The candid reader must admit that Mr. Parton has not, so far, made out a very overwhelming case in support of his opinion that alcohol always injures the brain. A personal experience, a "spurt of extravagance," a "physical impossibility," and a "certainty," are, on the whole, not very rocky foundations upon which to build a scientific conclusion. But this is all Mr. Parton has to offer.
In attempting to describe the influence of alcohol upon the brain and nervous system, it will be well for us to keep steadily in mind the fundamental difference between stimulant and narcotic doses, which was described at some length in our chapter on Tobacco. It is hardly necessary to state that Mr. Parton neither recognizes, nor appears dimly to suspect, the existence of any such distinction. His is one of those minds in which there are no half-way stations. With him, to rise above zero is inevitably to fly to the boiling-water point. But without keeping in mind this all-important distinction, any inquiry into the physiological effects of alcohol must end in confusion and paradox. Remembering this, let us examine first the narcotic, and then the stimulant effects of alcohol upon the nervous system.
The narcotic effects of alcohol upon the entire human organism are so bad that even the teetotaler does not need to exaggerate them. The stomach is not only damaged, and the cerebrum ruined, but a slow molecular change takes place throughout the nervous system, which ends by destroying the power of self-control and utterly demoralizing the character. Far be it from us, therefore, to palliate the consequences which sooner or later are sure to follow the wretched habit of drinking narcotic quantities of alcohol; or to look without genuine sympathy upon the philanthropic, though usually misguided attempts which radical aquarians are continually making to diminish the evil. Their feelings are often as right as their science is wrong. But because we believe that for a book to be of any value whatever, it must be true, and that false science can never, in the long run, be of practical benefit, we are not therefore to be set down as lukewarm in our abhorrence of alcoholic intemperance. Those who keep their hearts in subjection to their heads are often supposed to have no hearts at all. Those who do not forthwith get angry and utter "spurts of extravagance" whenever any social evil is mentioned, are often thought to be in secret sympathy with it. But how could we, by writing reams of fervid declamation, more forcibly express our disapproval of drunkenness than by recording the cold scientific statement that the first narcotic symptom produced by alcohol is a symptom of incipient paralysis?
We allude to the flushing of the face, which is caused by paralysis of the cervical branch of the sympathetic. This symptom usually occurs some time before the conspicuous manifestation of the ordinary signs of intoxication, which result from paralysis of the cerebrum. Of these signs the most prominent is the weakening of the ordinary power of self-control. The ruling faculty of judgment is suspended, volition becomes less steady, and imagination, no longer guided by the higher faculties, runs riot in such a way as to appear to be stimulated. But it is not stimulated; it is simply let loose. There is no stimulation in drunkenness; there is only disorganization. One acquired or organic power of the mind no longer holds the others in check. Hence the uncalled-for friendliness, the fitful anger, the extravagant or misplaced generosity, the ludicrous dignity, the disgusting amorousness, or the garrulous vanity, of the drunken man. Wine is said to exhibit a man as he really is, with the conventionalities of society laid aside. This is only half true, but it suggests the true statement. Wine exhibits a man as he is when the organized effects of ancestral and contemporary civilization upon his character are temporarily obliterated. We need no better illustration of the truth that drunkenness is not stimulation but paralysis of the cerebrum, than the order in which, under the influence of alcohol, the powers of the mind become progressively suspended. As a general rule those are first suspended which are the most recent products of civilization, and which have consequently been developed by inheritance through the least number of generations. These are of course the mind's highest organic acquisitions. The sense of responsibility, for instance, is a product of a highly complicated state of civilization, and, when fully developed, is perhaps chief among the moral acquirements which distinguish the civilized man from the savage. In progressing intoxication, the feeling of responsibility is the first to be put in abeyance. A man need be but slightly tipsy in order to become quite careless as to the consequences of his actions.[3] On the other hand, those qualities of the mind are the last to be overcome, which are the earliest inheritance of savagery, and which the civilized man possesses in common with savages and beasts. Then the animal nature of the man, no longer restrained by his higher faculties, manifests itself with a violence which causes it to seem abnormally stimulated in vigour. And in the stage immediately preceding stupor, it sometimes happens that the pupils are contracted,[4] and the whites of the eyes enlarged, giving to the face a horrible brute-like expression.
One apparent exception to this generalization needs only to be explained in order to confirm the rule. Memory, which usually figures as a high intellectual faculty, is often, even in deep drunkenness, capable of performing marvellous feats. While in college we once heard a tipsy fellow-student repeat verbatim the whole of that satire of Horace which begins "Unde et quo, Catius?"—which he had read over the same day before going to recitation, but which, as we felt sure, he could never designedly have committed to memory. It appeared, however, that, in the literal though not in the idiomatic sense of the phrase, he had "committed it to memory" to some purpose, for as we, struck with amazement, took down our Horace and followed him, we found that he made not the slightest verbal error. This performance on his part was almost immediately followed by heavy comatose slumber. On afterward questioning him, it appeared that he remembered nothing either of the Satire or of his remarkable feat. Several analogous cases are cited by Dr. Anstie.[5]
This certainly looks like stimulation, but on comparing it with other instances of abnormal reminiscence differently caused, we shall find reason for believing that it is nothing of the kind. There is no doubt that insanity may in the most general way be described as a species of cerebral paralysis, yet in many kinds of insanity there is an abnormal quickening of memory. Likewise in idiocy, which differs from insanity as being due to arrested development rather than to degradation of the cerebrum, the same phænomenon is sometimes witnessed. We remember seeing a child who, though generally considered quite "foolish," could, as we were assured, accurately repeat large portions of each Sunday's sermon. Dr. Anstie mentions a boy, absolutely idiotic, who nevertheless "had a perfect memory for the history of all the farm animals in the neighbourhood, and could tell with unerring precision that this was So-and-so's sheep or pig among any number of other animals of the same kind." Similar phænomena have been observed in epileptic delirium, and in the delirium of fevers. Every one has heard Coleridge's story of the sick servant-girl who repeated passages from Latin, Greek and Hebrew authors which she had years before heard recited by a clergyman in whose house she worked. A gentleman in India, after a sunstroke, utterly lost his command of the Hindustani language, recovering it only during the recurrent paroxysms of epileptic delirium to which he was afterward subject. Equally interesting is the case of the Countess de Laval, who in the ravings of puerperal delirium was heard by her Breton nurse talking baby-talk to herself in the Breton language,—a language which she had known in early infancy, but had since so entirely forgotten as not to distinguish it from gibberish when spoken before her.[6] A similar exaltation of memory not unfrequently precedes the coma produced by chloroform; and it has been known to occur in cases of acute poisoning by opium and haschisch. Finally it may be observed that drowning men are said to recall, as in a panoramic vision, all the events of their lives, even the most trivial.
We may conclude therefore that the extraordinary memory sometimes observed in drunken persons, however obscure the interpretation of it may at present be, is at all events a symptom, not of mental exaltation, but of mental disorganization consequent upon cerebral disease. We may search in vain among the phænomena of intoxication for any genuine evidences of that heightened mental activity which is said to be followed by a depressive recoil. There is no recoil; there is no stimulation; there is nothing but paralytic disorder from the moment that narcosis begins. From the outset the whole nervous system is lowered in tone, the even course of its nutrition disturbed, and the rhythmic discharge of its functions interfered with.
Another remarkable effect of alcoholic narcotism—the most hopelessly demoralizing of all—yet remains to be treated. We refer to the perpetual craving of the drinker for the repetition, and usually for the increase, of his dose. It is a familiar fact that the drunkard is urged to the gratification of his appetite by such an irresistible physical craving that his power of self-control becomes after a while completely destroyed. And it is often observed that those who begin drinking moderately go on, as if by a kind of fatality, drinking oftener and drinking larger quantities, until they have become confirmed inebriates. But in the current interpretation of these facts there is, as might be expected, a great deal of confusion. On the one hand, the teetotalers declare that the use of alcohol in any amount creates a physical craving and necessitates a progressive increase of the dose. On the other hand, the common sense of mankind, perceiving that nine persons out of ten are all their lives in the habit of using alcoholic drinks, while hardly one person out of ten ever becomes a drunkard,[7] declares that this physical craving is not produced save in peculiarly organized constitutions. We believe that neither of these opinions is correct. In all probability, the demand for an increased narcotic effect is due to a gradual alteration in the molecular structure of the nervous system caused by frequently repeated narcosis; and if narcosis be invariably avoided, in systems which are free from its inherited structural effects, the craving is never awakened. This point is so interesting and important as to call for some further elucidation.
Frequent intoxication with alcohol, opium, coca, or haschisch, brings about a structural degeneration of the nerve-material; the consequences of which are to be seen in delirium, softening of the brain, and other forms of general paralysis. "By degrees the nervous centres, especially those on which the particular narcotic used has the most powerful influence, become degraded in structure." A permanent pathological state is thus induced, in which the production of a given narcotic effect is not so easy as in the healthy organism. "A certain quantity of nervous tissue has in fact ceased to fill the rôle of nervous tissue, and there is less of impressible matter upon which the narcotic may operate, and hence it is that the confirmed drunkard, opium-eater, or coquero, requires more and more of his accustomed narcotic to produce the intoxication which he delights in. It is necessary now to saturate his blood to a high degree with the poison, and thus to insure an extensive contact of it with the nervous matter, if he is to enjoy once more the transition from the realities of life to the dreamland, or the pleasant vacuity of mind, which this or the other form of narcotism has hitherto afforded him."[8] It is easy to see how this structural degeneration may be produced. It takes a certain time for the nervous system to recover from the effects of each separate narcotic dose; and if a fresh dose is taken before recovery is completed, it is obvious that the diseased condition will by and by be rendered permanent. The entire process of nutrition will adapt itself gradually to this new state of things; and no efficiency of repair will afterward make the nervous system what it was before. It is in this way that the narcotic craving for continually increased doses is originated and kept alive.
In the case of the milder narcotics—tea, coffee and tobacco—this craving, though the symptom of a depraved state of the organism, does not directly demoralize the character. But the moral injury wrought by alcohol, opium and haschisch is known to every one, and the effects of coca-drunkenness are said to be no less frightful. This is because the milder narcotics affect chiefly the medulla, the spinal cord and the sympathetic, while the fiercer ones chiefly affect the cerebrum. Tobacco may paralyze the brain sufficiently to cause nocturnal wakefulness; but it cannot impair one's self-control or one's sense of responsibility. It never transforms a man into a selfish brute, who will beat his wife, neglect his business, and allow his children to starve. Here then we arrive at a supremely interesting distinction. The craving for tobacco is principally a craving of those inferior nerve-centres which exert comparatively little direct influence upon the mental and moral life. But the craving for alcohol is a cerebral craving. The habitual indulgence of it involves a continual suppression of those loftier guiding qualities which, as we have seen, are the later effects of civilization upon the individual character; while the attributes of savagery, the lower sensual passions—our common inheritance from pre-social times—are allowed full play in supplying material for the imagination and in shaping the purposes of life. Mr. Parton's remark, therefore, which is absurd as applied to tobacco, is a profound physiological verity as applied to the narcotic action of alcohol,—it tends to make us think and act like barbarians, for it allies us psychologically with barbarians.