of his immense contribution to furthering the study,
amongst students and scholars alike, of the manuscript, text, and performance of this
remarkable collection of pageants and plays.
In the field of medieval drama/theatre, Peter Meredith’s legacy is not confined to the
visibility of the works presented here. Behind the scenes, as it were, he has been instrumental
in setting up or supporting some of the most influential organizations responsible for sustaining
the dissemination of research, records, and opinions. He was one of the organizing committee
that created the first of the international colloquia in medieval drama (Leeds, 1974) that
continues to meet every three years as the Société Internationale pour l’Étude du Théâtre
Médiévale. He joined the Executive Board of Records of Early English Drama at its inception
(1975) and was invited by Meg Twycross to join her in setting up and co-editing the journal
Medieval English Theatre (1979). All three organizations continue to thrive. In 1993,
Meredith was one of the committee that founded the highly regarded and successful Leeds
International Medieval Congress where matters of medieval drama and performance have
consistently played a part in the wider lively exchange of ideas with medievalists from around
the world. Without these major resources, publication of discoveries and interpretations of
texts and records would have been more difficult to achieve. This volume brings to a new
generation of students and scholars work that is crucial to an appreciation of the extensive
input made by Peter Meredith to our understanding of medieval drama. It exemplifies his
invaluable contribution to that understanding within the areas of manuscript and text analysis,
record interpretation, and the application of those findings to the practical realization of the
plays.
It would be an absurd reduction to suggest that Meredith’s published work can be divided
into the three distinct areas outlined above. Convenience of collation explains the division here
into categories of accent. The first part, ‘Matters of manuscript and text’, examines what the
material culture of medieval drama can tell us about the processes of composition. For
example, Meredith’s insight that an appreciation of scribal practice can uncover editorial
decisions that in turn expose the structure and meaning of the play is profound. It also impacts
on performance as in the case of the use of Latin in a speech where it becomes a character
defining device.
Throughout the publications in this section, Meredith demonstrates, with reassuring clarity,
that the meticulous reading and analysis of manuscripts is a necessary precursor to
understanding the creation and fluidity of texts. In turn, this procedure can reveal the processes
of structuring a play and its meaning with concomitant impacts upon performance. As he makes
very clear in the opening section, without technical competence and application at the material
level of manuscripts there is a likely failure to acknowledge the organic growth of medieval
plays in favour of reliance upon a static template. Meredith makes an impassioned plea for the
study of medieval drama to go beyond texts in isolation to a view of them in chronological
sequence and context as revealed by revisions recorded in manuscripts.
This approach to the understanding of medieval drama/theatre is finely signposted in
Meredith’s first publication included here; ‘“Nolo mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae Play of
the Women Taken in Adultery’. It not only marks his career-long and fervent academic interest
in the N.town plays but it also sets out his exacting research methodology. It begins with the
simple statement that the first line of the play, The Woman Taken in Adultery, is in fact the first
line of the play. Not, it might seem, an auspicious start to his published work in academic
journals. But what follows is an immaculate dissection of the play that engages with
manuscript study, dramatic structure, performance history, and theology and religious practice.
It might have been a hard act to follow but it set the academic standard for the analysis of
medieval drama as an interdisciplinary field.
The first part also shows that Peter Meredith has not limited his research and publication to
the N.town plays. The seven publications in ‘Matters of manuscript and text’ deal in depth, and
with the same scrupulousness, with the manuscripts and texts of the York Cycle, the Towneley
Cycle, and the Chester Plays as well as N.town.
‘Resuscitating records’ highlights Meredith’s contribution to one of the most significant
developments in the study of medieval drama/theatre to have taken place in the last 50 years or
so: the publication of records of dramatic performance up to the Civil War. From the late
nineteenth century, antiquarians, local historians, and theatre historians published extracts from
parish and civic records that referred to performance. These were mostly selective, not always
accurate, and in some cases fake. In the interwar years the Malone Society began a regular
publication of records of performance in addition to their prime purpose of publishing lesser
known works from the Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean periods. Although generally more
accurate than previous transcriptions, the volumes lacked historical context and an academic
apparatus. In 1979 Records of Early English Drama (REED), based in Toronto, began to
publish county and city volumes of in many cases previously unknown material. It is in the
context of this exciting development that scholars in the area of medieval drama began to match
records to manuscripts and texts. Meredith was one of the pioneers of this movement and his
publications in the second section reveal both the excitement of new discoveries and the
advancement of the study of medieval theatre practice. Much of the work represented in this
section owes an enormous debt to the foresight, energy, and resilience of those that founded
and sustain REED.
Much of that excitement and the supportive environment of the Medieval English Theatre
meetings begun by Meg Twycross at Lancaster in 1979, in which ideas could be shared and
problems discussed, comes vividly through Meredith’s first piece in this section. It concerns
the York Mercer’s pageant wagon and the application to the manuscript and text of a (then)
recently found guild inventory. As Meredith made clear in the second article, ‘Item for a grone
– ijd’, the twin necessities of dealing with records are ‘accurate transcription’ and ‘painstaking
interpretation’. Precisely the same demands he placed on the study of manuscripts and texts.
The second section reveals through a variety of often enigmatic examples Meredith’s
skilfulness in breathing life into accounts of expenditure and interpreting their practical
implications.
A recurring theme running through Meredith’s published and spoken delivery is the
questioning of received opinion. Too often a fleeting remark or an unsubstantiated opinion goes
unchallenged and passes into orthodoxy. In the world of medieval drama this is no more
evident than in the widely held belief that professional travelling players roamed England
during the fifteenth century. In ‘Professional travelling players of the fifteenth Century: Myth or
reality?’ he explores the terminology to describe the assortment of performers at the time to
observe that they are not as precise as some critics have hoped.
In the third part, ‘Performance: Original and modern’, Meredith applies the evidence of
staging to recreating the conditions of performance. As always, he is driven by evidence; not
just what seems to work for modern audiences, such as the over-exploitation of humour and
attempts at topicality, but what the surviving material actually dictates. The opening article,
‘Original-staging production of English medieval plays’ provides a very useful guide to
modern reproductions of medieval plays. His depth of understanding is further exemplified in
the piece on ‘Mankind in Camerino’ where problems of production are solved or proposed
from a wealth of evidence, exegesis, and theatrical nous. The articles in this part make it
abundantly clear that ‘evidence’ is not confined to the financial recordings of churchwardens
and civic officials. If one knows where to look it can also be found in the text and its verse,
and in the carved representations of scenes in common preserved in local churches.
Without the interrogation of manuscripts and their relationship with texts and the
‘painstaking interpretation’ of records, attempts to reconstruct original-staging productions for
modern audiences would be hypothetical and worthless. There is no suggestion here that
manuscript scrutiny, textual analysis, and record and image interpretation are merely servants
to production. Clearly they possess purpose in their own right. But it does demonstrate the
interconnectedness of source, practice, and performance. It represents a triumvirate of
processes that Peter Meredith has embraced, refined, and shared to the lasting benefit of those
of us who study medieval drama and theatre.
JOHN MARSHALL
 Part I

Matters of manuscript and text

1

‘NOLO MORTEM’ AND THE LUDUS COVENTRIAE

PLAY OF THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY

The first line of the Ludus Coventriae play de muliere in adulterio deprehensa is ‘Nolo
mortem peccatoris’. It should be unnecessary to say this, since the scribe of the manuscript has
already done so, but as in the last few years at least two scholars have declined his instruction
it seems necessary to restate it as a fact.1 Eleanor Prosser in her study of the Ludus Coventriae
says, ‘The sermon opens with “Man for thi synne take repentaunce” (l. 1)’,2 thereby implying
the rejection of the true first line, and R. G. Thomas in his recent edition of the play more
specifically says, ‘Probably the scribe believed that the play began with the Latin phrase
“Nolo mortem peccatoris” – which precedes the first words of Jesus, as a kind of text before
the pageant.’3 Because he believes it to be a kind of text, Thomas rejects the Latin line and
begins the play with ‘Man for thi synne take repentaunce’.
This reluctance to begin with Nolo mortem peccatoris appears to stem partly from the
appearance of the play in the manuscript (British Museum, Cotton Vespasian D.VIII), partly
from its appearance in Miss Block’s edition, and partly perhaps from a hesitation about
including an apparently unrelated Old Testament passage in a New Testament play.4 A detailed
description of the relevant page of the manuscript should reveal the true situation clearly.5
The play begins at the top of f. 121. The first line of the page consists of the title hic de
muliere in adulterio deprehensa and the phrase Nolo mortem peccatoris. The former is
underlined in red and the two parts are divided from one another by a large red paragraph sign
(¶). In the right hand margin, slightly below the first line, there is a similar red paragraph sign
preceding the abbreviated speaker’s name: jhc. The second, third and fourth lines are as
follows:
Man for þi synne take repentaunce
If þou amende þat is amys
Than hevyn xal be þin herytaunce

The M of Man in l. 2 is a large red capital of the kind used to mark the beginning of other plays
(e.g. Plays 4, 5, 6, 7, 12). The first and third lines are linked by a rhyme bracket, and the
second and fourth likewise, giving rhymes peccatoris: amys and repentaunce: herytaunce.
Four more lines complete the eight-line stanza – this stanza form being the pattern for the
whole play. At the very top of the page, on the right hand side, is a note in the hand of the main
scribe, written very small, ‘gyn at//Nolo mortem’. From all this – rhyme scheme, stanza length,
scribal indications and instructions – there can be only one conclusion drawn, that Nolo
mortem peccatoris is the first line of the play.
It is not difficult to suggest a way in which the situation in the manuscript could have come
about. First the scribe, presumably imagining the Latin phrase to be a kind of text, included it in
a slightly more formal script with the title in the first line of the page;6 he then left a space for a
large initial at the beginning of the assumed first line of the play before continuing with the rest
of the page. On looking back at this page – most probably when adding the rhyme brackets,
since he would then be forced to see it as a rhyming line and as a part of the stanza – he
realized that the Latin was, in fact, part of the play and yet misleadingly cut off from it. Rightly
assuming that the rhyme brackets would not be enough to indicate the beginning of the play, he
added a note at the top of the page, perhaps as a reminder to himself when rubricating, and
divided off the title from the Latin phrase by two long vertical lines with bracket-like
branches. Then when rubricating he underlined the title and drew in the large initial ‘M’ of line
2.7 This last, however, so clearly drew attention to that line as the beginning of the play that he
used the obvious and to a certain extent meaningful device of a large red paragraph sign on top
of the dividing vertical lines to draw attention to Nolo mortem peccatoris, and a
corresponding sign before the speaker’s name to link the two together.8 Despite his efforts,
however, the large red ‘M’ still dominates the page, and, at a cursory inspection seems to start
the play.
Miss Block’s edition of the Ludus Coventriae largely re-creates the appearance of the
manuscript in so far as this can be done in print, and unfortunately, in the case of this play, it
means that the scribe’s error is fairly accurately reproduced but not his efforts to correct it.
Nolo mortem peccatoris is, as it is in the manuscript, included in the same line as the title, but
in the edition it is divided off from it only by a small black paragraph sign – there is, of course,
no use of red in the edition. The play then appears to start, again as in the manuscript, with
‘Man for þi synne take repentaunce’, and here there are no rhyme brackets, and the headnote is
relegated to a footnote given without comment as to its significance. The only indication which
is added is the line numbering – an indication easily missed. It all probably seemed a small
matter to the editor, but it has almost certainly helped to form a doubt about the first line of the
play.
Finally, the question whether an unrelated Old Testament passage could be an integral part
of the play could have had no importance had the facts of rhyme scheme and stanza length been
noticed. No editor or commentator would hesitate to include an Old Testament line in a New
Testament play simply on the grounds that it came from the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the
fact of its apparent unrelatedness, taken together with the scribal error, may have helped to
conceal its intimate connection with the play – and it is an intimate connection. The textual
establishing of Nolo mortem peccatoris as the first line of the play is only a beginning.
It is, of course, a serious thing to leave a line out of a play, but the degree of seriousness
must obviously depend on the significance of the line; the nature of the connection between it
and the play. In this case the line not only concentrates within itself the theme, but also, I
believe, provides a key to the structure of the whole play. It is this connection which I want
now to examine.
The theme of the play I take to be mercy and the necessity of repentance, and to see the way
in which Nolo mortem peccatoris and the story of the woman taken in adultery became for the
playwright the ideal combination to express this theme, it is necessary to look at the kind of
meaning which had accumulated around the Ezechiel and John passages from commentary and
liturgical use.
Both Nolo mortem peccatoris and the story of the woman taken in adultery have a common
background in the liturgy during Lent, the period of preparation for Easter, the period above all
of fasting and penitence, and therefore of mercy. ‘God ȝeuyth grace to man all tymes; but for a
man nedyþe more hys grace þys tyme þen anoþer, þerfor, of hys hegh mercy, he ȝeuyth now-
dayes more habundant of Lenton þen any oþer tyme.’9 Nolo mortem peccatoris is part of the
weekday antiphon for the psalms at Prime during the first four weeks of Lent: ‘Vivo ego, dicit
Dominus, nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis convertatur et vivat.’10 It thus occurs once a
day, except Sundays, during those four weeks. There are also two adaptations of the phrase
which occur in the mass for Ash Wednesday: ‘Deus qui non mortem sed penitenciam desideras
peccatorum’, and ‘… qui dixisti te penitenciam malle peccatorum quam mortem’.11 It should
also be remembered that the companion verse in Ezechiel, xviii 23, occurs in the epistle for the
mass on Friday in the first week of Lent.12
The story of the woman taken in adultery is the gospel of the mass for Saturday before Mid-
Lent Sunday.13 Quotations from it, key phrases of forgiveness and judgement, serve as the
Communio at the mass, and the Magnificat antiphon at Saturday vespers: ‘Nemo te
condempnauit mulier nemo domine: nec ego te condempnabo iam amplius noli peccare,14 and
the antiphon for the Benedictus at Saturday lauds: ‘Inclinavit se Jesus et scribebat in terra, si
quis sine peccato est mittat in eam lapidem’.15
In the liturgy the two never approach physically nearer than prime and the mass, but Nolo
mortem peccatoris because it expresses the spirit of the season (a common function of
antiphons) pervades the whole of the first part of Lent. God’s natural inclination towards
mercy is perhaps nowhere else, even in the New Testament, so clearly stated.16 So clear in fact
is the statement, that it is seen by some commentators as an antidote to despair, by others as a
dangerously open offer of forgiveness.17 But though it is clear, it is not unqualified – ‘sed ut
magis convertatur et vivat’. From the first, convertatur was interpreted inevitably to refer to
penitence or repentance; Jerome is a useful example, ‘Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, “nisi malo
paenitentiam peccatoris, quam mortem”’.18 That the whole passage was normally connected
with penitence is clear not only from an adaptation such as Jerome’s, but also from those
adaptations already quoted from the great ceremony of penitents, the mass for Ash Wednesday,
where the antithesis is sharpened, as it is in Jerome, by the substitution of paenitentia for ut
magis convertatur.
Nolo mortem peccatoris is then the ideal phrase for Lent. It offers mercy to sinners through
penitence; it emphasizes God’s natural inclination to mercy, so that none need despair, but it
also emphasizes that the act of mercy must be provoked, so that all must repent – ‘revertimini
et vivite’.19 But if Nolo mortem peccatoris clearly deals with both mercy and penitence, it is
by no means clear that the story of the woman taken in adultery does. Of mercy there is no
doubt. The central act of pardoning the woman, enough in itself to establish mercy,20 is seen by
many of the commentators as clustered round with details also rich in mercy. To Bede ‘Mons
quippe Oliueti sublimitatem dominicae pietatis et misericordiae designat’ and ‘Pergit Iesus in
montem Oliueti ut arcem misericordiae in se constare denuntiet’. Dawn signifies the rising of
grace, and Christ’s coming into the temple at dawn, the announcement of mercy, ‘cum
incipiente noui testamenti lumine’, to the faithful.21 The Glossa Ordinaria repeats the substance
of Bede’s interpretation.22 Augustine relates Christ’s bending down to write in the earth with
his coming down to earth for the giving of the new law of mercy,23 and finally Bede includes
John viii, 12 in his interpretation of the story by linking it with the beginning of the chapter:
what Christ did figuraliter at the beginning of the story, he taught manifeste at the end, ‘arcem
uidelicet se esse misericordiarum et Deum totius consolationis praeconem simul et largitorem
lucis indeficientis legis pariter latorem et gratiae’.24
But as the last few words suggest, the woman taken in adultery is not exclusively a story of
mercy; it is also a story of justice, and, strangely enough, it is through justice that it becomes a
story of penitence. It is not a case simply of justice towards the Jews – though this is the
central action; it is a case of justice also towards the woman. Both Christ’s words to the Jews
and his final ones to the woman – in both cases the ones singled out for repetition in the liturgy
– are seen by the commentators as justice; in the former, as justice remarkably combined with
gentleness, and in the latter, as justice, taking second place it is true, but as justice even more
remarkably combined with mercy. The combination of gentleness with justice arises from the
dual nature of the trap which the Jews set in bringing the woman for judgment to Jesus – ‘si
eam iusserit lapidari, mansuetudinem non habebit; si earn dimitti censuerit, iustitiam non
tenebit’;25 the combination of mercy with justice arises from the need to show that the woman
was not being let off scot free. Augustine is clearly aware of this need when he says in
commenting on Nec ego te condemnabo, ‘Quid est, Domine? Faues ergo peccatis? Non plane
ita. Adtende quod sequitur: Vade, deinceps iam noli peccare. Ergo et Dominus damnauit, sed
peccatum, non hominem.’26 He divides the woman from her sins to show that though mercy is
given to the one, justice is given to the other. Other commentators are content simply to point to
the double nature of Christ’s words, the mercy contained in Nec ego te condemnabo or Vade,
and the justice in amplius noli peccare.27
Augustine, however, goes even further in an exploration of the possibilities of the story in
his commentary on Psalm xxxviii, 13, Exaudi deus orationem meam et precem meam domine
inaurire, hoc est, auribus percipe lacrimas meas.28 He concentrates this time not on the words
of Christ but on the words of the woman, Nemo, domine. When asked by Christ, ‘Nemo te
lapidauit? she does not, Augustine says, reply ‘Quare? Quid feci, domine? Numquid enim rea
sum?’, but simply ‘Nemo, domine’. She thereby accuses herself, and confesses, which,
Augustine says, was what Christ was waiting for: ‘Et nemo propter confessionem peccatorum,
et domine propter indulgentiam meritorum. Nemo domine. Vtrumque agnosco. Qui sis noui,
quae sim noui. Tibi enim confiteor. Audiui enim: Confitemini domino, quoniam bonus est.
Noui confessionem meam, noui misericordiam tuam. Ista dixit: Custodiam uias meas, ut non
delinquam in lingua mea. Illi delinquerunt dolose agenda; ista magis se absoluit confitendo.
Nemo te lapidauit? Et illa: Nemo, et tacet.’29 The woman not only confesses her sins, but,
quoting the first line of Psalm xxxviii, she promises amendment, and since the line from which
Augustine starts is presumably her contrition, she has gone quite as far as the woman in the
play does. Augustine could hardly go further in an exposition of two words, and already it is a
far remove from the story of pure mercy which the gospel tells.
 There is then through the various commentators not just an accumulating emphasis on mercy,
but, through Augustine, a clear statement of the justification for mercy by the woman’s
repentance. Augustine’s interpretation brings the story of the woman and Nolo mortem
peccatoris into almost perfect accord; in fact the Ezechiel passage traces the fortunes of the
story with almost literal exactness, as well as containing within itself the general implications
of mercy and penitence. Vivo ego, dicit dominus, nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis
convertatur et vivat – each phrase in the passage parallels, step by step, the development of
the story in both Augustine’s interpretation and the play itself.
The combination of line and story is there almost ready-made in the liturgy; the
interpretation is there in the commentaries. That the playwright knew both passages from the
liturgy is very probable, and that he knew Augustine’s commentary is at least possible; that he
started from scratch in interpreting the story is unlikely to the point of impossibility. Further
than that one cannot really go.
The similarity between the meaning of the line and the meaning of the story is then an
intimate and ancient one, but, as far as I can discover, the playwright of the Woman Taken in
Adultery in the Ludus Coventriae was the first to bring them together. Augustine comes close
to doing so when at the end of his homily on John viii, 1–11, he quotes a telescoped version of
Ezechiel xviii, 21, 22 and 27: ‘Illis qui desperatione periclitantur, quid dicit? In quacumque
die iniquus conuersus fuerit, omnes iniquitates eius obliviscar.’30 Verse 23, here left out of
the telescoping, is the companion verse to xxxiii, 11, and since Augustine is here concerned
with comfort for the desperate he could well have used xviii, 23 or xxxiii, 11, as he uses the
latter in the same context elsewhere.31 Nearer in time Pecock almost links them in his Reule of
Cristen Religioun. As witnesses to his xxxvije trouþe he quotes Ezechiel xxxiii, 11 and 12; as
witnesses to his xxxixe trouþe he quotes John viii, 11 and Ezechiel xxxiii 12.32 Both the trouþes
concern forgiveness of sins; the former the impossibility of proper satisfaction and therefore
the importance of mercy, the latter the three chief means for provoking God to mercy –
contricioun, confessioun and wil and purpos for to forbere.
But it is not just the linking of line and story that is new. What is also new and far more
important is that the playwright has seen a structural relationship between the two – that of text
and exemplum – and, with considerable ingenuity, turned his whole play into a sermon. The
first line is crucial therefore, not simply because it introduces the theme, but because it
establishes the form of the play.
That the play should be seen as a sermon throughout, I have little doubt. It is not a university
one, progressing step by numerical step, making extravagant play with each word of the text,
but an ancient appeal to the emotions of its audience; no less well organized than a university
sermon, and more calculated to move a holiday crowd. Its preacher is the first and best of all,
Christ, Verbum caro factum;33 its text the preacher’s own words spoken once through his
prophet, recalled now in his own lifetime on earth. And its theme is the very reason for the
preacher’s existence on earth: mercy and salvation through penitence. It is around this theme
that the sermon is constructed section by section; the text (l. 1), the introduction (ll. 2–40), the
exemplum (ll. 41–284), the conclusion (ll. 285–92), and the prayer (ll. 293–6).
The sections which I have suggested here may not at first sight seem a very sure foundation
for asserting that the playwright is using the sermon form. The opening Latin line – the text –
can be paralleled in a number of other plays in the cycle, and so can the closing prayer with its
Amen. The sections themselves may seem too generally applicable to be associated with one
particular form, and the disproportionate length of the exemplum may also seem to rule out the
sermon. Nevertheless I think it can be shown that there is sufficient distinctiveness in the form
of this play to justify the claim that it is modelled on the sermon.
In considering the opening Latin lines it should be said at once that there is a general
dramatic purpose common to them all – that of arresting the audience’s attention. The good
cannot, like their more boisterous evil counterparts, bawl and threaten, but they can declaim
Latin and get with sonorous rhetoric what the evil get with brute violence. There is, however,
almost always a specific purpose as well as this general one, which differentiates the use of
the opening Latin in one play from that in another.
The three plays which come closest in this respect to the Woman Taken in Adultery are play
1 the Creation, play 21 Christ and the Doctors and play (22) the Baptism.34 Play1 is a special
case since the Latin line Ego sum alpha et oo. principium et finis, is not part of the rhyme
scheme of the play. Though this does not rule it out as a part of the play (the first part at least of
the line forms the opening of this play in all the other cycles)35 it does suggest that the line is
more of a decorative flourish than an integral part of the form of the play. It is presumably used
to proclaim the grandeur of God by the sound of the Latin, and also to make clear God’s
isolation and omnipotence, since we might expect the Latin of a phrase which is common and
familiar to be understood as well as felt. Its meaning, though it has a general connection with
the whole, could hardly be said to state the theme of the play, as Nolo mortem peccatoris can.
The opening lines of the other two plays are both part of the rhyme schemes: play 21
‘Scripture sacre esse dinoscimur doctos’, play (22) ‘Ecce vox clamantes in deserto’. The
special purpose of the Doctors’ play opening, however, is again different from that of the
Woman Taken in Adultery. It is spoken by the first Doctor and there is, first of all, a general
appropriateness in a doctor speaking Latin – but it goes a bit deeper than this. The two doctors
are portrayed at first as comic boasters, and the Latin line (with its fellow in line 3, ‘Velud
rosa omnium florum flos,’ spoken by the second Doctor) serves, through its meaning as well as
its style, to open their boasting with a flourish, and at the same time to increase the sense of
boasting by the very fact that it is in Latin – simple learned one-upmanship. That this was the
intention seems to me confirmed by the fact that when later Christ pricks the bubble of their
boasting he does so not only by what he says but also by saying it in Latin; ‘Omnis sciencia a
domino deo est’ caps the manner as well as the meaning of their self-exaltation. This
connection between Christ’s and the Doctors’ Latin is strengthened by the fact that, except for a
two-word reference to Isaiah’s prophecy Ecce virgo (l. 181), they are the only appearances of
Latin in the play. Here the opening line serves a specific, mainly comic, purpose in the play,
and one quite different from that served by Nolo mortem peccatoris.
With the first line of the Baptism play we come closer, but there are still great differences.
One of John the Baptist’s chief functions is, of course, preaching, and it is clearly this that the
playwright envisages him doing at the beginning of the play. To this extent the openings are the
same. There is, however, a big difference between a play concerned with preaching, and a play
constructed as a sermon. The Baptism play does contain a sermon of sorts, but Ecce vox
clamantes in deserto is not its text. The first line is not in fact a text at all, but a self-
introduction through a direct quotation from the Gospel account.36 It introduces John, it lends
familiar Biblical weight to the opening, and provides an appropriately declamatory tone,
proclaimed at once in the initial and additional Ecce, for the evangelical fervour of the
preaching which ultimately follows. Once again the specific purpose is different.
In the Woman Taken in Adultery the opening Latin line is, as I have said, the text of the
sermon which is the whole play. Up to now in considering Nolo mortem peccatoris I have
talked of the passage as a whole – Nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis convertatur et
vivat37 – but in the play it is in fact only the first three words of it which appear. This is
unusual because in all the quotations of the passage which I have found, it only twice appears
without its second half.38 This raises an interesting point. In most sermons the text or theme is
translated – ‘and ben þus muche to sey in Englissh …’39 – but in the play it apparently is not.
What the playwright seems to have done is to telescope the translation with the quotation; using
in this case the first part of the Ezechiel passage in the original and the second part in a
paraphrase. Since it is God speaking, the first part is appropriate as direct statement, and the
second is paraphrased into a direct exhortation to match the first part and to complete the
quotation. It is true, of course, that by doing this the playwright loses the added feeling of a
sermon that the full translation device would have given; but the device is cumbersome and the
added dramatic impact more than makes up for the loss of verisimilitude. The playwright
perhaps also assumed that Nolo mortem peccatoris was sufficiently well-known to be
recognized and understood40 and, inspired by the common preaching device of translating the
text, he aimed to startle his audience by an unconventional treatment of the second part of the
passage.41 Besides translating their texts, preachers normally quoted their authorities. Once
again the playwright does not use an obvious device for giving the authentic ring to his sermon;
he does not include Ezechielis trecesimo iii as part of his play. But then a preacher quoting his
authority is, in a way, acknowledging his own weakness: he must have authority to make what
he says worthwhile. Christ has no such need – his own word is enough (‘erat enim docens eos
quasi potestatem habens’, Mark i, 22); to quote his authority would not simply be dramatically
weak (though it certainly would be that), but unnecessary. These deviations from common
sermon practice do not, I think, weaken the case for saying that Nolo mortem peccatoris is
being used as the text of a sermon, rather, because they are explicable in sermon terms as well
as terms of dramatic desirability, they strengthen it.
The case of the prayer endings is somewhat different. There are three other plays with
endings of this kind: that is ones in which a prayer is said on behalf of the audience by one of
the play characters.42 These are play 6 Moses, play 21 Doctors, and play (22) Baptism. Their
endings are as follows:
Ffrendys þese be þe lawys þat ȝe must kepe
therfore every man sett well in mende
Wethyr þat þou do wake or slepe
these lawys to lerne þou herke ful hynde
and godys grace xal be þi ffrende
he socowre and saue ȝow in welth fro woo
Fare well gode frendys for hens wyll I wende
my tale I haue taught ȝow my wey I goo.
(Moses ll. 187–94)
 we pray ȝow jhesu of consolacion
At oure most nede of ȝow to haue
all þat hath herd þis consummacion
of þis pagent ȝour grace þem saue. Amen.
(Doctors ll. 285–8)

Now haue I tawght ȝow good penauns

god graunt ȝow grace at his plesauns
to haue of synne delyverauns
Ffor now my leve I take.
(Baptism ll. 179–82)

Now god þat dyed ffor all mankende

saue all þese pepyl both nyght and day
and of oure synnys he us vnbynde
hyȝe lorde of hevyn þat best may.
Amen.
(Woman ll. 293–6)

The general purpose of the prayer endings is, of course, to round off the play and to do it in a
formal Christian manner – the pageant is about to leave, so it leaves with a blessing – but in
two cases out of the three it is not just the play that is rounded off but a sermon as well. In both
the Moses and Baptism plays the play ends with a sermon. In the case of the Moses play it is an
explanation of the Ten Commandments, in the case of the Baptism play it is a call to
repentance. The Moses example is the more formal and therefore the more straightforward.
Moses, having been given the tables of the commandments, is told by God to ‘Go forth and
preche’, which he at once does. He opens with a Latin text, Custodi precepta domini dei tui,
with its reference, deutronomini. vjto. and plunges into his sermon:
The commaundement of þi lord god man loke þou kepe.
(l. 49)

One should perhaps say here that though the text is not part of the rhyme scheme, there seems
no reason, in view of the use of a number of other Latin passages which stand outside the
rhyme scheme, why it should not be part of the play.43 Thereafter he preaches a conventional
exposition of the Ten Commandments, rounding it off with the prayer already quoted.
In the Baptism play the formal sermon does not appear. Lines 14 and 15 look like a text.
They are ideal material for one since they are direct quotation from the Gospel and convey the
essence of John’s teaching:
Penitenciam nunc agite
Appropinquabit regnum celorum44

There is, however, no real development into a sermon until 130 lines later where, having once
again announced the fact of preaching (l. 139), John launches into a direct address to the
audience, with this theme and based on the Gospel accounts, which is rounded off with the
brief prayer.
In both these plays then, the brief prayer is used as the normal ending for a sermon, and is
also seen as a convenient conclusion for the play itself. The third play with a prayer ending, the
Doctors’ play, contains no sermon. It has all the same a similarity with the Woman Taken in
Adultery in that the prayer is spoken by a character stepping outside the play. The stepping
outside is made explicit in the Doctors’ play by the specific reference to ‘þis consummacion/
of þis pagent’ (ll. 287–8).
I have up to now been concerned with the way in which these plays are similar in their
endings to the Woman Taken in Adultery, but the most remarkable thing about the play is the
way in which it differs from the others, the way in which it combines their techniques and
transcends them; and the fact that it does transcend them is a direct result of the nature of the
play. The nature of the other plays leads to a simple response to their prayer endings, the nature
of the Woman Taken in Adultery leads to a very complex response.
Both Moses and the Baptism are fairly conventional miracle plays – Moses almost entirely
so, the Baptism only partly. One of the things which makes them conventional is the use of what
I shall call the ‘third-person style’.45 In Moses this takes the form of a character telling the
audience what he is doing at the same time as he is doing it;46 and in the Baptism of a character
moralizing on or explaining the meaning of what he or another character is doing or saying.47
Both these characteristics tend to distance the actor from the action and make the actor
someone dressed in the clothes of a character and presenting his words and actions, rather than
an actor embodying a character’s actions and words in what he says and does. When the ‘third-
person style’ is present to any great extent in a play, it inevitably modifies the effect of the play
on the audience; the audience becomes less aware, for instance, of the interaction of character
and the rise and fall of tension in the play, and more aware of individual significances and
meanings; and the actor changes from protagonist to presenter. This happens in both the Moses
play and the Baptism. In Moses the ‘third-person style’ is less apparent because the play is
more formal and anyway is much concerned with presenting; the Baptism wavers uneasily
between ‘third-person’ presenting and naturalistic preaching. In both plays the ‘third-person
style’ affects the closing prayer. Both plays follow the same pattern in this, and it is a pattern
that derives from this style. First they tell the audience that they have taught them, then they call
a blessing on them, and then they tell them that they are going to leave them. There is no sense
of a character stepping out of the play, because the play has no self-contained atmosphere; it is
simply the presenter of Moses and the presenter of John the Baptist, taking a natural presenter’s
leave.
In the Doctors’ play there is a self-contained atmosphere almost up to the moment when the
first Doctor steps wholly out of the play for his closing prayer; and the stepping out of the play
is very rawly done. The Doctor abruptly steps out from the play’s time into the present; for two
lines of the play he too becomes a presenter, dressed in the Doctor’s costume. The device is
too abrupt and brief to be anything but rather a crude rounding off; and yet the ending of the
Woman Taken in Adultery is almost as abrupt and almost as brief.
In this play Christ is a presenter, but in a way utterly different from Moses or John the
Baptist, and he steps out of the play, but in a way utterly different from the Doctor. The play is
self-contained in two ways, as a sermon and as a story of a woman taken in adultery. Christ
appears in both; as the preacher of the sermon, and as the chief protagonist of the story. Since
he presents the story of the woman, of which he is himself a part, as an exemplum in his own
sermon, there is a curious double time involved – he is both presenter and presented. This in a
way prepares for the change which takes place at the end when Christ steps out of his character
as Christ to become wholly the preacher praying for those present. The first words of the
prayer abruptly establish this change:
Now god þat dyed ffor all mankende
(l. 293)

This is not a simple anachronism, it is Christ praying to himself in terms of an action which has
not yet occurred, and the audience is shocked into seeing not Christ but the preacher. And yet it
is not simply the preacher. The change is never explicitly made; it is only implied in his words,
and four lines is too short a space to divest a character entirely of his identity; so that we are
left with a curious and exciting effect. The character be comes twofold: Christ and preacher;
the play is drawn clearly into the present, but it is a present in which Christ still lives, and so
the ending becomes an echo of the most sacred of Christian mysteries: Christ did die, is dead,
and yet lives for all time.
The use of the opening Latin line in other plays, then, tends to reveal the uniqueness of its
use in the Woman Taken in Adultery, and the use of the concluding prayer tends both to confirm
the sermon form and to reveal the way in which the Woman Taken in Adultery transcends the
other plays in its use of this ending. Both these sections of the play are of key importance
because, as will be seen in examining the sermon form, they are the clearest pointers to the use
of this form that exist in the play.
In some ways it is difficult to talk of a sermon form at all. The university type has its themes
and prothemes, divisions and sub-divisions, carefully discussed by the theorists, but the so-
called ‘ancient’ type has no rules.48 Yet there are clearly things which suggest a sermon,
devices which a writer would be expected to use when writing a sermon. The sermons of
Chaucer’s Pardoner, for instance, though of a very different nature from the one we are
considering, nevertheless contained text (theme), exemplum (ensamples many oon, and the
tale itself, Which I am wont to preche) and concluding prayer (the much-discussed reference
to Christ’s pardon),49 just as the Woman Taken in Adultery does, and this kind of suggestive
device is just what a playwright needs: not enough sermon technique to turn it into an actual
sermon, but just enough to create an impression of the form within which the story can be
presented. In a play, of course, the visual presentation is as important as the verbal, and the
simple combination of an actual pulpit on the pageant waggon with the spoken text could make
the sermon form clear from the beginning. So also with the ending: the woman moves slowly
down the steps from the waggon, Christ returns to the pulpit, turns to the audience, and the
sermon is re-established.
Text and prayer then are clearly of key importance, but what of the extended exemplum?
Once again it is the fact that this is a play and not a real sermon that solves the difficulty. What
the playwright does is create the suggestion of solid development from the text by means of
Christ’s lengthy introduction; this speech (ll. 2–40) perfectly gives the feeling of the sermon
and yet at the same time leaves the main playing-time free for what is after all the main action
of the play. The audience’s awareness of the sermon fades during the course of the exemplum
only to be suddenly re-asserted in the conclusion and prayer. There is no danger that the
exemplum will destroy the unity of the whole, because of the perfect way in which it is
dovetailed with the introduction and conclusion.
 In the introduction three main points are made and each relates directly to the exemplum.
They are all to do with mercy. First, mercy is shown as an antidote to despair and in
opposition to judgment – however great your sins, ask mercy (ll. 5–12); secondly, Christ came
down to earth for man’s love, to make satisfaction and bring mercy (ll. 13–24); and thirdly,
mercy is seen in its practical application to one’s neighbour (ll. 25–32). The three points are
recapitulated in the reverse order in the final stanza of the introduction, which is made to stand
out from the other stanzas by the formal repetition of the word mercy. Each point is picked up
in the exemplum. For the first: the woman, though her sin is deserving death, does not despair
but asks mercy and is forgiven; the Jews apply only judgment to the woman, attempt to catch
Christ through his judgment and are judged. For the second: the exemplum is a living proof of
Christ’s willingness to forgive, and of his acceptance of repentance and the asking of mercy as
satisfaction.50 The third goes with the first: the Jews are not merciful to their neighbour the
woman; they stand by ‘cruel jugement’ and are themselves judged. The conclusion of the
sermon refers back to the first and central point: a man’s repentance moves God away from
judgment to mercy –
God wele not kepe olde wrethe in mynde
but bettyr loue to hem he has
very contryte whan he them fynde
(ll. 290–2)

Just as the woman’s story is paralleled in the text of the sermon, so each aspect of the story is
prepared for in the introduction.
There are two other possible confirmations of the sermon form of the play, this time from
outside it. In the Gospel the account of the woman taken in adultery, which begins at verse 3, is
preceded by a brief reference to Christ teaching in the temple; the Pepysian Gospel harmony
paraphrases it thus: ‘And vpon þe morowe Jesus entred in to þe temple & preched to þe folk
…’51 If the playwright needed a suggestion of what form to use for his play, he could have
found no more authoritative one than this. The setting of the story actually in the middle of
teaching is emphasized by Bede in commenting on this passage, when he says, ‘atque inter
docendum peccatricem soluit a crimine’ – ‘in the course of his teaching …’52 Interestingly
enough Bede, later in this same commentary, closely foreshadows one important aspect of the
structure of the play. He sees the opening of the chapter as a figurative statement, and the
ending, ‘Ego sum lux mundi’, as a manifest statement of the coming of mercy; between the two
comes the act of mercy itself, the forgiving of the woman.53 The introduction of the play is as
carefully linked with the conclusion. ‘Man for pi synne take repentaunce’ (l. 2) is paralleled by
‘What man of synne be repentaunt’ (l. 285), the first line of the conclusion – the declamatory
order of the opening has been softened to the promise by the act of mercy in between.
The other possible confirmation of the sermon form, though a less precise one, seems worth
mentioning. It has already been said that both the Latin text and the story appear in the liturgy of
Lent, the great season of penitence, and their connection with each other and the theme of the
season is clear; but not only was Lent the great season of penitence but also of preaching,54 and
it is just possible that an association between the two in the playwright’s mind made the choice
of the play’s form more certain.
 In my discussion of the play I have spent little time on the relationship between the story and
its framework, partly because Professor Prosser has already – not wholly satisfactorily – dealt
with this, and partly because my aim has been to establish the sermon structure of the play so
as, first, to show the key significance of the first line, and secondly to demonstrate, if possible,
that the play is a remarkable achievement. Structurally it surpasses the Towneley Second
Shepherds’ play, good though that is in this respect, and the conclusion is one of the most
moving moments in medieval drama. The variety of method at the playwright’s command is
apparently endless: the boisterous comedy of the young man and the Jews which, as Professor
Prosser points out, also establishes the reality of the woman’s sin; the contrasts between the set
rhythmic vituperation of the Jews and the woman’s overflowing plea for mercy, or the silent
figure writing on the ground and impatient self confident bustle of the Jews’ questioning; the
understanding of visual effect revealed in the alteration of the gradual Biblical exits to the
‘omnes accusatores quasi confusi separatim in tribus locis se disiungent’ bursting apart like
stylized waves on a rock;55 all these things are remarkable enough, and in addition there is his
structural ability to bind it all together into a unified whole.
One can even go a step further: the sermon form does not simply unify, it profoundly alters
the dramatic effect. The sermon is taking place before the audience as a representation of a
historic time, yet it has already taken place because the Jews in the sermon’s own exemplum
are motivated by it, and it is also taking place in a kind of eternal way as one of the chief
Christian messages. The interweaving layers of time seem almost endless. The effect of the
dissolving and crystallizing of time is paradoxically to make the meaning of the play far more
of a present reality than the ostensibly present message of other plays. The sermon form of the
play is more than just a unifying device, it is a shape-shifting one which enables Christ to be
both preacher and son of God forgiving sins, both presenter and presented; and enables the
play to be both of historical time and of all time. The scribe who wrote ‘gyn at Nolo mortem’,
in drawing attention to this form, spoke more wisely than he can have realized.

Notes
1. ‘Nolo mortem peccatoris’ appears as the first line in the first complete edition of the plays, Ludus Coventriae, ed. by J. 0.
Halliwell (London: Shakespeare Society, 1841), p. 213; in Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, ed. by A. C. Cawley,
Everyman’s Library (London: Dent, 1956), p. 133; and in the complete edition of the plays, Ludus Coventriae, ed. by K. S.
Block, Early English Text Society, ES 120 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 200. Since, however, these editions
have been ignored or misunderstood twice already, it does seem necessary to establish the fact unequivocally.
2. Eleanor Prosser, Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays, Stanford Studies in Language and Literature 23
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961, reprinted 1966), p. 105. Miss Prosser is somewhat inconsistent in her numbering
of the lines because although here she calls the line line 1, she later adopts a system (probably Miss Block’s) in which this
would be line 2.
3. Ten Miracle Plays, ed. by R. George Thomas, York Medieval Texts (London: Arnold, 1966), p. 91.
4. The immediate source of this passage as it appears in the play is the liturgy; the ultimate source is Ezekiel. The liturgical
form is presumably generalized from three Ezechiel passages: xviii, 23 and 32, and xxxiii, 11; but in none of these does the
word peccatoris appear. The word does appear in the Old Latin version published by Sabatier of Ezechiel xxxiii, 11
(Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae … seu Vetus Italica, ed. by Pierre Sabatier (Paris: François Didot,
new ed., 1751) p. 816), and it also appears in various quotations of the passage by many of the early Church Fathers. In the
Middle Ages the liturgical form of the passage appears almost universally in quotations of the passage. The story of the
woman taken in adultery appears in John viii, 3–11.
5. I have expanded the abbreviations of the manuscript except where it is otherwise stated.
6. There are only two other plays which contain what might be called ‘texts’. These are plays 1 and 41. In both the ‘text’
 stands outside the play in rhyme scheme, and outside, physically, in its positioning in the manuscript. Play 41 is not in the
hand of the main scribe, and he, therefore, would have been concerned with it, if at all, only through the rubrication. In fact
he left the ‘text’ entirely alone, which suggests, though vaguely, that he saw it as part of the play and not as a ‘text’ outside
it. In play 1 the ‘text’ is in a slightly larger script and is underlined in red which suggests, somewhat more clearly, that the
scribe saw it as something outside the play since he uses red underlining primarily for stage directions and speech headings.
It is possible that he was uncertain how to deal with these ‘texts’ and that this uncertainty led to the confusion over the
opening of the Woman Taken in Adultery, where he was faced with an apparent ‘text’ which turned out to be part of the
first stanza. In this play he also had to deal with a title, which neither play 1 nor 41 possesses, and this may have added to
the confusion. We have, however, little idea of what kind of copy the scribe had and it is quite possible that the muddle
really originated there.
7. It seems unlikely that the rubrication was done by anyone other than the scribe. There is nothing in the manuscript to
suggest the work of an illuminator and in the case of this play the rubrication follows the apparent intention of the scribe so
closely with a minimum of direction that it seems easier to assume that it was the scribe himself who did it.
8. The red paragraph sign is first and foremost an indication of the beginning of a stanza. It would, therefore, be meaningful
here in indicating the beginning of the first stanza of the play. In that position (i.e. marking the beginning of the play as well
as the stanza) it occurs twenty-four times in the manuscript. This number is, however, somewhat misleading because of
these twelve occur at the beginning of run-on plays, when the first stanza is treated as any other (plays 2, 3, 27, 28, 29, 31,
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37); five are prologues, where there is, perhaps, some doubt about where the play begins (plays 8, 9, 10,
11 [Contemplacio] and 14 [Summoner]); one is play 41, where the paragraph sign is squashed into the work of another
scribe; and one is the Woman Taken in Adultery. Only five (plays 1, 21, 23, 26, 40) are clear-cut examples. It would,
therefore, be true to say that the normal sign of the opening of a play is the large red initial and not the red paragraph sign.
There are one or two other uses of the red paragraph sign which are relevant. It is used thirteen times (excluding its use in
the Woman Taken in Adultery) to mark the first speech heading of a play but only in three of these does it coincide with a
similar sign at the beginning of the first stanza. It is used occasionally elsewhere, four of these occasional uses being to
draw attention to things which might otherwise be missed or misunderstood (ff. 33v, 41v, 44v, 113v). The sign was,
therefore, an obvious one for the scribe to use to draw attention to his error, but its particular meaning was by no means
immediately clear. Perhaps’gyn at// Nolo mortem’ should be seen as the scribe’s last desperate attempt to clarify with
words what he had failed to clarify with signs.
9. Mirk’s Festial, ed. by Theodor Erbe, Early English Text Society ES 96 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1905), p. 86.
10. Breviarium ad Usum … Sarum, fasc. II, col. dlxxxix, Feria II Primae Ebdomadae Quadragesimae, Ad primam. All
quotations from the liturgy are taken from The Sarum Missal, ed. by J. Wickham Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916),
or Breviarium ad Usum … Sarum, ed. by Francis Proctor and Christopher Wordsworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1879–86). References are given to the York Missal and Breviary and Hereford Missal and Breviary only where
they differ from the Sarum ones in matters other than spelling and word order.
11. Sarum Missal p. 50 and pp. 49–50, Feria Quarta in capite ieiunii. Also Missale ad usum … Eboracensis, ed. by William
G. Henderson, Publications of the Surtees Society 59 (Durham: Surtees Society, 1874), pp. 44 and 45; and Missale ad
usum … Herefordensis, ed. by William. G. Henderson, (Leeds: McCorquodelale & Co, 1874), p. 40.
12. Sarum Missal, p. 62, Feria vi [post inuocauit]. Ezechiel xviii, 20–28.
13. Sarum Missal, p. 78, Sabbato [post oculi].
14. (i) Sarum Missal, p. 78. (ii) Brev. Sarum fasc. II, col. dclxxxvi, Dominica IV Quadragesimae, Ad Vesperas.
15. Brev. Sarum fasc. II, col. dclxxxi, Ebdomada II Quadragesimae, Sabbato.
16. So much so that to the compiler of the Speculum Christiani it was a New Testament passage. See the edition ed. by
Gustaf Holmstedt, Early English Text Society OS 182 (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), pp. 112 and 113.
17. Augustine is aware of both the value and the danger (see Corpus Christianorum Series Latina XL (Turnholt: Brepols,
1956), pp. 1434 and 2097 – his commentaries on Psalms CI and CXLIV); Jerome stresses the antidote to despair in
discussing Ezechiel iii (Patrologia Latina, XXV, coll., 319–20); Speculum Christiani sees it as a key passage Contra
desperacionem (p. 113); Tertullian, a special case perhaps because of his very strict brand of Christianity, sees it
frequently as a dangerously open offer of mercy (see in particular De Pudicitia, CCSL II (Turnholt: Brepols, 1954), pp.
1284, 1300, and 1318–19). The passage occurs in Tertullian, usually in his own adaptation, more frequently than in any other
of the Church Fathers.
18. CCSL LXXV, 169; Jerome, Commentariorum in Hiezechielem.
19. Ezechiel xviii, 32.
20. Durandus sees the epistle and gospel for the day as contrasting ways to salvation: ‘In sabbato vero ostenditur quod dominus
saluat per iusticiam et misericordiam’; the epistle, ‘Loquitur de susanna quae saluata est per iusticiam’, and the gospel, ‘de
muliere deprehensa in adulterio quam dominus liberauit per misericordiam’. (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, Book VI,
De sabbato [post oculi]; Bodleian Library Auct IV, Q, I, 3.).
21. CCSL CXXII, 178–9; Bede, Homelia I, 25 In Quadragesima.
22. PL. CXIV, Glossa Ordinaria, col. 389.
23. CCSL XLI, 221–2; Augustine, Sermones de Vetere Testamento, Sermo XVIA.
24. CCSL CXXII, 182; Bede.
25. CCSL XXXVI, 308; Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium, Tractatus XXXIII. The idea of the twofold trap, though not
explicitly stated in the Bible version, appears in treatments of the story, almost inevitably, from Augustine onwards.
26. CCSL XXXVI, 309; Augustine.
27. E.g. Bede in CCSL CXXII 182; Rupertus Tuitiensis in PL CLXIX 534.
28. CCSL XLI 218; Augustine.
29. Ibid. p. 221.
30. CCSL XXXVI, 311; Augustine.
31. E.g. CCSL XL, 1434, 2097; Augustine.
32. The Reule of Cristen Religioun, ed. by W. C. Greet, Early English Text Society OS 171 (London: Oxford University
Press, 1927), pp. 152 and 162.
33. On Christ as a preacher see Forma Praedicandi of Robert de Basevorn, in Th. M. Charland, Artes Praedicandi …
Institut d’études médiévales d’Ottawa 7 (Paris: Vrin, 1936), p. 245.
34. Ludus Coventriae ed. Block, pp. 16, 178 and 188. For the numbering of the plays I have used the numbers that appear in
the manuscript. These are given in a table in Miss Block’s edition on pages vii–ix. The Baptism has no number in the
manuscript, but since there is a gap in the sequence and it is clear what the number must have been, I have included it in
parentheses.
35. In Towneley ‘Ego sum alpha et o’ opens the play: Towneley Plays ed. by George England and Alfred W. Pollard, Early
English Text Society ES 71(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1897), p. 1. York has the Latin outside the rhyme
scheme: ‘Ego sum Alpha et O. vita via Veritas primus et nouissimus’: York Plays ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1885), p. 1. Chester has: ‘Ego sum Alpha et oo,/ primus et nobilissimus;’: The Chester Plays ed. by
Hermann Deimling, Early English Text Society ES 62 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893), p. 9. It is interesting
that the Ludus Coventriae playwright is the only one to go back to the original quotation from the Apocalypse (xxi, 6).
36. See Matthew iii, 3; Mark i, 3; Luke iii, 4 and John i, 23. All have Vox clamantis in deserto; only John has Ego …
preceding the phrase. None has Ecce.
37. I have previously included Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, since this is part of the liturgical version, but as this section is very
seldom included in quotations of the passage outside the liturgy, it cannot really be considered part of the common version.
38. (i) The Sermons of Thomas Brinton ed. by Sister Mary A. Devlin, Camden Society 3rd. Series, 85 and 86 (London: Royal
Historical Society, 1954), I. 126–7. Elsewhere Brinton quotes the passage in full; see I. 72 and II. 346.(ii) Greet, Reule of
Cristen Religioun p. 152.
39. Middle English Sermons ed. by W. O. Ross, Early English Text Society OS 209 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940),
p. 206. This phrase or one similar introduces almost all the translations of texts in this collection.
40. It would have been well known to a clerical audience; how familiar it would have been to a lay one, is difficult to assess. It
is certainly quoted widely. Apart from its appearance in the liturgy and frequent quotation in the Church Fathers, it appears
in such a variety of places as the Prologue to the Benedictine Rule; Thomas Waleys’ De modo componiendi sermones
(ed. by Charland Artes Praedicandi p. 390.) – in an example of a particular rhetorical device; the prologue to the
fourteenth-century English version of the Bible; A Fourteenth Century English Biblical Version ed. by Anna C. Paues,
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1904), p. 5, and is constantly quoted in sermons and religious writings of the later
Middle Ages.
41. There is another possibility. In the Baptism play John’s words Penitenciam nunc agite / Appro pinquabit regnum
celorum (ll. 14–15) are paraphrased by the play-wright:

ffor your trespas penaunce do ȝe

and ȝe xall wyn hevyn dei deorum (ll. 16–17).

It happens that Christ also preaches the same words (Matthew iv, 17). The similarity between these lines and ll. 2–4 of the
Woman Taken in Adultery is obvious. It is, therefore, possible that the playwright made use of Christ’s first recorded
preaching to open his play, since the meaning fitted so neatly. The fact, however, that the story of the woman taken in
adultery occurs later and in another Gospel, makes this possibility less likely. That the thought is a commonplace does not, I
think, invalidate hunting for an immediate source.
42. I have deliberately left out play 5 Abraham and Isaac, which has, from this point of view, an ambiguous ending, since the
prayer could be for the audience though there is nothing in it to force this interpretation. A number of other plays, e.g. plays
15 and 16, end with a prayer for a character or characters within the play. The dramatic effect of these endings is, of
course, quite different from those under discussion.
43. The evidence is not conclusive but suggestive, partly because of the uncertainty about how many playwrights are involved
in the cycle and the lack of information about the relative dates of the plays, and partly because there is no situation
precisely the same as the Moses one – if we except the Woman Taken in Adultery one. In plays 9 (Block, p. 73) and 10
(p. 93) the playwright is prepared to break the regularity of the verse pattern to include naturalistic touches in Latin – the
 blessings of Joachym and Anne in play 9 (ll. 53 and 55), and of Episcopus in play 10 (l. 343). There is no doubt that these
are part of the play even though outside the rhyme scheme. In play 8 (Block, p. 62) there is an unusual use of Latin, again
outside the rhyme scheme and inside the play. To give added verisimilitude to the temple scene, a brief excerpt from a
service is included (ll. 85–90). Though it is sung, its nature is utterly unlike that of the liturgical pieces which are sung at
length in other plays. They are primarily worship, this is primarily drama. All this evidence, however, comes from the
Contemplacio group of plays; evidence from outside that group is scarcer and less clear. There is the use of the Nunc
Dimittis in the Purification play, play 19, which has similarities with both the extended liturgical piece and with the Latin
used for a dramatic purpose (Block, p. 167); and there are the occasional Latin lines, like Ecce agnus dei qui tollit
peccata mundi which stands outside the rhyme scheme and which is presumably part of the play. In many ways the
Moses example is nearer to the Contemplacio group ones, since it is, in the case of the text, a piece of dramatic
verisimilitude, and in the case of the commandment headings a device something similar, though less stylized, to the use of
the Gradual Psalm and the Magnificat headings in plays 9 and 13 (Block, pp. 75–7 and 118–19). The evidence suggests, to
me at least, that the Latin line opening the Moses sermon is an integral part of the play.
44. Matthew iii, 2; ‘Paenitentiam agitc; appropinquavit enim regnum celorum’. The playwright seems to be aware of the mis-
quotation of appropinquavit, judging by the paraphrase which follows in ll. 16–17.
45. The ‘third-person style’ does not necessarily produce worse plays, only plays of a different sort, ones closer in nature to the
town progress scene. It appears primarily when the need to instruct or explain overcomes the desire to dramatize. It
becomes a kind of alienation technique, by which the signification of an event is pointed up, and the natural drama played
down.
46. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, pp. 51–53; ll. 33–35 in particular, but see also l. 5, ll. 17–24 and l. 48. By introducing the
device of the sermon, the playwright provides the perfect dramatic medium for instruction. The ‘third-person style’
becomes dramatically appropriate as well as instructionally so.
47. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, pp. 188–93; ll. 79–87 and also e.g. ll. 135–7. Much of Jesus’ part is in this style.
48. For discussions of sermon construction sec: G. R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1926), c. 8, particularly pp. 301–30; and in Middle English Sermons ed. by W. O. Ross, pp. xliii–lv.
49. The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer ed. by F. N. Robinson, (London: Oxford University Press, 2nd. ed., 1957), pp.
148–9; ll. 333–4; 435 and 461; 916–18.
50. It would be possible, visually, to suggest the’coming down’ as well, if the pulpit were raised above the level of the waggon
floor.
51. The Pepysian Gospel Harmony ed. by Margery Goates, Early English Text Society OS 157, (London: Oxford University
Press, 1922), p. 54.
52. CCSL CXXII 183.
53. CCSL CXXII 182.
54. See Owst, pp. 146–7.
55. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, p. 207. The Gospel has: ‘Audientes autem unus post unum exibant, incipientes a
senioribus’; John viii, 9. The image of the wave on the rock is Augustine’s in his commentary on Psalm CII (CCSL XL
1462.).
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difficult to describe with exactitude. It is usual to regard this agent as
a stimulant and to separate the period of its direct effects into two
stages—that of excitement and that of depression. John Hunter
defined stimuli as agents which increase some natural action or
tendency, in contradistinction to irritants, which produce actions
altogether abnormal. Anstie12 sought to restrict the use of the term
stimulant to agents which by their direct action tend to rectify some
deficient or too redundant natural action or tendency. Without
entering upon the discussion of the doctrine of stimulation, I may say
that the views of Anstie have served a useful purpose in making
clear some vexed questions. In accordance with these views, the
physiological action of alcohol is followed neither by excitement nor
by depression, and when its administration is followed by these
conditions, its action is not truly physiological, but narcotic or toxic.
12 Stimulants and Narcotics, Lond., 1864.

The effects of this agent upon the nervous system vary within very
wide limits according to innumerable conditions which relate to the
temperament, health, habits, occupation of the individual, season,
climate, social circumstances, and the quantity, kind of alcoholic
drink, and its mode of administration. Its first action in moderate
doses and under circumstances free from complications is to
increase the functional activity of the brain: the ideas flow more
easily, the senses are more acute, speech is fluent, and movement
active. These effects accompany the increase in the heart's action,
the slight rise in temperature already described, and increased
activity of the organism in general. They appear to be in part due to
the direct action of the substance upon the cerebrum, and in part to
increased activity of the circulation. The effect upon the nervous
system has been compared by Nothnagel to the effect, in a higher
sphere, of strong moral impulses. Without otherwise modifying
existing traits of character, such impulses call them into action, and
lead to the accomplishment of deeds quite impossible under ordinary
circumstances. To a man worn out by some prolonged task which
from sheer fatigue he despairs of finishing, let there be announced
some joyful news; he at once feels refreshed, applies himself with
renewed energy to his work, and perhaps finishes it with ease. In
kind at least this is the effect also of alcohol.

But the limits of the physiological effects are easily transcended, and
the manifestations then become those of its toxic influence, between
the slightest grades of which and drunkenness the difference is one
rather of degree than of kind. These effects must therefore be
described under the heading Acute Alcoholism.

Passing to the influence of alcohol upon nutrition, we recognize two

modes of action. Of these the first is direct and in part local, and
results from the stimulation of the glandular apparatus of the mucous
membrane of the mouth and stomach, from increased activity of the
circulation, and from direct stimulation of the pneumogastric nerve.
Hence increased secretion of the digestive juices, augmented
appetite, more active peristalsis, and improved digestion, to which,
indeed, the direct action of alcohol upon the cerebrum doubtless
contributes. It is to these effects that the favorable influences of this
agent in the extremes of life, when it is so well borne and so useful,
must be largely attributed.

The second mode of action is indirect and general. It has been

shown that alcohol diminishes the amount of carbon dioxide expired
and of oxygen inspired, that it diminishes the quantity of urea
excreted, and that it lowers the temperature of the body. It follows
that normal oxidation goes on more slowly—that there is diminished
tissue-change. Alcohol supports the body, not by nourishing it as a
food, but by curtailing waste; it favors nutrition, not by augmenting
the receipts, but by cutting down the expenses of the organism. But
nutrition and waste are in health correlated and complementary.
They are, in fact, essential and associated processes of life, of which
one is not more necessary than the other to the maintenance of
health. In various pathological states the arrest of waste is a cardinal
indication, and for this purpose alcohol holds the first place. But in
health this action itself is pathological, and the beginning of evil. The
fat accumulation of the drunkard is due in part to the sugar and
starchy matter taken in malt liquors, but much more to this control of
waste, as is shown by the fact that spirit-drinkers who have sufficient
food also often become fat. Alcoholic excesses tend not only to fat
accumulation, but also to fatty degeneration of the tissues. The
opinion that alcohol in any dose or under any circumstances is a
food in the ordinary acceptation of the term is no longer tenable.
Chauffard has well said: “Not only is alcohol not an aliment; it is the
very reverse. Not only does it not contribute to the nutrition of the
body; it opposes it and destroys it little by little.”13
13 This opinion is at variance with the views generally entertained by English and
American writers upon materia medica. T. Lauder Brunton (Textbook of
Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Materia Medica, Am. ed., 1885) regards “all the
evidence as pointing to the fact that alcohol is a food, and in certain circumstances,
such as febrile conditions, may be a very useful food; but in health, when other kinds
of food are abundant, it is unnecessary, and, as it interferes with oxidation, it is an
inconvenient form of food.”

THE PATHOLOGICAL ACTION OF ALCOHOL.

I. Acute Alcoholism.

In accordance with the classification laid down at the beginning of

this article, the term acute alcoholism is here used to denote the
various forms of primary alcoholic intoxication in contradistinction to
the conditions which are brought about by the gradual but long-
continued action of the poison, and to the violent and sometimes
abrupt outbreaks which are secondary to these conditions. From this
point of view, which is at variance with the established usage of
writers upon alcoholism, but which is here adopted in the hope that it
will tend to simplify the treatment of a subject at present in much
confusion, acute alcoholism includes all forms of drunkenness, from
mere transient derangement of the normal functions of life, scarcely
amounting to tipsiness, to profound intoxication. It includes also
poisoning by lethal doses. Chronic alcoholism may be the outcome
of frequent repetitions of acute alcoholism at short intervals, or it may
result from the constant abuse of alcohol in doses so small that the
evidences of its poisonous effects are at no time actively manifested.
I hope to be able to show that the seemingly acute outbreaks, the
symptoms of which chiefly relate to the nervous system, that occur
after the condition of chronic alcoholism is fully established, are
commonly preceded for a longer or shorter period by imperfectly
developed symptoms of an analogous character, and that these
outbreaks differ in essential particulars from acute alcoholism in all
its forms.

That persons suffering from some degree of chronic alcoholism may,

and as a matter of common occurrence do, after excessive doses
suffer from acute alcoholism—in other words, get drunk—is too
obvious to demand more than passing consideration at this point; but
it is scarcely necessary to point out to those who are familiar with the
life-history of such individuals that the time comes when no degree
of excess will produce the ordinary manifestations of transient
intoxication. It is then that phenomena of another and more serious
kind are apt to occur. The difference is that between the reactions of
normal or as yet quasi-normal tissues and alcohol on the one hand,
and on the other the manifestations induced by the supersaturation
of tissues previously alcoholized to the point of an acquired
tolerance. This tolerance of the nervous system is in a high degree a
pathological condition, and is therefore in an equally high degree
unstable and liable to be overthrown by accidents of various kinds as
well as by extraordinary excess in alcohol.

The variety of forms and admixtures in which alcohol is taken is so

great, and the susceptibility of individuals to its action so different,
that it would be a hopeless task to attempt to describe the manifold
phases of acute alcoholism. Unfortunately, most of them are too
familiar. The following description embraces the more important
phenomena, and is intended to serve as a type:

A. THE ORDINARY OR TYPICAL FORM.—The physiological effects of

alcohol in moderate doses are followed by no reaction, but they are
evanescent. When, however, the dose is repeated at short intervals
and the effect is sustained, the condition by its continuance becomes
pathological, and the subject enters upon the prodromic period of
acute alcoholism. From this condition to that in which the poison
manifests its distinctly toxic effects the transition is a speedy one.
The face becomes flushed, the eyes brilliant; the heart's action
increases in force and frequency; muscular force seems augmented;
there is excitation of the mental processes; intelligence seems more
active; ideas flow readily; preoccupation ceases; anxieties are
forgotten. The future is full of hope, the past has lost its sorrows, its
regrets. The powers of expression are brought into fullest play;
conversation becomes animated, brilliant, often sparkling and keen.
Reason is thrown aside, the judgment relaxed; vanity, pride,
rashness, assert themselves. Emotions, sentiments, habitually
repressed, are manifested without reserve, often with emphasis and
insistance. Hence the proverb, In vino veritas.

Then speech degenerates into loquacity; improper confidences are

made, indiscretions committed; the bent of disposition is made clear;
he who is by nature sad grows sombre, melancholy; he who is
irritable becomes cross and quarrelsome; the generous man grows
lavish, and a good-natured fellow is everybody's friend. But this
intensification of normal characteristics is by no means invariable.
Not seldom do we see the timid man become in his cups violent and
aggressive, the refined coarse, and the gay melancholy. The
sensation of increase in muscular force manifests itself in unusual
activity. Gesticulation is frequent, energetic, and apt; there are bodily
restlessness and desire to move about. Shouts of laughter, bursts of
song, are followed by a disposition to easily-provoked quarrels. At
this stage there are evidences of some degree of cerebral
congestion. The temples throb, the heart is full, and dizziness is felt.
The skin is moist, the mouth pasty, thirst is experienced, and there is
frequent desire to pass water. There yet remains some degree of
self-control. The phenomena which characterize this condition are
more or less transient, and if alcohol be now discontinued they
speedily cease, commonly in sleep, sometimes without it, and are
followed by sensations of weariness and fatigue, with headache,
gastric disturbances, and temporary loss of appetite.

If, however, the influence of alcohol be pushed beyond this point, the
manifestations of mere exaltation of function give place to grave
perversion of the processes of life. A gradually increasing vertigo is
associated with obscured intelligence, dulled imagination, blunted
and confuted perception, disjointed ideation, and incoherent speech.
The recollection grows indistinct, the will purposeless. Now the baser
passions are aroused; evil impulses and illusions of all kinds sway
the drunken man. All control of conversation and action is lost.
Reason is replaced by delirium, and he becomes a maniac,
dangerous alike to himself and to others, liable upon some sudden
impulse to commit the most atrocious crimes.

The countenance betrays the profound disturbance of the intellectual

and moral nature: its expression is changed, its lines are blurred; the
flush deepens, the veins are distended, the arteries pulsate visibly,
the gaze is staring, the pupils contracted. The respiration, at first
quickened, becomes irregular. The heart's action is rapid and
bounding, and sometimes there is palpitation. Somnolence soon
deepens into an invincible desire to sleep. At this point great
muscular relaxation not infrequently occurs in connection with
vomiting, profuse sweating, and dilatation of the pupils.

Muscular movements are irregular and uncertain, the gait vacillating

and staggering; the movements of the superior extremities, wanting
in precision, become trembling and awkward. At the same time
speech becomes embarrassed. Articulation is difficult and
imperfectly executed. At length standing becomes impossible; the
drunkard, profoundly poisoned, sinks helplessly to the ground, and
not infrequently the control of the sphincters is lost. The development
of this condition is accompanied by a gradual perversion of general
and special sensibility. Dull headache, ringing in the ears,
phosphenes, and other disturbances of vision, hallucinations of taste
and smell, are followed by abrogation of the special senses. Loss of
cutaneous sensibility, beginning at the extremities, invades the whole
body, and finally the subject sinks into more or less profound coma,
from which it is no longer possible to arouse him. Muscular
resolution is complete, sensation is lost; the face is now bloated,
deeply flushed, sometimes livid, sometimes ashy pale; the pupils are
dilated; the temperature below normal; the respiration stertorous and
accompanied by abundant mucous râles. The pulse is feeble,
fluttering, the surface covered with sweat, and involuntary
evacuations take place.

VARIETIES.—Three varieties of acute alcoholism are recognized by

Lentz—the expansive, the depressive, and the stupid. The first is
characterized by gayety, self-satisfaction, and content. The drunkard,
smiling and happy, is satisfied with the present and full of hope for
the future. The second variety is characterized by sadness and
melancholy. The drunkard becomes sombre and taciturn; if he talk at
all, it is to bewail his misfortunes and to recount his mishaps. In the
third variety the period of excitement is wanting and the drunkard
passes rapidly into a condition of stupor.

Great as are the modifications of the course of acute alcoholism

under different circumstances and in different individuals, it is
evident, upon close investigation, that its phenomena—and
especially those which relate to the nervous system—manifest
themselves in a progressive series more or less constant in the
majority of persons. This series includes three well-characterized
periods: 1. The stage of functional exaltation of the nervous system;
2. The stage of functional perversion; 3. The stage of depression.

We may, then, recognize the degrees of acute alcoholism

corresponding to these stages.14 Of these, the first scarcely goes
beyond the stage of excitement already described, and if the dose
have been moderate or its repetitions not too long continued, the
symptoms gradually subside, leaving perhaps no sequels beyond
slight headache, tinnitus aurium, some degree of muscular
relaxation, and mental depression.
14 These stages correspond to the three degrees of alcoholic intoxication recognized
and described by German writers as Rausch, Betrunkenheit, and Besoffenheit. To
these may be added the prodromic period, designated as Weinwarme Zustand.
These three degrees are known to the French as l'ivresse légère, l'ivresse grave, and
l'ivresse suraiguë.

The second degree is characterized by partial abolition of

intelligence, of general and special sensation, and of motor power.
Hence incoherent speech, extravagant actions, blunted perceptions,
hallucinations and delusions, inco-ordination of movements, a
reeling gait, and not rarely vomiting and involuntary discharges of
urine and feces. This degree of acute alcoholism usually ends in
deep sleep with abundant perspiration, to which succeed great
lassitude and depression, accompanied by much gastro-intestinal
derangement, of which the symptoms are inability to take food,
coated tongue, viscid mouth, foul breath, repeated vomiting, and
occasionally diarrhœa. These sequels are less serious in those
individuals accustomed to excesses than in others.

In the third degree the subject falls by gradual stages or abruptly into
more or less profound coma. The abolition of intelligence, sensation,
and motion is complete. The face is now swollen, livid, or pale, the
pupils dilated, the respiration stertorous, the pulse feeble, often slow,
sometimes imperceptible, the surface cool and often bathed in
sweat. The man is dead drunk. The symptoms are now of the
gravest kind. It is no uncommon occurrence for this condition to end
in death.

Well characterized as these three degrees of alcoholic intoxication

are, they are not, when occurring successively in the same
individual, separated by abrupt lines of demarcation. On the contrary,
the evolution of the symptoms is from the beginning to the close a
gradual and progressive one.
While the scope of this article precludes extended discussion of the
symptoms of acute alcoholism—which, indeed, present an almost
endless variety in their intensity and combination—yet it seems
necessary to the elucidation of the subject to point out some of the
more prominent modifications due to variations in the conditions
under which alcohol acts upon the organism.

First among these are differences in the nature and composition of

the drink. Here we have to do not only with the well-known
differences in alcoholic beverages, as spirits, wines, and malt
liquors, and their quality and grades, but also with differences in the
chemical nature of the alcohols themselves which enter into their
composition. The principal of these alcohols are—

Methyl alcohol, CH3OH.

Ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH.
Propyl alcohol, C3H7OH.
Butyl alcohol, C4H9OH.
Amyl alcohol, C5H11OH.

Richardson was the first to call attention to the differences in the

physiological and pathological action of the members of this series.
Other observers, among whom may be named Dujardin-Beaumetz
and Andigie,15 and Rabuteau,16 have also investigated the subject.
The researches of these observers have established the fact that the
effects of the different alcohols in depressing the temperature of the
body and in paralyzing sensation and motion are exactly the same,
but that their narcotic influence upon the nervous system increases,
dose for dose, in proportion to the amount of carbon which they
contain. Ethyl alcohol is, with the exception of methyl alcohol or
wood-spirit, the least rich in carbon and the least dangerous to
health.17 The increased consumption of alcohol, both as a beverage
and in the arts, the demand for cheap, coarse spirits producing their
primary narcotic effects with promptness, and the cupidity of
manufacturers, have led to the almost universal adulteration of the
liquors of commerce with the more dangerous alcohols.18 So
extensive has this substitution of the high-carbon alcohols for ethyl
or ordinary spirit of wine become that it has been suggested that
alcoholism should be divided into ethylism, amylism, propylism, and
butylism—not so much for clinical reasons as to direct attention to
the composition of alcoholic drinks and to their deleterious
properties.19
15 Recherches expérimentales sur la Puissance toxique des Alcools, Paris, 1879.

16 “Contributions à l'Étude des Effets physiologiques et therapeutiques d'Alcool,”

Compt. rend. Société de Biologie, 1870-71.

17 “Methylic alcohol is the safest of the series of bodies to which it belongs” (B. W.
Richardson, Lectures on Alcohol).

18 M. Girard, chief of the municipal laboratory in Paris, has recently called attention to
the enormous diminution in the production of alcohol by the natural method—that is to
say, by the distillation of wine. The falling off he ascribes to the ravages of the
phylloxera. This loss is made up by the substitution of spirits obtained by the
distillation of various fermented grains, potatoes, beets, molasses, etc. To give some
idea of the extent to which the alcohols of industry at present replace the alcohols of
wine, he cites the following figures: From 1840 to 1850 the mean annual production of
alcohol in France was 891,500 hectoliters, of which the alcohols of wine amounted to
715,000 hectoliters. In 1883 the product reached 1,997,280 hectoliters, of which
alcohols obtained by the distillation of wine amounted to only 14,678 hectoliters.

19 Peeters, L'Alcool, 1885.

The effects of propyl, butyl, and amyl alcohols upon the nervous
system are not only more marked than those of ethyl alcohol, but
they are more rapid. The stage of excitement is speedily induced,
and its manifestations are intense. Hence the preference often
manifested by drunkards for cheap, coarse spirits. On the other
hand, the stage of depression quickly follows, and is itself of
relatively shorter duration than that induced by ethyl alcohol,
probably for the reason that the amount required to bring it about is
smaller. Muscular resolution soon becomes general and complete;
insensibility speedily succeeds; the fall of temperature is rapid;
vomiting, occasionally absent in the intoxication produced by ethyl
alcohol, is the rule, and is frequently repeated. Muscular tremor—
and especially is this true of amyl alcohol—comes on earlier, is more
general and more marked, and lasts longer than that which occurs in
consequence of excess in ethyl alcohol. Richardson states that the
complex alcohols are more slowly eliminated than ethyl alcohol, but
the French observers are of a different opinion.

But these differences in action are probably rather differences in

degree than in kind. Peeters says: “Ethyl alcohol is less dangerous
than the more complex members of the series. It is less irritating,
less charged with carbon, its specific gravity is less, its fumes are
less dense and escape more readily from the economy; its action
ought to be less profound, less prolonged, than that of butyl, propyl,
and amyl alcohol, but it is of the same nature. It is not qualitatively
but quantitatively different. I suspect that the effects of liquors
containing ethyl alcohol are, as a rule, less decidedly injurious, by
reason of the more favorable surroundings of those who can afford
to use them.”

The three principal groups of the alcoholic drinks of commerce

produce, independently of the properties of the different kinds of
alcohol which they contain, forms of acute alcoholism which differ in
important respects.

The intoxication induced by the exclusive use of malt liquors is dull

and heavy, slow in coming on, and of long duration. The stage of
excitement is relatively brief, not often characterized by gayety, often
brutal; drowsiness soon supervenes and deepens slowly into
unconsciousness. The after-effects are disagreeable and prolonged.
The enormous quantity of fluid and the large amount of malt
extractives cause gastro-hepatic derangements of a more or less
distressing kind. To the hops must be ascribed the prolonged
dulness which is so characteristic of the after-effects of beers and
ales. The influence of the various substances used in the
adulteration of beers without doubt modifies the symptoms of the
alcoholism which these beverages cause when impure. These
substances consist of glucose, various vegetable bitters, and salt—
articles not necessarily hurtful in small amounts, but capable of
exerting deleterious action when taken in excess and in connection
with the normal ingredients of beer.

The intoxication produced by pure wines is, as a rule, characterized

by a bodily and mental activity strongly in contrast with the
drunkenness produced by malt liquors. The drunkard is usually gay
and vivacious—at all events, lightly merry or not hopelessly
despondent. His mood is variable, changing from grave to gay. The
first stage is prolonged, and the manifestations of the later stages
less grave, nor are the sequels apt to be so severe. The action is
that of ethyl alcohol and certain ethereal substances, the latter being
present, however, only in minute amounts. The rapidity of the effects
depends upon the proportion of alcohol which the wine contains,
which varies from about 7 per cent. in the clarets to 15, to 18, or
even to 20 per cent. in port and madeira. The sparkling wines,
moselle and champagne, produce more transient effects than the
still wines—a fact probably to be explained by their greater and more
prompt diuretic action.

The foregoing remarks apply only to pure wines. The intoxication

which follows the use of artificial compounds sold in all parts of the
world as wines betrays in its course and symptoms the high
percentage and toxic characters of the mixed alcohols which form
their essential ingredients.

The intoxication which follows excesses in the various spirits of

commerce presents no special characters. Its symptoms are
determined to a considerable extent by the relative purity—that is,
freedom from admixture with the various complex alcohols—of the
liquor by which it has been produced. Potato spirit causes
drunkenness which is profound, overwhelming, and preceded by a
brief period only of excitement.

Even more important than the kind of liquor is its quantity. Here,
however, it is impossible to formulate precise statements. A few
glasses of wine will produce effects in some persons more decided
than much strong spirits in others. Those conditions which favor the
absorption of alcohol hasten the production and augment the
intensity of alcoholism; and the contrary is true. Thus, alcohol taken
while fasting does much more harm than the same amount taken
with a meal. Intense excitement, anger, mortification, or other violent
emotion is said by Lentz to increase the effects of alcohol. Sudden
transition from a warm to a cold atmosphere intensifies the action.
That this effect of cold is due to suppression of perspiration, and the
consequent interference with one of the elements of elimination, is
much less likely than that it is due to the further depressing influence
of cold upon the nervous system, already depressed by the alcohol
imbibed. Occupation has in an indirect way much to do with the
facility with which alcohol is borne. Hard work, requiring great and
continuous muscular effort, especially in the open air, diminishes the
liability to acute alcoholism, while sedentary occupations and
confinement strongly predispose to it. These well-recognized facts
are to be accounted for by the influence of different occupations and
modes of life upon the elimination of the poison. Persons who are
debilitated by chronic disease or are convalescent from acute
maladies, and the otherwise feeble and anæmic, are peculiarly
obnoxious to the action of alcohol. Previous custom and hereditary
peculiarities of organization exert an influence upon the liability of
individuals to acute alcoholism, and upon its nature when induced.

Persons of an impressible nervous organization are peculiarly prone

to the evil effects of drink. With such persons slight excess is often
followed by serious consequences; the intellectual disturbance is
early developed and out of proportion to the derangements of motility
and sensation. The effects of alcohol are manifested more promptly
and more intensely in children and women than in men or in the
aged. Drunkenness is induced more rapidly and with smaller
quantities of alcohol in summer than in winter, in warm than in cold
countries.

B. IRREGULAR FORMS OF ACUTE ALCOHOLISM.20—1. The Maniacal Form.

—The outbreak is usually sudden, sometimes occurring after the
ingestion of comparatively small quantities of alcohol; at others after
excesses which in a certain proportion of the cases have already
ceased. The transition from a condition apparently normal, or
marked at most by mental concentration, restlessness, and some
degree of irritability, to furious mania is sometimes almost
instantaneous, and the subsidence of the latter no less swift. More
commonly there are prodromic symptoms, among which are general
malaise, præcordial distress, palpitations, flushing of the face,
vertigo, tinnitus aurium, phosphenes, and dull, throbbing headache.
The attack is characterized by maniacal excitement, usually of a
furious kind. The restlessness is, however, far from being aimless
and purposeless. On the contrary, impelled by the wildest passions,
transported with rage, the patient seeks the destruction of life and
property, and wreaks his fury alike upon animate and inanimate
objects. So great is his strength for the time being that several strong
men may be scarcely able to restrain him. He pours forth a torrent of
commingled threats and curses, in which may be heard unintelligible,
and often inarticulate, sounds. He is beside himself, yet, so far as
can be learned, there are neither hallucinations nor delusions by
which his fury can be explained. In this respect the condition is
wholly unlike that form of alcoholic mania in which the actions are
explained by the imaginary surroundings and circumstances of the
patient. In the maniacal form of acute alcoholism the most trifling
incident, a word, a look, are sufficient to produce a tempest of rage
that may end in scenes of violence. Nevertheless, the patient yet
retains for a time some notion of his surroundings. At length,
however, he falls into a state of complete unconsciousness, and the
delirium is like that of fever, of the delusions of which no recollection
afterward remains. This form of acute alcoholism is almost invariably
associated with the symptoms of a high degree of cerebral
hyperæmia. The hands are hot, the eyes injected, the pupils dilated
or contracted, the expression eager. There are abundant secretion of
saliva, frequent and irregular respiration, a rapid pulse—often
exceeding 100—throbbing arteries, distended veins, and a hot skin,
often bathed with sweat. The urine is scanty and constipation usual.
There is, as a rule, increased sensibility to light and sound. The
attack is liable to come to a tragic close in murder or suicide.
 20 Ivresses anormales ou pathologiques of the French writers.

The termination of the paroxysm is as abrupt as its onset. Some

abatement of its violence is quickly followed by signs of mental and
bodily exhaustion; this deepens into profound sleep, which often
lasts from twelve to twenty-four hours, and from which the patient
awakes clear, tranquil, and as if nothing had happened, or dimly
recollecting the occurrences that have passed as a hideous dream.
In a small proportion of the cases the sleep deepens into coma
which ends in death.

2. The Convulsive Form.—The analogy to the form just described is

very close. Here, however, the morbid manifestations directly relate
to the muscular system. The attack is commonly sudden, often
abrupt. When prodromes occur, they are such as have been
described as preceding the maniacal form—mental irritability,
headache, præcordial distress, etc. The attack is thus described by
Lentz: “The phenomena consist not in ordinary convulsions, but in
convulsiform movements of remarkable disorder, only to be
compared with the extraordinary convulsive movements of grave
hysteria. We have happened to see several cases during the attack.
These patients threw themselves to the ground, giving themselves
up to the most irregular and disorderly contortions, rolling from side
to side, throwing the body into the air, striking out with the legs and
arms, kicking at random, biting at persons and things—now knocking
the head against the floor, again rising for a moment, only to fall back
and commence again the same contortions. Their movements are
energetic and violent. There are madmen whom it is dangerous to
approach by reason of the violence of their movements, but they are
certainly much less dangerous than those suffering from the
maniacal form of acute alcoholism, for their morbid motility has no
tendency to take the shape of co-ordinated actions. It is movement
wasted in pure loss. Their muscular energy is excessive; it is difficult
to restrain them. To resume: the peculiarity of these movements is
this, that they are not intentional, but that they are rather purely
convulsiform, automatic.
“Another phenomenon of this form, one of its characteristic
symptoms, is the state of intellectual enfeeblement which
accompanies it. The loss of consciousness is complete, and were it
not for the movement produced by the convulsions the patient would
be plunged into a condition of profound coma. He has not the least
knowledge of himself; not even delirium denotes intellectual activity;
only an occasional harsh cry or inarticulate sound indicates the
existence of mind.”

The other symptoms differ but little from the maniacal form. The
duration of the attack varies from a few hours to half a day; its
termination is usually abrupt, the patient falling into a condition of
extreme exhaustion with stupor, or into a deep and prolonged sleep,
from which he awakens without the slightest recollection of the
attack through which he has passed.21
21 Consult also Dict. des Sciences méd., t. xxvi.

3. Acute Alcoholism, in Persons of Unsound Mind.—The insane,

imbeciles, epileptics, and persons suffering from nervous diseases
are, as a rule, abnormally susceptible to the action of alcohol, and
present more or less striking peculiarities in the symptoms which it
causes. Brief notice of certain of these peculiarities is in accordance
with the scope and plan of this article.

In general paralysis propensity to alcoholic excesses is not rarely an

early symptom. The subject is very susceptible to the action of
alcohol, and under its influence rapidly passes into a state of intense
excitement, characterized by incoherence, delirium, excessive
restlessness, and unwillingness to seek repose until exhaustion is
complete. It is under the influence of this easily-provoked alcoholic
excitement that the vagabondage, quarrels, thefts, robberies,
incendiarisms, and other grave crimes observed during the first
stage of this form of insanity are often committed.

Imbeciles and idiots are likewise quickly, and often intensely, excited
by alcohol. They are then apt to be quarrelsome, perverse, and
ungovernable, defiant of authority, and capable of shocking crimes,
often evincing latent vicious tendencies previously wholly
unsuspected.

Epileptics are easily affected by alcohol, and usually violent in the

stage of excitement; not rarely this period terminates in a true
epileptic seizure.

The drunkenness of the dipsomaniac is characterized by a

prolonged, uninterrupted stage of excitement without the stage of
depression. Such individuals are capable of consuming in their
periodical excesses large amounts of drink without the evolution of
the ordinary successive phenomena of acute alcoholism.

Persons of unsound mind are, as a rule, so susceptible to the

influence of alcohol, and suffer so promptly and intensely from its
primary effects, that they are rarely able or permitted to consume a
sufficient quantity to bring about a comatose state.

The irregular forms of acute alcoholism are only to be explained by

the inherited or acquired constitutional peculiarities of individuals. To
attempt to explain them in any case by the quality of the alcohol by
which they are induced meets with the difficulty indicated in the fact
that they are isolated and comparatively rare, even where the
coarser spirits are habitually consumed. They occur in individuals
who habitually commit excesses, but they cannot be viewed as
manifestations of chronic alcoholism, for the reason that they also
occasionally occur in those who are not habitual drinkers, and even
in persons who have not for a long time previously tasted strong
drink. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, they are not only
occasionally, but indeed even as a rule, induced by relatively small
amounts of alcohol. They are then the manifestations of
idiosyncrasy. One of the striking peculiarities of this peculiar bodily
organization is this very susceptibility to the action of alcohol in
doses smaller than are taken with impunity by ordinary individuals. It
is also characterized by a special tendency to delirium in febrile
states, to hallucinations, to disturbances from trifling changes in
climate, food, or manner of life, to irritability of the nervous system,
and in particular of the vaso-motor system, and by a tendency to
convulsions. With these tendencies is associated an unstable mental
and moral character. Such persons are liable to headaches, vertigo,
and epistaxis—signs of cerebral hyperæmia, which is easily induced
—and their family histories indicate strong hereditary tendencies to
neurotic disorders, and not rarely addiction to alcohol on the part of
one or several ancestors.

But this idiosyncrasy is by no means always an inherited one. It is

acquired as one of the results of profound disturbance of the nervous
system, such as is produced by moral causes, by temporary or
recurrent insanity, by wounds and injuries of the head, by the
infectious diseases, especially syphilis, enteric and typhus fever, and
small-pox, and by inflammations of the meninges.

What may be the precise mode of action of alcohol in the production

of its acute effects yet remains a matter of conjecture. It cannot be
doubted that its primary and direct action is upon the nervous
system, and that the circulation is secondarily but rapidly implicated.
But it is quite impossible to say, in the present state of knowledge,
what this action is. It has been suggested that certain chemical
modifications of alcohol in the blood, or of the blood itself in the
presence of alcohol, cause these phenomena; that aldehyde is the
active agent in their production; that the chemical changes by which
alcohol is transformed into aldehydes, acetic acid, and finally into
carbon dioxide, deprive the blood of the oxygen necessary for the
proper performance of the functions of the nervous system.
Unfortunately for these views, neither the presence of aldehydes in
the blood in acute alcoholism, nor these transformations themselves,
have yet been demonstrated, and a high degree of deoxygenation of
the blood is frequently observed in asphyxia, the inhalation of nitrous
oxide, etc., without the train of symptoms characteristic of the
condition now under consideration.

It is more than probable that varying conditions of the cerebral

circulation, secondary in themselves, have much to do in the
causation of certain symptoms. The experimental investigations of
Bernard and others have established the fact that during the period
of excitement there is actual congestion of the meninges. This
condition is transient, and reproduced after each repetition of the
dose. After a time, or if the dose at first be excessive, the congestion
is succeeded by anæmia.

PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY.—Upon the examination of the bodies of

persons who have died by accident while drunk or in consequence of
drunkenness itself, deep congestion of the cerebral meninges, and
especially of the pia, has been almost constantly observed. In the pia
effusions of blood are occasionally encountered. The condition of the
cerebral substance is not always the same. It is in a majority of the
cases more or less deeply congested, yet it presents in other
instances no appreciable departure from the normal state, and in a
smaller number still there is actual anæmia.

The sinuses and choroid plexuses are distended with dark blood; the
cerebro-spinal fluid is increased, and often tinged with blood; the
ventricles are distended with fluid, which not rarely has an alcoholic
odor. Occasionally the ventricles contain blood, and hemorrhage into
the substance of the brain has been observed.

The condition of the elementary nervous tissues after death from

acute alcoholism is not yet known.

The lungs are deeply congested, with small extravasations of blood

into their substance, and often œdematous. Congestion of the liver,
spleen, and kidneys in varying degrees of intensity is also seen. The
pancreas is usually deeply injected, occasionally the seat of large
extravasations of blood. The mucous membrane of the stomach is
invariably deeply injected when the alcohol has been introduced into
the organism in the ordinary manner. The observation of Caspar that
post-mortem decomposition takes place with diminished rapidity has
been denied by Lancereaux and others.

Other post-mortem conditions appear to be neither constant nor

characteristic. The stomach usually contains partially digested food
and alcohol. Lallemand, Perrin, and Du Roy observed, both during
life and after death, in the blood of animals subjected to experiments,
great numbers of minute glistening points, which upon microscopic
examination proved to be fat-globules. The same condition has been
observed in man, not only when death has taken place owing to
acute alcoholism, but also when it has occurred during the digestion
of a hearty meal without alcohol. The blood itself is often fluid and
dark-colored; the heart sometimes empty, sometimes containing a
few soft clots. Tardieu22 states that in sudden death during
drunkenness pulmonary apoplexy and meningeal apoplexy, if not
constant lesions, are at least extremely frequent, and almost
characteristic. Baer, on the other hand, denies the occurrence of
specific or characteristic lesions.
22 “Observationes médicales sur l'Etát d'Ivresse,” Annales d'Hygiene publique et de
Médecine légale, tome xl.

C. ACUTE POISONING BY ALCOHOL IN LETHAL DOSES.—The symptoms

are much modified when overwhelming doses of strong alcohol are
introduced into the organism at once or in the course of a short time.
Here alcohol produces death as an acute poison. The cases may be
arranged in two groups:

1. Corrosive Poisoning.—These cases are very rare. They are

caused only by undiluted alcohol, and depend upon the action of this
agent in coagulating albumen and disorganizing the tissues with
which it comes in contact by its affinity for the water which they
contain. Absolute alcohol is a powerful corrosive poison. It produces
intense phlegmonous inflammation of the œsophagus and stomach,
with erosion of the mucous membrane, accompanied by vomiting,
diarrhœa with bloody stools, prostration, and stupor. Death occurs by
heart-failure. Among the direct effects of large doses somewhat less
concentrated are acute and subacute gastritis with characteristic
symptoms.

Percy23 injected by means of an œsophageal tube 90 grammes of

absolute alcohol into the stomach of a dog. Death followed in the
course of eight hours in consequence of violent gastro-intestinal
inflammation with ulceration. Dujardin-Beaumetz and Andigie found
the gastric and intestinal mucous membrane of dogs poisoned by