Morning journal and courier., 1880-06-07
gonrnaI altO Courier.
Monday Morning, June :. 1880.
what Cinchona Rubra Did

What Cineh0na Rubra Did. A Victim of Drunl<enness-A Graphic Narrative ofthe Tortures Of Dipsoma-
 mia.
 From the San Francisco BuIettn-l The following IS true story. The author is known to many readers of the Bulletin. As narrative of personal experience it is almost as graphic as De Quincey's Comics sions of an Opium Eater: Editor of the Bulletin
 My experience of the effect of Cinchona Rubra seems likely to prove of benefit to oth- CTS, and have therefore, and for that reason alone, requested friend to submit this true recital to you for publication. Such comics sions can only be made reluctantly, and ought to be taken as the outgrowth of wish to help other sufferers to the attainment of a new peace health and sanity.
 A year ago seemed hopeless wreck l had lost business and social position, was without employment and was drinking hard, My own misery and the wretchedness of those at home was beyond expression, and
 beyond belief by any who have not closely watched the work of alcohol. Every friend
 was justly alienated, and I and mine were eating the bread of charity at the hands of those who pitied the wife whom had sworn to protect. I cannot describe how bitter a
 slave was to this bad appetite, nor the mean
 devicesI would adopt to satisfy it. One epileptiform attack succeeded another, my mind was going, my nerves were shattered
 and the great mystery of my disgrace was of delirium tremens or even sunk into a drunkards grave
 By the blessed sorcery of Peruvian twig, this unspeakable curse which had hung upon me for thirty years, is at last removed. Re moved, not through any change of heart, or L11I1 agony, not because of the awful shrinking from me of my little ones, not by the just damnation of public scorn, not by the sacred sorrows and wrestling applications of my noble wife. For would to-day be as power less as ever in the grip of this fierce thirst if my physical nature were not changed and re- Fnovated. On the 2Oth day of May last began the first four days) of a teaspoonfuI every three hours. During the three intervening nights gradually ceased to dream that was drunk-a horror which had for year made me shring from bedtime, and which rivaled De Quincey's eloquent opium dream of s'crocodiles and all slimy things confounded in Nilotic mud" My appetite for food re- vived slowly, but seemed to require more than anything else hot bowls of beef tea from Liebig's Extract, and plentiful slices of but tered toast.
 The fourth night dreamed again, but the meanance of foul monsters yielded to boyish thoughts of icy brooks laughing through al der copses, and leaping trout, and the drum of the ruffed grouse.
 On the fifth day, dimly hoping that my re- demption was beginning, I dared to face the $500 grogshops of the city. The roar and rush and crowd of the streets pierced me like lancet; but with my shiver of unrest came no accustomed thirst, and when a throb of positive hunger came to me I went into Dar-rOOm for 1nnch faa1Incy cafe Tbnra stood facing me the naked blandishments of all choice vintages and Installations and brews, and white-aproned master of the mysterious formule of all mixed drinks. But their in vocation seemed merely like the murmur of 8 Memnon, about whom I felt neither knowI- edge nor curiosity, neither terror nor rever- ence, neither longing nor dislike
 Dazed by this novel insensibility to temp tation, I went home, but do not care to en- large upon the surprise and joy of the wei come which awaited me. had terribly un- dercalculated a nervousness which ought to have kept me in the house day or two longer; but quiet came toward nightfall and the assurance that was less possessed of the devir' gave peaceful sleep again.
 That day was the crisis. From then un- til now it has been as impossible for me to drink as though whiskey were molten iron. feel neither horror nor disapproval of the long list of intoxicants. I simply can not touch them.
 Were I to phrase this fact of absolute in- difference myriad ways, they would do poor justice to it's value, however much its iteration might tire you. For it is this which proves to my entire conviction that my drunk enness was disease, and that I am cured because it is a curable disease.
 If, in other words there had occurred dur ing the last eleven months one mon fentary impulse toward relapse, I might well join the experienced Cough in pronouncing even such reformation as my own a delusion and a sham, bubble to be pricked by some pro Vocat1ve at some devils opportunity or oth- CT. Agreeing that no man is safe so long as his nature is characterized by this ''dipsoma- ma, or thlrst-madness, am proof enough that at any rate in certain cases the appe- tite may be killed while the individual is kept alive, Such an one is saved because he has no will left to himself in the matter he is sobered and restored, so to speak, in spite of himself.
 I bought one 8-ounce vial of the extract after another, at Burnett's drugstore, and presume that the preparations of any other respectable druggists are equally efficient.
 Beginning with teaspoonful every three hours, have gradually reduced my doses to present quantity of quarter-teaspoonfu twice or three times 8 week. Besides its safeguard against any return of the old curse, this eonquerer from the quinine tree is a su- perb tonic; and I would have died outright from exhaustion and overwork during the ill- paid months which next succeeded my recov- cry, but for it's strengthening aid
 speak of all this not in a spirit of prolix egotism, but because some seemingly slight symptoms or fact may possess actual and special importance to some one else How profound and merited was my fall some of the friends who now cluster around me know to the full ; and they share the joy of my hap py wife and innocent children in my present success. Stripped of the dead drag of this poison of mind and body and soul, every faculty seems equipped with vigor; and to perfect my comfort it only remains that He who has saved me may so save another through my agency.
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