A DANGEROUS DELUSION.
In this chapter, our chief purpose is to show the growth and awful power of an appetite which begins striving for the mastery the moment it is indulged, and against the encroachments of which no man who gives it any indulgence is absolutely safe. He who so regards himself is resting in a most dangerous delusion. So gradually does it increase, that few observe its steady accessions of strength until it has acquired the power of a master. Dr. George M. Burr, in a paper on the pathology of drunkenness, read before the "American Association for the Cure of Inebriates," says, in referring to the first indications of an appetite, which he considers one of the symptoms of a forming disease, says: "This early stage is marked by an occasional desire to drink, which recurs at shorter and shorter intervals, and a propensity, likewise, gradually increasing for a greater quantity at each time. This stage has long been believed to be one of voluntary indulgence, for which the subject of it was morally responsible. The drinker has been held as criminal for his occasional indulgence, and his example has been most severely censured. This habit, however, must be regarded as the first intimation of the approaching disease—the stage of invasion, precisely as sensations of mal-aise and chills usher in a febrile attack.
"It is by no means claimed that in this stage the subject is free from responsibility as regards the consequences of his acts, or that his case is to be looked upon as beyond all attempts at reclamation. Quite to the contrary. This is the stage for active interference. Restraint, prohibition, quarantine, anything may be resorted to, to arrest the farther advance of the disease. Instead of being taught that the habit of occasional drinking is merely a moral lapsus (not the most powerful restraining motive always), the subject of it should be made to understand that it is the commencement of a malady, which, if unchecked, will overwhelm him in ruin, and, compared with which, cholera and yellow fever are harmless. He should be impressed with the fact that the early stage is the one when recuperation is most easy—that the will then has not lost its power of control, and that the fatal propensity is not incurable. The duty of prevention, or avoidance, should be enforced with as much earnestness and vigor as we are required to carry out sanitary measures against the spread of small-pox or any infectious disease. The subject of inebriety may be justly held responsible, if he neglects all such efforts, and allows the disease to progress without a struggle to arrest it.
"The formative stage of inebriety continues for a longer or shorter period, when, as is well known, more frequent repetitions of the practice of drinking are to be observed. The impulse to drink grows stronger and stronger, the will-power is overthrown and the entire organism becomes subject to the fearful demands for stimulus. It is now that the stage of confirmed inebriation is formed, and dypso-mania fully established. The constant introduction of alcohol into the system, circulating with the fluids and permeating the tissues, adds fuel to the already enkindled flame, and intensifies the propensity to an irresistible degree. Nothing now satisfies short of complete intoxication, and, until the unhappy subject of the disease falls senseless and completely overcome, will he cease his efforts to gratify this most insatiable desire."
Dr. Alexander Peddie, of Edinburgh, who has given twenty years of study to this subject, remarked, in his testimony before a Committee of the House of Commons, that there seemed to be "a peculiar elective affinity for the action of alcohol on the nervous system after it had found its way through the circulation into the brain," by which the whole organism was disturbed, and the man rendered less able to resist morbid influences of any kind. He gave many striking instances of the growth and power of appetite, which had come under his professional notice, and of the ingenious devices and desperate resorts to which dypsomaniacs were driven in their efforts to satisfy their inordinate cravings. No consideration, temporal or spiritual, had any power to restrain their appetite, if, by any means, fair or foul, they could obtain alcoholic stimulants. To get this, he said, the unhappy subject of this terrible thirst "will tell the most shameful lies—for no truth is ever found in connection with the habitual drunkard's state. He never yet saw truth in relation to drink got out of one who was a dypsomaniac—he has sufficient reason left to tell these untruths, and to understand his position, because people in that condition are seldom dead drunk; they are seldom in the condition of total stupidity; they have generally an eye open to their own affairs, and that which is the main business of their existence, namely, how to get drink. They will resort to the most ingenious, mean and degrading contrivances and practices to procure and conceal liquor, and this, too, while closely watched; and will succeed in deception, although fabulous quantities are daily swallowed."
Dr. John Nugent gives a case which came within his own knowledge, of a lady who had been