The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1881-03-31
{ ESTABLISHED In
I MARCH, 1S47.

and conditions, and we maintain the
reasonability Of the supposition that
chief among all the baneful causes are
the poisonings Of the race by the use
of alcoholic liquors and other nerve
and brain poisons. To what extent
we suffer, it is very difficult to deter
mine. The mortality is only one in
dication Of the extent Of the mischief
In this, as in other cases, the wounded
are more than the killed.
DR.. Brown, Of the Crichton Luna
tic Asylum, many years ago wrote as
follows, and some years subsequently
confirmed it in all respects: ''The
drunkard Injuries and enfeebles his
own nervous system and entails men,
tai disease upon his family. His daugh-
ters are nervous and hysterical, and
his sons are weak, wayward, eccentric,
and sink insane under the pressure of
some unforeseen exigency, or of the
ordinary calls of duty. The heritage
may be the result Of ruined and dis
eased constitution; but it is much
more likely to proceed from that long
continued nervous excitement in which
pleasure is sought in the alternate ex-
altation of sentiment and oblivion,
which exhausted and wore out the
mental powers, and ultimately pro-
duced imbecility and paralysis, both
attributable to disease of the substance
OF the BRAIN" The children may be
fair and promising for while, and
fail at puberty, or prove unable to en-
dure the strain Of business life. "There
is before u.s." DR.. Brown continues,
"a long, melancholy list of individuals
who have applied for advice, who have
felt their incompetency for the duties
OF Life; whose unftness depended up
on shyness, irresolution, awkwardness,
or eccentricity; Of unstable temper, of
excitable fancy, Of dull and torpid in
tellect, of violent passions, obscene
appetites, which they resisted, but
failed to conquer; whose infrmities
could with more or less distinctness
be referred to hereditary predisposi-
tion, taking its origin in long-contin-
ued indulgence, and who themselves
regarded this as the cause of their
misfortune and failure. ...... May
not the unquestionable increase of in
sanity and imbecility during the pres
ent century be partly traced to the
bacchanalianism, the jovial habits, of
the good old times and customs from
which we have emerged or are emerg-
ing?"
Thirty years later, thirty years more
OF time since the above was written.
have given us chance to see new
and improved generation, who show
out some Of the results of a better
state Of things, and we should train
our eyes to see these things; not only
to observe the signs of drink upon the
persons of the intemperate, the blear-
ed eye, the carbuncled nose, and the
purpled face-these coarse characters
written upon the faces of the intem-
perate; but we should go much fur
ther than this. We should train our
selves to see the results of right living
and pure ancestry in the noble form,
,he manly, self-possessed bearing, the
irm, elastic tread, the clear complex
on, the beaming eye, the keen intel
ect, the generous sentiments, the be-
1evolent heart. Too often when we
zee these characteristics we call them
;he results of chance. We say that
nature has favored these people; but
We ought to say that these gifts are
handed down by rightful heirship the
egacy of pure and noble ancestry.
[f our young fathers and mothers
Knew these facts, do you not suppose
t would make vast difference with
heir tampering with terrible nerve
ooisons? If our young men knew
hat they owed many Of their personal
and mental graces to the Temperance
which many years ago
swept through this country and puri-
led the habits of their parents, we
,hink it would bring some abatement
If the freedom with which they tip
5he social glass. Their present indul-
yence in nerve poisons will inevitably
iebase their physical and mental su-
and hand down their names
l by-word and reproach to their
children, for the coming generation is
pound to understand these things bet
;er than the past, and who knows the
disclosures which yet await our inves-
legations. JULIA CoLMAN.