Among other consequences of an alcoholic inheritance which have been traced by careful observers are: Morbid changes in the nerve centers, consisting of inflammatory lesions, which vary according to the age in which they occur; alcoholic insanity; congenital malformations; and a much higher infant death rate, owing to lack of vitality, than among the children of normal parents.
Where the alcoholic inheritance does not manifest itself in some definite disease or disorder, it can still be traced in the limitations to be found in the drinking man’s descendants. They seem to reach a level from which they cannot ascend, and where from slight causes they deteriorate. The parents, by alcoholic poisoning, have lowered the race stock of vitality beyond the power of ascent or possibility to rise above or overcome the downward tendency.
Of course these effects of alcoholics differ widely according to the degree of intoxication. Yet, we must not forget that the real nature of inebriety is always the same. The end differs from the beginning only in degree. He who would avoid a life of sorrow, disgrace, and shame must carefully shun the very first glass of intoxicants.
299. Opium. Opium is a gum-like substance, the dried juice of the unripe capsule of the poppy. The head of the plant is slit with fine incisions, and the exuding white juice is collected. When it thickens and is moulded in mass, it becomes dark with exposure. Morphine, a white powder, is a very condensed form of opiate; laudanum, an alcoholic solution of marked strength; and paregoric, a diluted and flavored form of alcoholic tincture.
300. Poisonous Effects of Opium. Some persons are drawn into the use of opium, solely for its narcotic and intoxicating influence. Every early consent to its use involves a lurking pledge to repeat the poison, till soon strong cords of the intoxicant appetite bind the now yielding victim.
Opium thus used lays its benumbing hand upon the brain, the mind is befogged, thought and reasoning are impossible. The secretions of the stomach are suspended, digestion is notably impaired, and the gastric nerves are so deadened that the body is rendered unconscious of its needs.
The moral sense is extinguished, persons once honest resort to fraud and theft, if need be, to obtain the drug, till at last health, character, and life itself all become a pitiful wreck.
301. The Use of Opium in Patent Medicines. Some forms of this drug are found in nearly all the various patent medicines so freely sold as a cure-all for every mortal disease. Opiates are an ingredient in different forms and proportions in almost all the soothing-syrups, cough medicines, cholera mixtures, pain cures, and consumption remedies, so widely and unwisely used. Many deaths occur from the use of these opiates, which at first seem indeed to bring relief, but really only smother the prominent symptoms, while the disease goes on unchecked, and at last proves fatal.
These patent medicines may appear to help one person and be fraught with danger to the next, so widely different are the effects of opiates upon different ages and temperaments. But it is upon children that these fatal results oftenest fall. Beyond doubt, thousands of children have been soothed and soothed out of existence.[[43]]
302. The Victim of the Opium Habit. Occasionally persons convalescing from serious sickness where anodynes were taken, unwisely cling to them long after recovery. Other persons, jaded with business or with worry, and unable to sleep, unwisely resort to some narcotic mixture to procure rest. In these and other similar cases, the use of opiates is always most pernicious. The amount must be steadily increased to obtain the elusive repose, and at best the phantom too often escapes.