The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1883-08-04
An Averted Evil.

An Averted Evil.
There are psychologists who do net
hesitate to assert that the European
races are deteriorating as their civil
ization is crystallizing, and that the
deterioration is not seen altogether
in the royal families where insanity
prevails, and where inter-marriage
has been the rule, but in the middle
classes and the aristocracy as well,
and it is to be ascribed, as much as
to anything else, to the constant ex-
element, more or less, Of the brain.
through the daily use Of strong beers
and wines and spirits by the
mothers of the race there. Few for
eign ladies, it is said, think of such a
thing as refusing wine at table, and
it is = common draught for refresh
ment elsewhere. Beer in the North
ern countries is a. frequent drink
as water, the brandy flash in a rail-
way coach is a u sual sight, and the
rubicund face and hard flesh of the
women past forty tell their story of
the stimulent that produced them.
In the southern countries, and more
particularly in France, where it has
been the habit to think that light
fostered sobriety, the after-dinner
face is not that Of the heavy intoxica-
ton of the North, but the flush of
gentle exhileration that plays upon
the nerves pleasurably, and repeated
every day produces its effect upon
the brain at last in some form, as the
premature and unfortunate death
of one brilliant youth after an
other from diseases connected
with the brain would attet,
were there no other evidence. Of
course it Is reasoned that anything
which arOuses the nerves too keenly
and too frequently wears upon them,
weakens them, and ruins them. and
an eminent Italian physician is said
to have announced his belief that
coffee itself. which we usually con-
slider so inocuous, has contributed
strikingly to the destruction of our
constitutions, producing debility,
convulsions, palsy, vertigo and many
ether disorders" as if those were not
enough.
We may congratulate ourselves
that in this country, whatever may
be the exceptions, it has nowhere
been the rule for women to take al
coholic drink either at the
table or between meals, except under
a physicians prescription and over
sight, and then but gingerly. Those
ladies who have the opportunity to
take wine at dinner are, in comparl-
son to the whole female population
among US, a mere handful, and of
these many decline the opportu aity,
and cur public opinion has always
been of such a decided nature that
few who do avail themselves of it
feel quite comfortable in taking more
than a single glass, as if that act put
them under suspicion, or was a con-
cession to the destruction of others.
1t is to this fortunate habit Of
American women in general that the
coming American race, Is to owe its
supremacy, the children to be born
of mothers who have not impaired
tile action of their brains by soaking
them in alcohol, or increased
the action of their nerves,
already stimulated by keen at
mosphere and exciting lie, by
the exhilaration Of claret or cham
pagne. How deadly the effect of op-
posite habits on their part might be,
can be seen by the report made to
one of our legislatures by a learned
physician who had Investigated the
subject of distraught nerves in gen
eral, and idiocy in particular. 1.-The
habits of the parents of three hun
dred of the idiots were learned" lie
saws, land one hundred and forty
five, or nearly one half, are reported
to be known as habitual drunkards.
Such parents, it is affirmed, give a
weak and lax constitution to their
children, who are consequently de-
ticient in b1dily and vital energy,
and predisposed by their very organi-
zation to have cravings for alcoholic
stimulants. Many of these children
are feetle, and live irregu
larly. Having a l0eOer vitdlity
Mey feel the aUant of some stimutdnt-
If they pursue the course of their
fathers, which they have more temp
tation to follow and less power to
avoid than the children of the tenn
perate, they add to their hereditary
weakness, and increase the tendency
to idiocy in their constitution, and
this they leave to their children after
them. Seven idiotic children were
born in one family of parents who
were drunkards."
If 50 terrible a demonstration as
this is made on the account of posi-
tive drunkenness, and that in the
case of both parents, it may be a
problem requiring delicate calcula-
| ton to determine the amount of the
actual injury dene to children by the
use, on the part of mothers
alone, of stimulants to. a rOint
that cannot be called drunken
ness, If it can be called so much as
exhiIaration or excitement: but that
it is injury. and injury Of greater or
less important degree, cannot be
doubted under such evidence and its
logical deductions; and we have rea-
son to congratulate ourselves as
people it is an injury that is afflicted
with comparatively inappreciable
force upon the children of such race
as ours, already composed of such
various strains and histories that its
nervous susceptibilitjes may be sup
posed to be wrought to AS high a
pitch as is compatible with its physi-
cal endurance to sustain. And in
that view we are glad and proud OF
the fact that to the great body OF
American mothers alcoholic stimu-
lants present no attraction or
temptation; that they regard
them generally with distrust
and sometimes with adherence;
that they will not quiet their crying
babies with gin, and make them little
drunkards in the cradle; that they
dislike to kindle any dormant seed OF
evil tbst may be inherited by the
tiny brains, they know not how, by
themselves drinking beer to enrich
the natural food of the weanlings;
and that, on the average, their great
est concession to the thing is in the
occasional favoring of a pudding
sauce; that on the whole they are,