Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1912-03-29
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ALCOHOL IS soMATIc POISON
InsidiousIy Attacks Highest Functions
of Brain and Mind and Over
throws All the Faculties.

How alcohol destroys a mans facul-
ties in an exactly inverse order to that
of their requirement has been most
graphically depicted by DIR. A. d..
Bush, the well known authority on
mental diseases. says Mr.. Elliot Flint
in the indicator
Doctor Bush declares alcohol to be
somatic (body) poison which acts
upon the tissues destructively and
produces more or less acute but well
marked psychoses arrangements OF
the nervous SYSTEM.
Opium" he says, "overwhelms the
organism producing collapse; strych-
nine exhausts the centers OF respira-
ton; prussic acid paralyzes at once,
but alcohol insidiously attacks the
highest functions of the brain and
mind and successfully and in inverse
order overthrows all the intellectual
faculties acquired by the evolutionary
process, reduces man to the level OF
the brute and finally to the gutter as
mere animate being"
One day of heavy drinking IT, &C
cording to Doctor Bush, sufficient to
overthrow the cumulative work or
ages and to resolve man into his prim-
tive capacity of simple nervous re-
sponse
In the development of the child the
emotion OF shame is later acquire
ment than the emotion of fear, and
hence in the process of devolution or
repression the former would be soon
er lost Likewise the faculty Of rea-
son, first manifested by the infant in
the fourth month, is a higher faculty
than that of memory shown in the
second week of life. Consequently
the power OF reasoning would be sur
rendered while memory remained &C
tive. And so with other faculties,
which will be enumerated presently.
the highest being the power of dis
elimination and of self-control.
Among the first faculties then which
a man loses when he becomes intOxi-
Gated are his fine self-control. his dis
elimination and his sense of shame.
Hence he raises his voice and talks
inadvisedly, disagreements of no mo-
ment irritate him, he becomes volu-
BILE and INDUCES in high-fown rhe-
toric. in patriotic buncombs, or in
shallow sentimentality. In short, al
cohol SO weakens his Judgment that
he can no longer distinguish the tri-
vial from the important.
Also he grows restless and walks
about gesticulating wildly, for. as his
power for deliberative movements is
impaired, so his ability for expressive
movements which was an earlier ac-
quirement, is temporarily increased
As a consequence, besides his gesticu-
lations with arms, shoulders and body,
he makes grimaces, wags his head
and laughs and cries by turns easily
and exceedingly. Next, this faculty
in its turn weakening, the initiative
faculty appears. He now yelps. barks
and crows or initiates ridiculously the
speech of those about him. Then at
last his attention wanes and his move
ments become. more uncertain until
no longer able to coordinate his mus
cles, he sinks to the floor. where he
lies twitching, and then still breath
ing stertorously Thus he returns by
the alcohol route to the helplessness
of the babe.
The superficial brilliancy of speech
sometimes displayed by the intoxi-
Gated comes from the loss of the high
er faculty of abstract thought and the
consequent increase of constructive
imagination, with its still more infer
Tor companion, reminiscent magma
ton. But though the speech of the
drunkard appear brilliant. adorned az
1t is with metaphor and extravagant
imagery, his thoughts lack conference
and nationality, and his seeming bril-
liancy soon abates and ends in unin-
telligible gibbering.