Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-10-31
PAINFUL MISTAKES.
Sick People Sometimes Thought to b
Drunkarda.

sick People Sometimes Thought 70 BE-
| Drunkards.
Cases are, unfortunately, only too
frequent where serious illness has been
mistaken for intoxication, and where
the sufferer has been taken to the sta.
ton house instead of to the hospital
q mistake that has resulted more than
once in loss of life. In fact, there are
cases where all the skill of trained
| physician is required to tell whether a
man is or is not under the influence OF
liquor. In an article bearing the above
heading The Hospital discusses this
subject as follows:
! Roughly, we may say that the COM
monty accepted signs by which the
man In the staeet recognizes the eff
fects OF alcohol are unsteady gait, in
coherent speech, extravaganza behavior
and drowsy helplessness. Doubtless
any one OF these coming on suddenly
in one who, up to the moment, had
been as other men, would excite sus-
picion Of disease. But the spectators
do not see the beginning Of the case.
Till man is helpless or obstreperous
but little notice is taken of his vaga-
ries, and in ninety-nine cases out of
hundred the decision must be arrived
at from the actual condition visible to
the eye, and diagnosis is not always
easy on such imperfect evidence.
"The first and most obvious signs Of
drunkenness are those dependent on
unsteadiness of gait. From the street
boys point of view, these are always
productive of hilarity, and even the
better instructed are apt to look on in
ability to walk straight as conclusive;
| and yet how many maladies produce
the same condition. Many a man in
the early stages of locomotor ataxy
has lost his character from his ten
dency to stagger in the dark. Then
those conditions which go by the
name of Meniere's disease may closely
initiate the effects of drink. To
the sufferer, when the parox-
ysm comes on the sensation
is of violent noises in the
ear, accompanied by feeling of being
whirled through space, or as if the
road, the houses and everything in
sight were flying in large circles round
about him, and no wonder that he
seizes the nearest lamp post or sinks
down sick and helpless on the pave
ment, clutching for security anything
within his reach. To the bystander,
however, he is a picture of the most
abject drunkenness.
fhe writer here reminds us that
not only organic disease, but simple
indigestion or headache may produce
effects that simulate drunkenness. He
goes on.
people sometimes also unknowing-
ly take drugs which have the same ef-
feet. In both these cases speech also
may be affected, and explanation may
be difficult Disorder of speech, how
ever, is usually connected with more
serious disease, and man with q
small hemorrhage on his brain may
stagger in speech rs well as with his
legs, and may be run in as drunk
when his very life depends on proper
treatment. The same may happen
after injury of the skull. A man,
full of drink, may in a street
row receive a blow which causes
fracture of the skull, but he
may not drop. He may walk away
far from any evidence of riot, and
then sit down, and, becoming coma
tose, may be taken to the station as
being dead drunk. And here, if there
| be no obvious wound, everything is
against him. The smell of his breath
condemns him to the police cell instead
of the hospital ward, and only at the
post-mortem is it found that his skull
is broken and that the pressure on his
brain might have been relieved. Such
cases as this occur almost every month.
But, in fact, in the diagnosis of drunk
enness the possibilities of error are
endless. Poison, uremia, post-epi-
leptic states, the excited stages
of general paralysis, sudden out
breaks of mania, the occurrence
of diabetic coma, the onset of
acute febrile disease, and even mere
exhaustion and fatigue may all pro-
duce symptoms Stimulating the effects
of drink. We can not, then, too
strongly emphasize the necessity of
medical examination whenever there
can be the slightest doubt whether
man is drunk or sober, nor can we too
strongly urge any medical Iaan who is
called to such a case to be wary in his
dealings with it, TO distrust first inn
pressions, to enter into all the symp-
toms, however plain the case may
seem, and to remember the endless pit
falls in the way of hasty diagnosis.
Literary Digest.
Billiards the Sport of Queens.