The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-07-14
LIQUOR AND INSANITY
Everyone Who Drinks Is Men
tally Diseased.
WHAT THE EXPERT SAID
One Drink Is Sufficient to Unbalance
the Mind-Other Evidences That
Larkin Was of Feeble
Intelligence.

La ioiu' SoHh', 10 teSufy in the Lar
KIN case, made the statement at the
hearing yesterday that every man who
uses alcoholic drinks is insane, and
mat after a man once takes drink
OF liquor he is no longer sound in mind.
The testimony showed that James Lar
KIN mad been a drinking man for Ga
years, and DR.. Crothers said the man
had been insane for that length of time.
He also declared that man who ex-
| hibited an unusual fondness for onions,
limburger cheese and other offensive
foods under mistaken notion as to
their value. as Larkin did, was not all
right mentally, and that man who
boosted about being "a bad man. was
necessarily feeble minded. In defining
his theory of the 'inebriety of insan-
ity" DR.. Crothers said:
Insanity is a general term used to
designate disease of the brain. and in
cludes a great variety of dsgeneJ alive
processes. 1nebriety Is one of these
degenerations, and is often pre-e minent
as an insanity, which 1t not only de-
velops, but often masks and conceals
Insanity is a full developed. organized
stage of dissolution. Inebriety is an
IL,
more obscure and complex Both are
interchangeable and alternating, and
both follow fixed lines of degenerativ
| march,"
The cross examnati ton of DR.. Croth-
ers was conducted by Attorney Harvey
The doctor said that the condition of
Larkin's brain, as found by the ply
! scians who made the autopsy showed
continual alcoholic poisoning. Alec
| hol he said absorbed the water of the
| human system and became corroding.
| The poison is the broken down cells
and blood tissues, which become CEN
tiers of accommodating poisons due to
general defective circulation. A gen
eral clogging up of the system follows
though the same conditions might re-
suit from syphilitic poisoning. The
body is provided with two sets of
blood vessels. One carries the pure
blood to the brain and the other carries
off the waste and fetid matter and pre-
serves the brain. Atheromatis is the
thickening of the walls of the blood
vessels mineral matter is deposited and
they become hard and brittle and con-
tracted, and when some pressure is
brought to bear there is liable to be a
break
And hemorrhage results?" asked Mr..
| Harvey.
Yes. SIR
ening?'
Yes. sir"
as there any means by which you or
your profession can say with any de-
| gree of accuracy how long the disease
| lasted?"
Yes; the fact that there was such
profound breaking up indicates that
| there were long continued causes"
What form of insanity did Larkin
| have at the time of his death?"
THAT would be called dementia."
What is dementia?
"A profound exhaustion. breaking
up of all the active parts. particularly
of the brain. The nervous system Is
What do you mean by profound ex-
| haustion|"
THE inability to receive outside i'm
pressions and inability to act upon
| them"
From the autopsy alone could you
| tell when Larkin became insane?"
| mo"
He might have suffered. for two
| years or more?"
Yes, sir
DIR. Crothers said his treatment of
insanity was limited to alcoholic insan-
! ity, and said that a doctor with one
| speciality in practice would be likely to
reason results from his point of view.
| in general way man who once took
an overdose of alcohol was never of
sound mind again, though certain cases
of alcoholism are restored.
You believe. then. that Larkin was
insane when he first began drinking
which was, according to the testimony,
about Ia years ago?"
Il think so; the facts indicate
that"
Incapable during most of the time
from attending to his business af-
| fairs?"
THAT was probably the fact"
DO you recognize any legitimate or
| helpful use of alcohol?"
Il don't know if there is any legiti-
mate use of it. but I refer to the ex-
| cessive use of alcohol"
| DO you ever recognize 1t as a
food?"
NO sir"
THAT is your opinion?"
"And the opinion of others who have
made study of the matter"
| DIR. Crothers was asked if he knew
Prof. w. o. Atwater who was recently
appointed by the Wesleyan university
| to make tests for the purpose of deter
mining the effects of alcohol on the
human system. The witness said he
| had personal acquaintance with Pro-
| fessor Atwater and was familiar with
his report on his experiments.
did he not report that two ounces
of alcohol a day was food to healthy
MANI"
yes, he said two ounces of alcohol
would be absorbed by the system with
out any apparent i'll effect"
IT suppose there was some kickin2
because the amount stated was got
three ounces" said one of the attor
| neys.
only from one man, I believe" re-
| piled the witness. ut came from the
man upon whom the experiments were
being made and who was kept in g
glass case"
DIR. Crothers said some of the fact
stated in the hypothetical questions pu
TO him indicated delusonal insanity il
Larkin. His delusions were manifested
in his belief that he had a silver plate
in his head his mistaken notion as t
the value of certain foods especially
onions and limburger cheese
The doctor stated that a man who Il
| drunk every day is insane
After a man has been once drum
| there is a failure in his general ma Ike.