Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-23

cial bouquets used to favor wine are far
more poisonous than pure ethylio aloo-
mol. The so-called Essential oil of
wine, - of which there are French and
German preparation, the latter being
most toxic, Is made by the action of nitric
acid on oil of cocoa, castor oil, butter or
other fatty matters. A small amount is
sufficient to give bouquet to large guam
THY of wine, and q little Of it injected into
the veins of dog will kill it in an hour.
Commercial alcohol also contains several
agents which are toxic in q high degree,
producing true epileptic attacks. The
essential bouquets of various liqueurs
also have q convulsivant action, similar
to absinthe and vermouth. Another
dangerous substance is the essence de
noyau, or almond essence, from benzoio
acid, so volatile that alarming symp-
toms were experienced by LabOrde and
his assistants in the laboratory, from its
unavoidable inhalation in their expert
ments, vertigo, faintness, profuse per-
spiration, palpitation and trem bling
resulting. Experiments were made upon
dogs by giving them alcohol made from
wine, from corn and from beets. The
intoxicating effects were slight with
alcohol of wine, more with corn alcohol,
and most with beet alcohol The trans
latOr of an article from the Spanish
states that 'good mature cognao twenty
years in cSsk, has really about three
times as much of the reputed madden
ing agents, and quite as much fusil oil
rs that ordinary potato spirit, which,
coIored and favored, is sold
for genuine French brandy. Good silent
spirit in the form of rectifed spirit of
wine, containing 81 per cent. of alcohol,
olT nnaf oh Int wit a
necessary cOloring and fiavOring with
oenanthic ether, makes about three times
the bulk of brandy, or with little tur-
pentine and old oil of lemon, four times
as much gin, and as far as purity is con-
cerned is UNNECESSARILY better than the
best eau-de-vie that Bordeaux ever sends
to US. So that we have the anomaly that
the Fictitious article is really better and
purer than the genuine at one-fourth its
cost. In articles written by six physi-
oians here and in England, great stress
is laid on the theory of inebriety being
the cause of a diseased nervous system,
rather than a vicious habit, and the asy-
Ium treatment is deemed Indispensable.
Remarkable claims are made as to the
durability of such cases under asylum
treatment. DR.. Forel, who has become
an earnest advocate of the total absti-
u6uCG ulOf6lHoubt IdiliuS 10 Tue
patient to join a temperance society or
sign a pledge, has resort to hypnotic
suggestion, to bring about the desired re-
suit, and believes that in hypnotism we
have a valuable aid In treatment Of
drink. In morphinism, the cure by i'm
mediate cessation of the habit Is con-
sIdered dangerous to life. The most
dangerous symptom on suddenly break
ing off morphia is collapse, in which the
patients life is actually in danger.
This can only be controlled by prompt
hypodermic injections of the drug in
quantities of three-t enths of a grain,
to be repeated two or three
times If the symptoms Of low
cred pulse and breathing, palIor
and faintness do not improve. BY the
rapid method the morphine is not dis
continued abruptly, but reduced as rap
idly as possible, consistent with safety TO
life, six to twelve days being occupied in
a gradual withdrawal of the drug. The
most distressing symptoms last but q
few days, while gradual weaving pro-
longs them for weeks.
To think of the fight which good doc
tors wage against the physical forces
of evil in their protean forms, their
searchings between soul and body, their
bold attacks upon the power of death
and the worse appetites and habits of
men, is to gloTify the profession and the
intellect OF man which work such results.