Evening star., 1940-06-11
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
BY Thomas r. Henri.

| e'SS"e"o &ss xAOftf ~
| Asylums for the sane in an insane
world strikingly like that of the present
were foreseen nearly century ago by
the author of "Alce in Wonderland"
DR.. Winfred Overholser, superinten-
dent of st. Elizabeths Hospital, the Fed
eral institution for mental diseases in
Washington, has on his desk a supply
of carbon copies of a page from one OF
Lewis CAROLS latest and least known
works. "Sylvie and Bruno" in which he
| followed the career Of Alice into young
Womanhood.
1t about sums up the situation, says
DR.. Overholser. CAROLS fantasy fol-
| lows:
"When things around me seemed once
more to be real, Arthur was saying, I'm
afraid there's no help for it. They must
be finite in number"
"I should be sorry to believe" said
| Lady Muriel. Yet when one comes to
think of it there are no new melodies
nowadays. What people talk of as the
|
tune I've known as child
| "'The day must come if the world
lasts long enough said Arthur, when
every possible tune will have been COM
posed, every possible pun perpetrated'-
Lady Muriel Wrung her hands like a
tragedy queen-'and, worse than that,
every possible book written. For the
| number of words is finite.
"'Itll make very little difference to
the authors suggested. Instead of
| saying, what book shall I write, an author
will ask himself, which book shall I
write. A mere verbal distinction
Lady Muriel gave me an approving
smile. But lunatics would surely always
write new books she went on They
couldn't write the same books over
again
True said Arthur, but their books
would come to an end also The num-
ber of lunatic books is as finite as the
number of lunatics'
| "'And that number is becoming
greater every year, said a pompous man
whom recognized as the self-appointed
Snowman on the day of the picnic.
| $50 they say replied Arthur. And
when 80 per cent of us are lunatics'-he
seemed to be in wildly nQnsensical
mood-'the asylums will be put to their
proper USE
land that is the pompous gentle
man gravely inquired.
Ito shelter the sane replied Arthur.
| we shall har OURSELVES in Tho Inn ticc
will have it all their own way outside.
They'll do it little queerly, no doubt.
Railroad collisions will be always hap
| pening, steamers always blowing up,
most of the towns will be burned down,
most of the ships sunk
"'And most of the men killed. mur-
mered the pompous man, who was evi-
IDENTIFY hopelessly bewildered.
| "'Certainly,' Arthur asserted. Till at
least there will be fewer lunatics than
sane men. Then we come out. They go
in. Things return to their normal con-
| dition.'"
Vitamin B is no specific against pink
elephants.
While studies in recent years have in
| dicated some of the supposed effects of
alcoholism are not due to alcohol, per
Sc, but to lack of thiamin chloride and
nicotine acid in the diet because of the
restricted appetites of heavy drinkers,
this does not tell the whole story, it is
shown by experiments at the University
OF Cincinnati just reported to the Ameri-
can PSychiatric Association.
Delirium tremens, for example. seems
to be a direct effect of alcohol on the
nervous system. The University of Gin
cinnati physicians availed themselves of
a human guinea pig, fellow who had
been in their clinic four times in IL
months with D. is. He was given carte
blanche to drink all he wanted and sue
ceeded in consuming almost a quart a
day for two weeks. The only provision
was that he take each day a good dose
Of both thiamin chloride and NICOTINE
acid. He ate practically nothing but
drank lot of milk, using it as chaser.
At the end of the second week he was
seeing snakes again.
1t was also found that the various
vitamin B constituents did shorten the
course of the illness.
| X
Complete failure in life is form Of
sickness, DR.. Paul Schilder of New York
has reported to the association.
Failures, like neuroses," he declared,
"are the products of specific constella-
tions in early childhood which come into
appearance in connection with the Sit
uations in later life. One may say with
certainty that the attitudes of the
parents in which exaggerated admira-
ton is combined with outbursts and ag-
gression and severity are particularly
dangerous. If the parents fail in estab-
fishing an atmosphere of confidence
which allows the child free experimental
tion with judgment and action the
chances of successful actions of the in
dividuals in later life are further di-
minlshed."
Failure, DR.. Schilder continued, occurs
when the problems of the present and
of the future are dealt with from the
point of view of the problems of child
hood. The person who fails submits
| himself to the SllperiOr force and ClinpS