Narcotic (Gr. narkao, to benumb).

The bulk of mankind benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and thus, in their eager cry, "Who will show us any good?"

Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we might determine the qualities of food and drinkwhether they are favorable or adverseby means of taste and smell, like the animals.

There can be no doubtno reasonable doubt, certainlythat the wretched customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be studiously avoided.

Pictures are invaluable to the stupid; they benumb and enervate the clever, and turn them into apish imitators, instead of making them able to act from their own knowledge and volition.

He felt that another hour aloft would so benumb his senses that a crash would be inevitable.

render insensible &c adj.; anaesthetize^, blunt, pall, obtund^, benumb, paralyze; put under the influence of chloroform &c n.; stupefy, stun.

V. benumb &c 376.

V. cool, fan, refrigerate, refresh, ice; congeal, freeze, glaciate; benumb, starve, pinch, chill, petrify, chill to the marrow, regelate^, nip, cut, pierce, bite, make one's teeth chatter, damp, slack quench; put out, stamp out; extinguish; go out, burn out (incombustibility) 388.1.

render insensible, render callous; blunt, obtund^, numb, benumb, paralyze, deaden, hebetate^, stun, stupefy; brutify^; brutalize; chloroform, anaesthetize^, put under; assify^. inure; harden the heart; steel, caseharden, sear.

Some floodgates, arches, falls of water, like London Bridge, or some continuate noise which may benumb the senses, lenis motus, silentium et tenebra, tum et ipsa voluntas somnos faciunt; as a gentle noise to some procures sleep, so, which Bernardinus Tilesius, lib. de somno, well observes, silence, in a dark room, and the will itself, is most available to others.

What sleepy charms benumb these active heroes, Depress their spirits, and retard their speed?

A miserable sullenness seemed to benumb my faculties.

" But among his uncouth surroundings, who would have been capable of understanding these sweet pleasures and that over-excitement of soul and brain, by means of which he sought to benumb his senses and to change the current of his heart, that heart which like the body has its imperious needs.

She made a collection of all the poisons which she could procure, and administered portions of them all, that she might see which were sudden and which were slow in their effects, and also learn which produced the greatest distress and suffering, and which, on the other hand, only benumbed and stupefied the faculties, and thus extinguished life with the least infliction of pain.

the cold was becoming every moment more biting, and the poor finger fixed in the hole began to feel benumbed, and the numbness soon extended to the hand, and thence throughout the whole arm.

The poor woman's kindness does not rest even there; for she is unhappy till the benumbed and shivering mariner comes ashore to share her little board, and recruit himself at her cheerful and glowing fire, and she can seldom be prevailed upon to take any reward.

Oh, I'm so cold!" "Put your feet closer to me, sissy," answered her brother, baring himself to enwrap her more thoroughly; "put my stockings on over yours;" and, as well as they were able in the dark, he drew his stockings on over her benumbed feet.

" Miss Ada Bell welcomed Clarence in the most affectionate manner, assisted him to remove his coat, unfastened his woollen neck-tie, and smoothed down his glossy black hair; then, warming a napkin, she wrapped it round his benumbed hands, and held them in her own until the circulation was restored and they were supple and comfortable again.

"You must not on that account neglect Margaret's child," was Madam Conway's answer, as with a wave of her hand she passed on; and this was all she saidnot a word of sympathy or congratulation for the peculiar old woman whose heart, so long benumbed, had been roused to a better state of feeling, and who in the first joy of her newborn happiness had hurried to her mistress, fancying for the moment that she was almost her equal.

I was benumbed, my wife was fainting, and our poor child was blue and speechless.

Does he not send before him monitors and messengers: acute pains, which wholly absorb the soul; deliriums, which render reason of no avail; deadly stupors, which benumb the brightest and most piercing geniuses?

The Protestantism which pities those as "without chart and compass" who acknowledge no infallible written code, can mean nothing else, than that "the less occasion we have to trust our moral powers, the better;" that is, it represents it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without.

" We may in part account for Romanticism by recalling that it was the product of an age which was no longer in sympathy with its own tasks, an age of political miseries and restrained powers, which turned away from its own surroundings and sought to be free from all contact with them, striving to benumb its sensations by an auto-intoxication of dreams.

To think that we know everything about God, is to benumb and deaden worship; but mystical thought quickens worship, and the beauty of Nature raises mystical thought.