Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1914-01-13
Why the Steady Drinker Is Said to
be Never Sane.

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The steady drinker ia never fully sane.
There are thousands of steady drinkers
who walk and work among US every day
flor while, but seldom for many years),
who will declare this is all nonsense,
and that they are quite as bright and
Intellectual as the man who is not
drinker.
DR.. C. T. Crothers, superintendent OF
the Walnut Lodge Hospital, Hartford,
Conn.,, with other authorities on alco
hoic poisoning, declares that an alco-
hoic is never absolutely sane. By alco-
holic he means a man who is a steady
drinker, a man who drinks constantly,
every day, or at least seldom is intoxi-
Gated, and who makes his boast that it
does not hurt him, and that he can do as
good work as any man.
Such man is constantly gathering
poisons that form from within and with
out. The constant drinking forms a
steady degree of this poisoning and a
arrangement of the nerves which breaks
out in some acute disease.
In addition to this, DR.. Crothers de.
cares that the steady drinker is degen.
crate. Even the steady drinker does
not always realize this, and the public is
seldom aware of it, because it is some
thing that is always hidden. The slco-
hol deviates from the normal; he Is ab.
normal in many ways; he lacks control
of himself in many ways, and his or
ganic vigOr ia enfeebled.
The confirmed alcoholic or steady
drinker, according to DR.. Crothers, may
seem to have average capacity, yet in
some things he has weakness border
ing almost on imbeciity. A steady
drinker may be performing professional
work that seems of high grade, but
there is connected with it the moral
palsy and sexual insanity of one plainly
demented, yet he is known only by his
professional work, and, therefore, the
actual horrors of alcoholism are kept
covered up.
There was, and among many there is
to. day, a belief that alcohol Is stimu-
liant and tonic possessed of some power
to give force to the cells and functional
ability, but this is only tradition. Studies
of exact science in the laboratory show
that alcohol is an anesthetic, a depressant
and a narcotic, and that its first effects
on the sepsory centres are to diminish
their acuteness and pervert their &C.
tivity.
1t is in this way that alcohol deludes
its victims with false consciousness Of
vigor and strength that may always be
contradicted if properly tested with In.
strumen:s. The first effect of sending
the blood to the head and surgiDg
through the brain with increased velocity
is not increased vigor, but Increased irri-
tation which comes just before anesthesia
and diminuition of power.
The driuker is thus deceived.
Pneumonia, nephritis and cerebral
hemorrhage are all common and fatal
results of prolonged alcoholism or steady
drinking. The drink impulse is like
epilepsy in the sudden, conclusive, i'm
petuous and overwhelming desire of the
victim to secure the narcotic which the
drink offers. AS this IL continued it be-
comes a disease, and is recognized as
such among medical men to-day. The
steady drinker is just as much victim
of disease as IL the inmate of an asy-
lum.
Many of the extreme characters in
history were alcoholics; anarchists, revo-
lutionists and such people, and their ex-
traordinary roasonings are held BY the
medical experts as proof that alcoholism
is form of insanity, that the steady
drinker is never fully sane.
Just as certain diseases devOur or de-
stroy the cells, 80 alcohol poisoning pro-
duces condition which calls for re.
turn of the same toxin, or poison, and
this is where the victim ceases to be nor
NAL. Heredity is a powerful factor.
Just as insane parents, while not hand.
ing &C .ual insanity down to their chill.
dren, 10 be lueath to them a body that
is unprepared to resist insane tendencies,
SO do alcoholic parents leave to their
children weakened body that Graves
stimulant, and such children easily be-
come alcoholics ii they are allowed to
use intoxicants.
| Alcohol is ono of the most far-reach-
ing aud subtle poisons known. Dr..
Crothers declares that mere suspension
of the craze for spirits is by no means q
cure. Insane patients are frequently dis
charged from asylums because they ap-
pear to be quite normal, yet it is SEEM
ingly the rule instead of the exception
that such people become insane again
and have to be taken back. They are
not actually cured; there is merely pc.
riod when they seem normal.
For forty years DR.. Crothers has
studied alcoholism, and he declares that
only by the greatest caution and care In
living clean life physically and men
tally can victims of alcohol obtain q
cure. In fact, he holds that it is quite
as difficult to cure an alcoholic as 1t Is to
cure person suffering from some other
form of insanity.
With proper care and treatment and
proper assistance on the part Of the vic.
Tins themselves, DR.. Crothers thinks
that fully half of the steady drinkers
might be cured, considering the ad-
vances of medicine to-day; the ability to
cure only 80 per cent. is evidence OF the
grave nature of alcohol poisoning, and
Of the peculiar form Of insanity 1t really
brings on. He estimates that there are
more than a quarter of million alco-
holics In what Is known as the chronic
class that receive little or no treatment.
This is because they do not realize
that they are really abnormal. But
neither does the average insane man be-
lieve he is mentally defictent.-Los An.
geles Examiner.
| hon ,ehold remedy In America for rs years