Singh and Zingg, in recording the story of the well known feral child, Caspar Hauser, remark upon the effect of alcohol on his body when he was given a small quantity for the first time in his life at the age of about seventeen years. Caspar Hauser had been kept in a tiny dungeon in almost total darkness since infancy, without any human attention except the occasional washing of his body and cutting of his hair by an attendant whom he never saw because he was always drugged before receiving this minimum of personal attention. There is some reason to suppose that he may have been confined because he was a contender for some hereditary position which was being occupied illegally by one of his captors. Singh and Zingg observed: (153)Originally Posted by Shuftin
A certain person made the attempt to force some brandy upon him. Scarcely had the glass been brought to his lips when he turned pale, sank down, and would have fallen backwards against a glass door if he had not been instantly supported.
A few drops of beer made from malted wheat, though much diluted with water, gave him a violent pain in his stomach accompanied with so great a (sense of) heat that he was all over dripping with perspiration; which was succeeded by ague attended with headache and violent eructations (i.e. passing of wind).
It is significant that such a minute quantity of alcohol could have such a profound effect on his totally unaccustomed body. The effect of fermented grape juice on Eve's perfect body could conceivably have been even more dramatic and quite evident to Adam. Eve had no forebears to pass on to her the slightest measure of immunity to its poisoning effects, whereas Caspar Hauser's body had at least this much preparation that he was born of a line of forebears with centuries of experience of alcoholic beverages, even though he himself may never have touched it.
In his commentary on Genesis, Lange rejected the idea that there could be any analogy between the experience of Adam and of Noah though both "discovered" their nakedness as a consequence of ingesting a damaging substance. He wrote: "(It) does not justify us in concluding that (in Adam's case) it was a wine, but some other fruit perhaps, whose effect for the first man was too strong, being of an intoxicating or disturbing nature." *
* Lange, John Peter, Genesis: or The First Book of Moses, tr. Taylor Lewis, Grand Rapids, Zondervan reprint, 1960, Vol. 1, p. 245.
http://www.custance.org/old/seed/ch11s.html
Hate it when that happens. BAC.???
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