A Sydenham Essay.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 8 September 1910, Page 4

A Sydenham Essay.

THE EVILS OF DIPSOMANIA

In a recent issue of the Sydenham Observer (Ghuustcliurch) the following remarkable essay appears:— Society has 110 use for the invalid —dhronic or otherwise. . If your lungs are affected by tubercle, if asthma lias touched your wind, rheumatism knotted your joints and perpetual catarrh makes you a public nuisance, society with 1 the faintest show of sympathy gently suggests that you should stand as-, ule and make room ior a soundei man. But of all the weaknesses of which humanity is legatee none exerts less sympathy or toleration than alsoiholism. Tint man wild bias acquired the drink habit by reason of self indulgence, association, tlwwghtlessness, weakness, conviviality, ha'bit or heredity is the object of contumely and contempt. The craving for drink, or the accidental lapse into inabriation, is regarded as a more symbol, the outward ox press-ion of moral cowardice, of personal depravity, the mark of the beast who is at once the despair of his family, a traitoi t) bis friends and a warning and an admonition of all mankind. Let a man take to drink in a more 01 less iialbitual or periodical sequence so that luis friends remark

"ON THi: SPREE AG AW a.nd his business or employment is in jeopardy—if he has not actually "got tlie sack"—that man becomes a social pariah save in the dubious surroundings amid which lie Iras wallowed in a kind of moral obliteration. Yet one mishit venture to assort as a counsel of humanity. and in a spirit of the most elevated altruism, that no victim ol life's misfortunes is more in need of pity, compassion, patience and encouragement than tilie man 01 Woman who has become the prey of alcohol.

The prevalence of thus disease, for it is nothing else, is almost universal. It touches every family in some direct or indirect _ manner; not a workshop hint has its stocking example; not an office hardly where the failing is not acknowledged and deplored. By one of those curious contradictions of fate the sufferer is usually a bright, smart fellow, who, wilren reason sits firmly on his thirone, before most of his fellows in manual dexterity oi intellectual ability. How often do you hear it said. "What a pity So and So is going down the hill—sww-h a clever, brainy fellow, too?"

THE DULL MAX DOES NOT TAKE TO DRINK,

or lie has not brain to be seriously ih'anmed by its effects. An active keen mind quickly responds to tin stimulus of alcohol, and unfortun ately presents the finest oppartun itv for fastening there its fata toils.

Although every doctor has cases of dipsomania and chronic alcoiholism amongst his patients, the medical profession as a whole has not devoted that attention to the treatment and cure of habitual inoxieatiou that the gravity and seriousness of the disease demand. The drink mania has been dealt with b> Ivriain .specialists, and a few scientists have given the subject exhaustive study, with results that fill considerable space in medical literature. _ But the profession as a body is disposed to content itsell with simply overcoming, by means of drugs, dieting and nursing, the temporary effects of a carouse. No attempt is made to get at tili'e germ of the disease and, by its eradication, effect some sort of permanent cure.

There may not ho A .MICROBE OF ALCOHOi,; it may be a form of insantiy, or a ■physical craving that can be counteracted by supplying some deficiency in the bodily of intellectual associations of the patient. The family doctor called in to treat a person "suffering a recovery" pulls the patient through his agony, which is usually affected in a few days, and then gives him a good talking to, telling him tliiat he must exercise, bis will, m.ust be a man, he is ruining himself, "Give it up. my deai boy. or you will be a raving lunatic." The poor patient, nervous and depressed, in such a state of physical collapse and mental dejection that he would promise anything, vows that this will be the last time; "had a terrible lesson"; "feel nearly dead"; "curse the poison—why can't I leave it alone?" The poor fellow really means it. He has made up the little mind left him at the time that lie will be a teetotaller for the future; that ho will sign thef pledge and avoid public houses as he would the devil. Ibis resolution, born in debility and hysteria, lasts until physical and mental strength and tone return. he moiral shame of his recent lapse hangs about him longer than the recollection of the nausea and sickness he endured. It is remarkable lioav soon the mind of a healthy person digests the remembrance of pain. Rut he is still penitent on tine moral side. He reasons that he ?nay have made an awful expose of liimsott when he was <f ]iiaving a fly round." He must he care?ul. A glass of beer_ need not do a man any harm, but it may lead to whisky, and whisky is the avant courier or a trip to Sunnyside. Therefore be abstains. Rut the moral force exorcised by tlhe most punctilious conscience, if associated with an unconscious bias towards drink, in time becomes

WARPED AjNP WEAKENED. "Why can't I have a glass of ale, enjoy it and have done with it, the same as Smith and Brown They don t got drunk; thev neve'f lose a days ,vork through drink - why should T, ibecause T happen to take an occasional glass of beerp'' . , u 'l v sen-pent whispers this peniinous logic in the ear, and the (tenia 1 ot temptation seems to the impatient teetotaller for the time 'being like carrying caution andpruuence to a ridiculous extreme. At Inst the night cotnes When he falls almost as easy as did Eve under the s" otle tongue of the tempter. There tad been stock taking at the warehouse, or he had to worii back at .°.!] lce ; 10 really tired and consult/red a glass of beer, one only, could have no possible ill-effeot and would do him good. This is a man ■mark who has no craving for drink no cHaving in the sense of the confirmed toper who will sell his boots beei. _ The d<esi/ne for aleolhol is a natural instinct. Tl ie most sober of us h, a vo it, and Ratify the appetite, jiot only wnthioutt injury to J"' 1 " 1 ,, 01 ' b'ift with wholesome benef, Our friend, however, is winn 1• ? 9tl ° f wllic}l J'wWoious «nie drinkers are mack. He has a kink- or lesion in his brain w!hioh Responds actively to alcoholic influ-

No matter what he may do now no power on earth will stop him hil fnS lT ,? nftin s tnlte™" °" C Ws I- 6 ™ l "

THE GLASS QF ALE i taking W no apparent effect next day. He felttL SikVbLJT m^«nseto taiK about a man going to nerW;.'tion oiv lialf a pint? "I a,m^ibsoana can take a drink or lenw> ,*f Ilist ns well as anybody else." Ha S\v r »« ouel a, f! mU I ! ttt l alter Me seauei. (in the next day he frq<j n dhnk quite naturally. "llhiare is really nothing to fear," is his^Llv to a suggestive conscience. Tliev dfl?W S a Tl Se of one or two dWnks goes on, say, for i

It is a curious thing ahout dipsomania that the crisis which inevitably arrives is not accounted! for by the dirinks consumed on the day of collapse. It is a kind of a savings bank, a deferred bonus on time .payment system, a bill falling due -that must be mot —at any time. Our friend is geting into debt, and lie has not tha physical resources to pay the account. Each drink to him means an accumulation of alco- | hoi in his system, and it is not because he libs half a dozen wilitiskies to-day tfliait he is in bed to-morrow. He lias 50, 100 drinks to account for; it is the tipping day after day that has at last got him down. You ask—How was it he did not pull himself tup when he feit himself going? The moat insidious ifeatuiiie of alcoholism is the irresponsibility it creates. The destined victim, who has ibraved the consequences and consumed three or four : drinks, becomes a creature utterly careless of to-morrow. No use telling him to go lie won't go until he feels himself staggering. No use to warn him that he will not be able to tnni up to work the next day. "What odds? They can only givo me the sack, and' l am sick of everything." _ He finally sneaks home himself, or is sent home iiv a cab on this final nigshit of a •debawh that has extended, oyer several . The next morning ho is "dead to the world," his pulse has nearly ceased to act, the doctor may have to inject strychnine to keep him from collapse, lias liver and kidneys cannot perform theii .functions, he can take no food, his nausea and l weakness are painful to witness, lie is rescued from delirium only by doses of chloral and bromide. God help the rvor creature. He is dead to the world.

Strange to say, in a few days he is nearly all right again; nervous and wan, perhaps; iic looks as if he had gone throupjh an illness; but baa lvead is clear, and in a week, il the patience of his employers is not exhausted or he can get another

job, he can go back to work. This is no fancy picture. Tt is typical of liundreels of alcoholic oases that ar<3 distinct fnom the chronic drun (card, for whom there is 110 cure but the inebriate retreat. Unit this man ought to be cured. He wants to rid l himself of t/he curse that is dragging him down. Medical science gives him 110 hope—only the Said injunction that lie must use

Ill's will power. As well tell the viheumatic to he firm and not give •way to pain : tell the dvapeptie not to succumb to his weakness; urge tibe neurasthenic to take a tighlt grip of his nerves. Something

more than moral suasion must rescue" the dipsomaniac from his fetters. ami it is a reproach to medical skill that there is no safe and certain cure.