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

tions of Alcohol More Dreadful Than
 Those of Amy Other Drug-Danger in
 Aduiterated WhislSey.
 Hunorists have succeeded in con-
 yincing the general public that there is
 something distinctly funny about de-
 Iirium tremens but there is one man
 who always speaks of delirium tremens
 with respect. He is the man who mas
 had an attack of it. Even the strong
 est sense of humor fails to f1nd the eX-
 nerience funny retrospectively, and, II
 a confirmed thinker who has been
 through it talks jocularly of the queer
 things he saw and the queer things ne
 did, he is bluffing, after the fashloh or
 one Maitre Francois Villon, who wrote
 an edifying humorous poem to the gal
 lows on which he expected to hnlsh ms
 pareer Snakes may be funny to the man who hasn't seen them, save Ill
 zoos. and there may be side-splitting amusement in bats and red mice, view
 ed from a distant pinnacle of sobrlety, but when the snakes twist around ones throat. and the bats fly against ones 0eaQ, ana tile IGI llllCC l0AA NP "'A~ ' legs, ones viewpoint changes radically.
 Doctors say that case of dellrlum tremens is often a disguised blessing to the hard drinker, provided he survives the attack The disguise is of pertec- tion that would win the grand prize a any masquerade ball, but the doctors are probably right. If such an attack will not convince man of the error of his ways and sober him up nothing will. A good deal depends, however, on the prologue to the play. There are two ways of cultivating delirium tre- rens. A man, not an habitual hard drAnker may bring on an attack by one big debauch, and a steady, hard drink CT may gradually poison his system un- til without any extra excess, he goes to pieces and brings up in maniac in ebrity, called for short, D T's
 In the first case the man may die, but if he doesn't, he has had a forcible warning and not being thoroughly sat urated with alcoholic poison, it is pos sible for him to swear off and stick to the good resolution. That is where de- liriurn tremens acts as blessing in snakes clothing. The man who has poisoned himself by long and steady drinking may be just as much mortified by an experience with the D T's as the man of the occasional debauch, but the chances against it's sobering him per- manently are much greater. His sys- tenn has become dependent upon alco- holic stimulant and craves it madly. He will probably go back to drink, and will as probably have repetitions or the maniacal alcoholism. Still, even in his case, the D T's may work a cure, in an indirect way. The man who drinks steadily is man in danger, but he can never be made to believe it. Be- cause he has what he proudly calls hard head, and never gets drunk, he ccntends that drinking doesn't harm him and no amount of argument can convince him of the contrary, until de- 1iriurn tremens takes up the debate. That makes him doubt, and he does some dark blue and heavy thinking. If alcohol has left him any intellect, he decides that he must do something to prevent his going into the zoo business as a professional and if he cannot stop drink unaided he goes somewhere and takes a course of treatment to get the poison out of his system Physicians who treat private cases of alcoholism, or are connected with sanitariums, for such treatment, say that by far the largest percentage of their patients are driven to them by first attacks of delirium tremens. Nothing else is able to show man the folly and danger of the drink habit and scare him into re- form.
 At the Academy of Medicine recently the statement was made by eminent men, who usually know whereof they speak, that inebrity is decreasing in this country. There was considerable dis sent from the proposition, however. A Sun reporter called upon number of prominent New York physicians who have studied the subject of alcoholism closely and asked their opinion as to the increase or decrease in inebrity. Almost unanimously they agreed that acute alcoholism Is slightly on the de- cline
 s'I have had so many alcoholic pa tients within the last year." said one of the physicians interviewed, that it seems to me sometimes that the whole world is drunk Yet, as matter of fact, I believe there are fewer cases of the dangerous forms of alcoholism than there were twenty years ago. That is odd, too. in view of the fact that the adutleration of liquor has increased phenomenally. Do you know how the the ordinary whiskey. brandy, etc., sold at cheap saloons and many saloons not cheap, is made? I do. I've been through experiments with the health board and I've made them on my own account A man buys a hogshead of spirits. Then he goes to @ certain we'll known dealer in essences and buys from him chemically prepared whiskey es- sence, brandy essence or whatever he wants. The essence manufacturer pub fishes small pamphlet, giving direc- tions for the preparation of liquors. For $3 a saloon keeper can buy enough whiskey essence to make 120 gallons of the common variety of whis1ey sold over the bar. The spirits cost little. These are cold, hard facts that have been proved. Moreover, there have been other interesting experiments in which I have assisted We got sam pIes of the fusel oil whiskey and other liquors from various low saloons. Then we went to restaurants and bars of unimpeachable reputation, in so far the quality of their drinks goes and got samples of their best liquors. We called in experts, men who pretended to be