The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-26

w nat IS the influence. dSheu lue reporter,
 The doctor looked puzzled.
 'Ill not tell you," he said sternlY, then added, with 8 grin, "because I don't know. I've an idea there are 8 good many reasons involved. It isn't that men are better, for they are not They will play the devil with them selves up to a certain limit, but they pull back from the edge, l guess they have grown wiser, not better. The hor- TOTS of acute alcoholism are pretty well understood now The papers don t spare details, and the temperance and late. Right here. I'd like to say that I believe the earnest temperance work has much to do with the decrease in inebrity. Personally, I think most of the workers are extremists, but they are undoubtedly accomplishing good re- suits.
 "The medical aspects of alcoholism are commonly known, as they were not years ago, and the medical profession is giving more serious study to the dis ease. You sec in old days, alcoholism was only a vice. Today is is a vice, but it is disease also, and is recognized as such. Men who find that they're gone almost to the limit of their tether, don t wait for the climax nowadays They take treatment in time to escape col lapse. They go to a sanitarium, or to private phyrician or they pack off to the Hot Springs and have the poison boiled out of them. In all human prob ability they go hack to drinking again, but they've escaped a crisis, and can go on while longer with impunity. In the end the drink, if persevered in, kills them, but they probably die from some organic disease brought on by eX- cess, not from D T.
 Yes, believe intelligent medical treatment is the chief cause of a de- crease in acute alcoholism, though it doesn't decrease drinking. Yet, to certain extent, it does that, too. Some of the patients treated for the drink habit are altogether cured, and never go back to the vice. They must be counted in the decrease" too.
 Another physician who has had charge of an alcoholic ward, and has made an exhaustive study of alcohol ism, admitted that there are fewer cases of acute alcoholism in proportion to the population than there were fifty years ago.
 "But," he added, given a certain number of trunks today, and there will be bigger proportion of maniacal cases -delirium tremens-among them, than there would have been twenty five years ago. I don't know whether that is the result of bad whiskey or of the general nervous tension of modern life, and the increasingly nervous tenn perament of our American man. The old good natured drunk is growing scarcer every year, and the ugly, quar- relsome, homicidal drunk is increasing.
 What is delirium tremens, doctor?" inquired the reporter, humbly.
 You'll never know until you've had it." said the doctor. But I can tell you as much about it as anybody on the outside can. Delirium tremens is a nervous expression of alcoholic brain poisoning. Only few habitual drink CTS escape D T. The attack may be due to accumulation of poison through long-continued steady drinking, or it may follow the sudden accumulation of an excessive quantity of brain poison during a big debauch. The cases are exceedingly difficult to treat, and doc tors disagfee radically in regard to methods. Some physicians keep the pa tient under the effects of strong opiates for time On the other hand, man of wide experience in alcoholic treat +o11 y,o a,,o hare of tho of Medicine the other day that keeping a quiet D T ward meant fattening a graveyard. He believed the nervous mania had to work itself off. Mean- while it is customary to give bromide or chloral for quieting effect Some times morphine is necessary, but fight shy of it when possible.
 'If all stimulants are withdrawn there is imminent danger of heart fail ure and oedema of brain and lungs So many doctors, remove liquor gradually, medical stimulants that will increase heart action and support the system. One of the most important features of the treatment is the forcing of nourishment upon the patient, who usually resists vigorously. He must be made to take eggs and milk-and lot of both. Hot baths are excellent for the delirium, and cold packs are used a great deal too. The straightjacket was few years ago. It is rarely used now The patients wrists are fastened to the bed, and the rest of his body left free for squirming. He does squirm, I tell you. Every young man ought as part of his education to spend a few days and nights in 8 D T ward-not as patient, however.
 ''There are no Authorizations so hor- ribe as those that come from alcoholic poison. You know different kinds of poison produce different forms of de- mentia. There are certain poisons that seem to fill even the purest minds with vile images, and will make the purest and most refined woman utter the most horrible obscenities. Alcohol poisoning seems to produce images more loath- some than those known to any other form of insanity.
 Creeping and crawling things are the most frequent visions, because in tense loathing and horror are the key note of the mental state and for some reason, dating back to Eve, perhaps, man has a greater horror of crawling things than of anything else. If could tell you of the tortures my drink patients have undergone, the story would outdo any Poe tale ever written. You can't even faintly imagine the de- lusions in those drink-crazed brains.