EDITORIAL REPRINTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF INEBRIETY. T. D. CROTHERS, Editor, Hartford, Conn. HALLUCINATIONS IN INEBRIETY. The following case was the subject of much discussion in a large circle of persons anxious to solve the mysteries of the future state. A. B., whose heredity was not ascertained, suffered from great depression and nervous fever, following the death of his wife, from which he slowly rallied. He was given spirits in various forms, and continued their use after he recovered. He had been a temperate man before, and was a merchant of good standing and intelligence. Within a year from the death of his wife, he was converted to spir- itualism, and seemed a very ardent investigator. Later he heard voices at night, which after a time he distinguished as his wife’s from the spirit land. The recollection was very pleasant, although he could not recall much that was said to him after. These voices increased in intensity, and his friends concluded that this was evidence of his larger spiritual growth, and nearness to spirit influences and life. By and by, these voices grew threatening at first, and seemed to be those of persons seeking his ruin. Then they would change, and the voice of his wife came again with boastful assurances of his power and strength. These conversations, or rather replies to these voices, were delivered in a loud tone, and a select circle in an adjoining room were making rapturous notes of what was said. After a time he could not conduct his business without making mistakes, his 2 memory was bad, he was nervous, unsteady, could not make out bills, or count money correctly. This his friends interpreted as efforts of the spirits to draw him from the sordid work of making money. A physician was called to prescribe for his general anaemia and loss of appetite. He found that he regularly took from one to three bottles of porter every day, and from four to six ounces of brandy every night at bed-time. Often this would be doubled before morning. He was ordered to stop the use of the brandy at night. But the second night after the voices were very wild and threatening. Black men armed with knives entered his room, and he became greatly excited. His attendants gave large doses of brandy, and gradually these enemies disappeared and his wife began to talk to him again. After a boastful conversation he fell asleep, and for two days after he was unable to leave the bed. His spirit- ualistic friends concluded that alcohol was the true agent to crush out the coarser, animal part of his nature, and place him in close communion with the spiritual. Acting on this view, spirits were resumed as before. Regular seances were held nightly in his room. From the physician’s statement, the following order of events took place with but little change from day to day. At about nine p. m. the lights were turned low, and four ounces of brandy were given. If nothing was said for one or two hours, two ounces more were given. Then low, subdued voices would be heard in the next room saying ill things about him, expressing desires that he should suffer, and that he was guilty of some recent crime, and devis- ing means to have him arrested and punished. He would reply to these voices in very intense language. This would at times increase their activity, and they would come into the room, stand by his bed, and make efforts to catch him with a rope, or strike him with a knife. The excitement of these scenes would cause prostration, and the man would fall back in the bed, and be perfectly quiet for a time, then hear voices of his wife telling him that she had come to protect him, and that he was a great man and could not be injured by these 3 devils. This conversation was all reported in the next room by his friends, who trusted to their imagination to supply the ideas and language of the spirit visitor. An hour or more of these replies and questions would follow, then they would grow fainter and die away, and the man would sleep. Next morning he would awake feeling weak and wretched and use porter during the day, lying in bed or walking out a little. My opinion was sought by the physician, who had pronounced it alcoholic delirium long before. Strange to say, our united views had no value in the minds of the friends, and acute mania came on, necessitating his removal to an insane asylum. He died a few months after, of pneumonia. A fitting sequel to this case was the publication of these conversations, in which the editor showed that the evil and good spirits which are ever striving for the mastery in the human heart was clearly illustrated in this case. Finally his wife’s spirit came for his protection and made him the agent of many beautiful thoughts to the world. No mention was made of the alcohol he took at the time, or his final eclipse in insanity. A noted clergyman and lecturer began an address at a great temperance conclave, by saying: “One great object of our efforts is to strike off the chains and liberate the poor oppressed inebriate from the bondage of a tyrannical will.” Like many others who assume the role of teachers, this clergyman was not familiar with his subject. Had he even studied a single case practically, he would have known that, of all men, next to the insane, the inebriate was the most perfect example of one with a free will, cut loose from all bondage and restraint. Under the influence of alcohol he is liberated from all guidance by reason or experience. He has motives of which he is not conscious, and which cannot be forseen by any one. He commits acts which he dare not himself anticipate, or meditate a moment in advance, and which no one could foretell. Consciousness deceives WILL IN INEBRIETY. 4 him constantly. Here disease and not will instigates his deeds; it inspires an intense longing to be free from every condition of pain and ill, and enjoy freedom of thought and act. He is most literally a free man, free from every responsibility, acting beyond all ranges of character and experience, swept by conditions and circumstances inde- pendent of common motives and impulses. His will is very near perfect freedom in the metaphysical sense. INSANITY NOT DEGRADATION. In a city of boasted wealth and intelligence, the daily press commented at some length on the degradation of an inebriate who went about offering to sell or pawn his little babe for drink. The bar-keeper who refused to listen to this proposal, and turned him out, is commended for his humanity. The clergymen and moralists unite in a great protest against the degradation exhibited by this terrible sinner of an inebriate. Two remedies are urged with great energy. The one the more severe punishment of these victims, the other the grace of God in the prayer and pledge. In a letter to a daily paper, a clergyman calls this incident a disgrace to the civilization of the city, and the editor endorses it, deploring the degradation of such men. The public sentiment and intelligence that considers such a case one of pure degrada- tion, is more of a wonder and phenomena than the victim. The failure to recognize the insanity of this poor victim, and place him under restraint at once, is deplorable in this age of progress. If this man had gone up and down the streets, shouting and doing strange things, his condition would have been recognized. But here is a form of insanity more pronounced and dangerous than the ordinary acute mania of lunatics, a state of the brain in which all motives of duty and right are suspended, and he is likely to commit any atrocity or crime, suddenly and without premonition. * The insanity that would offer his child in pawn for alcohol, would explode in any direction, no matter what interest suffered. 5 The terrible disasters frequently coming from this class are most clearly the result of this false teaching that inebriety is a moral state which the victim can control at will; con- sequently neglect, with means and measures that increase his disorder, beset him until some criminal act ends his career. No further history comes to us of this poor inebriate, but somewhere in the future he will commit crime ; then another display of dense ignorance will be seen in the press and pulpit utterances. STATISTICS NOT WELL STUDIED. Mr. Auger, in a late number of The Voice, presents a table of the commitments for crime in Connecticut, from which he shows that under the license laws, these commitments were 277 per cent, more than under the first five years of the prohibitory law. The arrests for drunkenness had steadily increased under license law, until, in 1884, they were 2,879, which was fifteen times greater than the increase of popula- tion. This table and its conclusions are quite different when studied from a scientific standpoint. Thus the 2,879 arrests for inebriety in 1884 does not represent as many different persons who are inebriates, but indicates the increasing chronicity of a few incurables, who are repeatedly sent over and over again to jail. In the Hartford jail one hundred com- mitments for inebriety in one year represented twenty-three persons only. In New Haven and Bridgeport, the number was still less, and in reality the 2,879 commitments did not indicate over six or seven hundred persons. The same is true of crime statistics, where the persons were inebriates, and the crime was committed while under the influence of spirits. A certain number of inebriates commit assaults, breaches of the peace, and thefts regularly when intoxicated. Like the common inebriate, they are constant repeaters at the police courts, where they receive short sentences, and often spend over two-thirds of their time in jail. It is the usual experience of every court and jail that ninety-five per cent, of all the arrests and commitments for drunkenness 6 and petty crime, for the first time, are followed by other arrests with increasing frequency, as long as the person lives. Thus, a young man arrested for some offense, either drunkenness, or assault, or both, will come back the second year for the same, and in about an average time of three.years will be “ a repeater,” and be arrested from four to six times every year. This is particularly true of inebriates, and crime associated with it. Thus, the law becomes an active agent with the saloon-keeper in destroying these poor victims, and making recovery more and more impossible, with every commitment. The increasing commitments of inebriates under the license law, show that the criminal law which seeks by punishment to check these cases utterly fails, and actually precipitates them into more incurable states. The failure of these tables to show the number of commitments for the first time, makes it impossible to determine the strength or weakness of the license law. Careful observers all over the country have recognized the fact, that an army of incurables are steadily growing up in every community, composed of inebriates, criminals, insane, and paupers. An effort has been made to reach the insane, and house them, and thus protect society and check this dis- order. The criminal, inebriate, and pauper are still regarded with the same spirit that prevailed in the dark ages, and are treated on the principle that punishment, suffering, and human vengeance are the only means to restore to them healthy life and living. - The result most naturally would be the opposite, and an army of incurables would follow, an increasing menace to law, progress, and civilization. These tables bring out this fact, and also show that in Connecticut, as else- where, the real question is not prohibition or license alone, but the physical conditions and causes which develop this vast army of defectives, and furnish the favorable soil for their culture and growth. This subject must be studied from a higher point of view, and statistics must include a larger array of facts to enable us to draw correct conclusions. 7 STATISTICS OF INEBRIATE REPEATERS. The following figures are given to show that statistics of inebriety from court records are often misleading and worth- less, and also the-folly of short sentences to jail, as a curative or preventive measure for inebriates. The report of the House of Industry, on Deer Island, near Boston, Mass., of last year, shows, that of the 10705 persons committed to this place for offenses, 9,084 were for drunkenness, 174 were sent as common inebriates. Those were probably persons who drank all the time, and who could not keep sober. Of this number forty-six were sent for the first time, and twenty-five for the second, and so on, diminishing until we find one ihan who numbered his thirty-eighth time of sentence. Of the 8,631, 2,833 appeared for the first time, and 1,286 for the second time, and so on down to the seventy-fifth time, who was represented by one man, who had been sentenced for the same offense to the same place seventy-four times before. This last man had gone down on the records representing seventy-five different men. These 9,084 men and women sentenced for drunken- ness actually appeared in the records of the courts and jails where committed as over 58,960 different persons, each com- mitment being put down separately, and appearing on the books as a new person each time they were sentenced. The average of the commitments in the 9,084 persons were over six for each one. It will be apparent that statistics of the increase of ine- briety based on the number of arrests and commitments are without any value and absolutely false. Another curious fact appears: the large number who claim to be under arrest for the first time for this offense have been repeaters in other cities. These figures only give their history and commit- ments to this place. One man had a record of serving out forty-one different sentences for drunkenness at Ward’s Island, New York. It is difficult to get at the exact number of men who go from town to city, continuously serving out short sentences for inebriety, steadily growing worse, and 8 finally becoming insane, or drifting into the alms-houses to die. This army of defectives are steadily increasing, and are moving from place to place, made worse by the efforts of the law to benefit them. PYROMANIA FROM INEBRIETY. An eminent physician sends us the following clinical history, with the remark that he has withheld the names, as many of the relatives occupy responsible positions in society. We give a condensed outline of the facts, expecting in the future to make a careful study of this and some other cases of similar character. A., a man of great energy, and very successful in business, became a moderate and occasional excessive drinker, at about thirty-five years of age. He owned and lived in a hotel, and led an intensely active, stirring life. He married a delicate, nervous woman after he had begun to drink, and a family of eight children were born to them. He drank regularly every day, and occasionally to great excess, until his death at fifty-four years of age, from pneumonia. His wife was a nervous, weak woman, who became very religious late in life, and died from old age at seventy-six. Of the eight children, one died in infancy, another died of some convulsive disease at about puberty. The third child, a girl, ran away with an actor at eighteen years of age, and finally became a dissolute woman. The fourth child grew up a strong temperance man, and was very active in business. At twenty-five he was convicted and sentenced to prison for putting fire to a store of a rival merchant in business, and burning his own property for the insurance. He was par- doned out after three years, and within a year was re-sen- tenced for ten years, for burning up a mill on his father’s land. Two years later he died of consumption in prison. The fifth child, a boy, was a graduate of college, and a lawyer. He used spirits in moderation. At thirty-five he was con- victed of burning up the block of the village in which he 9 lived, and was strongly'suspected of having burned up his father’s hotel property. After two years in prison he was pardoned, and in the next five years was convicted twice of attempting to burn property. He ran away, and was con- victed for a similar offense in another State, under an assumed name, and served a term of imprisonment, then disappeared. The sixth child was a temperate man, and was tried for barn-burning twice, and escaped from some flaw in the testimony. He then went to Oil City, and owned a large well. Later he was convicted of putting fire to other wells, served his term of imprisonment, became palsied, and is still living. The seventh child, a girl, married, and died early, leaving a large family of respectable people. The eighth child, a boy, had spinal disease, and was a cripple until death. The brother of the father of this family, and his descendants, are among the best people in their country, indicating that heredity was a small factor in causing inebri- ety originally. The inebriety of the father undoubtedly was the cause of the pyromania in the three sons, and the nerve defects noticed in the others. Dipsomania, pyromania, kleptomania, prostitution, pauperism, all forms of insanity and brain and nerve defects, and early mortality, etc., are the common entailments from a moderate or excessive drinking ancestor. The seeds are sown, and their appear- ance again is certain somewhere in the generations to come. In the mortality census of 1870, the deaths from alcohol were classed under poisons. In 1880 these deaths were put under the head of alcoholism. In another decade they will occupy a distinct place in the nomenclature, and be fully recognized as diseases. ANTE-MORTEM STATEMENTS OF INEBRIATES. It is a fact new to science that the statements of inebri- ates under oath, or otherwise, are always more or less unreli- able, and cannot be accepted as truthful unless confirmed by other evidence. The inebriate may be sober at the time, and 10 yet his statements will lack that accuracy essential to truth. The use of alcohol so far impairs his perception and judg- ment, that no matter how honest and earnest he may be, an element of error will come in unconscious to himself. This is recognized in many chronic cases of inebriety, but in the moderate and occasional drinker, or the periodical inebriate with long free intervals of sobriety, it is not understood. Exaggeration or suppression of facts, faulty observations or perception, bad, impulsive reasoning, reaching conclusions not warranted by the premises, and almost every form of possible error, all of which are not realized by the person who is un- able to correct his own mistakes. An astronomer who, after a severe attack of malaria, con- tinued to use spirits as a medicine, had so large a personal equation of error in his work that he was obliged to give it up ; although he made great personal efforts to be accurate, he was unable to detect or correct his errors. A judge who drank regularly in moderation, was greatly astonished to find so many of his decisions overruled by the higher court. He was a careful, accurate lawyer, and at the time was confident of the correctness of his judgment. These cases are not uncommon, but have never received any special study, hence are largely unknown. The following case illustrates a phase of this subject that has a medico-legal interest. The early history of W. H. was not ascertained. He served with credit as an officer during the war, and went into partnership with a comrade at Bridgeport, Conn., in the grocery business. He drank at intervals, but this did not attract attention. In 1876 he became a soap manufac- turer, was much respected as a member of a church, and wealthy. He traveled, selling his goods to New York and elsewhere. He was known to use spirits to intoxication at long intervals, but generally at home, or at some hotel away among strangers. In business matters he was correct, and his word was good among his associates. In one of his drink paroxysms at a hotel in New York, he had a personal encounter with a man who had been a boon companion on 11 these occasions. His face and head were injured with flesh wounds, and for some years after he did not speak to this man. Then they became friendly again, although there was no evidence that he drank with him. The drink paroxysms increased in duration, but the intervals of five or six months remained. One day he was picked up in the streets of New York unconscious, with contusions about the head, and frac- tured skull. He was taken to a hospital, and next day be- came conscious, sent for his family, and made a statement under oath, and finally died. This statement described min- utely his drinking at a certain hotel with his friend (who had in- jured him long ago) ; also certain differences of opinion which sprung up between them, ending in an encounter, in which this man struck him on the head many times, then threw him out into the street and took all his money. All this was de- scribed with great minuteness and under oath as his dying testi- mony. This man was arrested, but proved that on the day of the alleged assault he was at home in a distant city, and had not seen the murdered man for over a year, and had not been in New York for many months. It was clear that the injured man had described the assault which had occurred some years before, and did not realize that a long interval of time had elapsed. His memory of the events and injury preced- ing death was abolished, and the only thing clear was the recollection of the former injury, which seemed to his dis- turbed brain the event of yesterday. Had the accused man been in New York on the evening of the alleged assault, and by accident met this man, to whom he was friendly, and left him soon after, it might have been difficult to show to a court and jury that he was not guilty as described in the dying statments of the murdered man. An examination showed that he had been robbed of only a small sum of money, his watch and pocket-book having been left at the hotel where he stopped. It also appeared that his injuries were, in all probability, caused by being thrown out of a low bar room, where he was drinking. A similar case occurred at West Troy, N. Y., the history of which was sent me by a 12 lawyer. Two men, owners of canal boats, periodical drink- ers, who, while drinking together, had frequent personal encounters. One day they were seen drinking together, and the next morning one was found unconscious from a fract- ured skull. The skull was trepanned, and the man recovered so far as to make an ante-mortem statement that his friend had struck him on the head, causing his injuries. This man was arrested, and protested that he had left him in the early part of the evening on the canal boat, that they had no per- sonal differences, that he did not strike or injure him in any way. His own whereabouts was not clearly proven to the court during the night of the assault, and he was convicted and sentenced for three years. A year after this, a lawyer re- ceived in payment for defending a criminal a watch, which was identified as the one stolen from the man found uncon- scious on the canal boat. From this and some other circum- stances it was clear that the assault had been committed by the criminal for robbery, and that the man then serving out the sentence for this act, was, as he protested, innocent of the crime. In this case the man’s memory of recent events was abolished, and the acts of long ago seemed those of yesterday. This condition is analogous to the dementia seen in old age, where only the past is clear and fresh on the memory, and events of the present make no impression, only so far as they seem to be a part of the past. The possibility of grave injustice being done innocent persons who are accused on the statements of drinking men is very great. All such testimony should receive careful scrutiny, and be open to grave doubts unless confirmed by a variety of collateral circumstances that are beyond question. SICK AND INTOXICATED. We have often referred to the blunders so commonly made by police officers, in arresting and confining persons in the station house, who are suffering from cerebral hemor- rhage, or other disease. Yet, notwithstanding all that has 13 been said and written on this source of danger, the same mistakes are repeated over and over again. A valued cor- respondent sends us the notes of ten cases which he gathered from the daily papers of two weeks, where persons who had been arrested for drunkenness were found dead in the cells, or were removed a day or more later to die in the hospital. Three of these cases had Bright’s disease, and were suffering from coma; two evidently had concussion of the brain, follow- ing direct injuries from being thrown out from saloons. One was a case of heat apoplexy, and one was found to be fracture of the skull and compression, and the remaining cases were clearly cerebral hemorrhages. In eight of these cases autopsies were made. In the other two the diagnosis was made by the jail physician. In one of these cases the man was before the police judge, and sentenced to ten days for drunkenness, and at the time was supposed to be still under the effects of spirits. In jail Bright’s disease and uraemia was discovered, but he died before any treatment could be applied. It is difficult to realize why the judgment of the average officer on such cases should be accepted as final, when the most expert discrimination by leading medical men have failed to determine the nature of such cases. In cases of suspected insanity, officers and judges are very careful not to act on their confessed inability to determine the condition of the case. The same caution should be observed in these street cases of coma, where the only sign, an alcoholic breath, can not be trusted. It is the false view that inebriety is a self-induced sin and an innate depravity, that consigns the diagnosis and treatment to the officers of the law. The result is neglect and precipitation of the victim into more incurable conditions. The law, public sentiment, and the officer who arrests a narcotised inebriate and on his judgment puts him in a cell to recover; also the judge who sentences him as a criminal to jail, where is bad diet, bad ventilation, and the most depressing mental sur- roundings, all conspire to permanently unfit, and make him more and more incapable of living a healthy, temperate life in the future. Every case of coma found on the street with an 14 odor of spirits is liable to be complicated with the following, and must be differentiated from them before the exact condition can be determined: Fracture of the skull, con- cussion of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, embolism, and thrombosis; uraemia from Bright’s disease, epilepsy, nar- cotic poisoning, heat apoplexy, hysteria. It is the duty of physicians to insist that all men w-ho are brought to the station house in a state of coma should have a medical examination, in the same way that a maniac or an injured man are treated, and not, because he is supposed to be intoxicated, turned over to the officer as not needing such care or skill. Police officers should be taught that it is an exceedingly dangerous thing to strike an intoxicated man on the head; the liability to cerebral hemorrhages is very great No experience or observation will ever enable an officer to determine that the coma of the man he arrests is due alone to the spirits used. The reckless indiscrimination which places all men in the station cell who are stupid and have an odor of spirits about them is fatal in many cases. Clearly it is a question of duty that is sadly neglected, and no man should be confined in a cell overnight until his real condition is determined. TERMINATION OF INEBRIETY. Inebriety ends either in death, which may be due directly or indirectly to the action of alcohol, or merges into some other allied disease, of which the use of alcohol may have been only a symptom, or it may come to a long, obscure halt, that may last through life or terminate any time in a violent relapse and return of all the previous symptoms. A small number of cases die from delirium, paralysis, inflammation, hemorrhage, the result of alcoholic degeneration. A much larger number die from pneumonia, Bright’s disease, dropsy, pericarditis, and gastritis, following and produced by alco- holic excess. Inebriety may be said to be allied to nearly every organic degeneration and disease of the body; the more common of which may be mentioned as the ataxies, 15 palsies, and the various forms of insanities. The use of alco- hol may end abruptly, and any of these forms of disease become prominent. Whether the use of alcohol was only a premonitory symptom of the brain degeneration preceding these diseases, or was the active and exciting cause of them, is often a difficult matter to determine. In quite a number of cases it is both a symptom and an exciting cause. A defective brain from heredity may speedily develop some organic disease from the use of alcohol. A brain organiza- tion made defective from bad nutrition, traumatism, or exhaustive demands on its functional capacity, is a most fer- tile field for inebriety. The demand for alcohol is merely the craving for a narcotic to quiet nerve pain and irritation. The use of spirits may be stopped, and various complex organic nerve and brain diseases appear which were marked before. Thus total abstinence reveals the real state ; and while it gives nature a better chance to antagonize dis- eased tendencies, new types and symptoms spring up, and go on slowly or rapidly to their natural termination. Often, in periodical cases, total abstinence is followed by paroxys- mal nerve storms, and psychological changes that are pecu- liar and fixed. Thus, in one case, outbursts of insane anger, or extreme suspicion, or great benevolence, or miserly hoard- ing, or religious anxiety ; in brief, almost every psychological symptom of changed character and conduct, which is often of short duration, and seems to take the place of the former drink paroxysms. Thus brain energy gathers and explodes in these abnormal directions. Such cases merge into epilepsy from the slightest causes, such as head injury, or violent and prolonged strain, or develop insanity from apparent trifling conditions. In such cases the brain soil is charged with the germs of insanity, which only needs some exciting cause to spring into great activity. In a certain number of cases inebriety ends abruptly from the most insignificant causes, and a life of total abstinence follows, which may end in a sudden return of the disease, as mysterious as it disappeared. In one case, an inebriate signed the pledge and remained a sober man for ten years, 16 then suddenly, in the most adverse circumstances, drank again to great excess. In another case, an inebriate who had been the subject of much prayer and entreaty, all with no results, suddenly signed the pledge at the request of a child, and was a strong temperance man for fourteen years, then, from the invitation of a stranger, drank again to great excess. Another man, an inebriate, who had been in political life and exposed to great temptations, and who had successfully resisted for a long time, began to drink with his coachman in the barn, and died after great excess. These halts are more significant and uncertain in persons who have used spirits for years, and may be termed chronic cases. In other cases, where the drink excess is limited to a short time, these halts may be considered more permanent. They are practically cures, only their duration is a matter of uncertainty, and may terminate any time, should some peculiar combination of causes intervene. As in insanity, the same causes will pro- duce the same disease, with slight changes; so in inebriety, the physical conditions which produced inebriety at one time will do the same again in the same state and condition. When the causes of each case are fully studied, its natural termina- tion may be anticipated with some certainty ; then the mys- tery of these sudden changes of type and symptoms will become clear, and the tables of cases restored and cured will be better understood. SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. There are in the world eighty-eight different journals and papers devoted to the commerce, science, and art of spirit, wine, and beer making. Many of these journals treat the chemistry of the subjects exhaustively, and are con- stantly enlarging the boundaries of science in this direction. In all, there are about one hundred and eighty journals in the world (over a hundred of which are in this country) devoted to temperance, total abstinence, prohibition, and the cure of the evils from the use of drink. Not one of all these journals has risen above the dogma that the excessive use of spirits 17 comes from a moral and spiritual degeneration of the man. Not one of all these temperance journals discusses the subject from the teaching of modern science. The brewers and distillers are alert to take advantage of all new discoveries, and are even pressing scientific inquiry in their departments to its utmost limits, sustaining and conducting journals for this special object; while the temperance journals content themselves with theories, which are contradicted by all scientific progress and research. In 1876 the Journal of Inebriety appeared as the first, and is the only journal in the world to-day especially devoted to a scientific discussion of injuries from the exces- sive use of spirits. The British Medical Temperance Journal came into existence three years later, and occupies a very confusing field of half science and half morals. La Temperance occu- pies a similar field in France, only more devoted to statistics. Why all this temperance zeal, energy, and enterprise dis- played in so many journals should be so completely dwarfed, and restricted in their efforts, is simply due to the failure of recognizing any other than a moral causation for this evil. Inebriety and its evils will remain as long as the subject is only studied from the moral side. The Journal of Inebriety stands alone in its study of this subject from the standpoint of science, and from the teachings of modern science. THE DISEASE OF INEBRIETY —A NEW DIS- COVERY IN SCIENCE. For two thousand years the scientists and philosophers of the world pronounced the inebriate a madman, and many facts concerning the disease of inebriety were fully recog- nized. But not until 1840 were there any attempts to group these facts and bring them into the realm of practical science. In the same way, for long ages, the facts concern- ing the stars were known, but finally Copernicus organized them, and brought out the science of astronomy. For cen- 18 turies the Northman landed on our coasts, but Columbus discovered America, and placed the facts in possession of the world. Vaccination was known long before, but Jen- ner applied this knowledge to the principles of science and was truly the discoverer. Franklin and Morse were also great dicoverers, but they simply grouped and applied the facts of science, bringing them into common use for man- kind. Simpson and Morton, who first used chloroform and ether, were simply expert organizers of facts long known. Darwin, another great discoverer, has gone over the same fields where thousands have passed before, and opened up great mines of fact, and pointed out their meaning and their application to the problems of life. Thus, that which was known and was old in the experience of the world is new when organized on the lines of science and the practical relations of life. Thus history repeats itself, and the time had come when the facts of the disease of inebriety must be recognized, and the true meaning pointed out. Armies of miners and prospectors had gone over the field, but no one had opened up the rich veins of facts, and pointed out the laws which governed and controlled them. To Dr. J. E. Turner the world is indebted for this great work. He first formulated and organized the knowledge of the past, and placed it at the service of mankind. He both planned and built the first inebriate hospital in the world, and demonstrated that inebriety was a disease and could be cured by physical means. From that time a steady pro- cession of facts have been constantly arriving on the front line of science, and the reality and value of this discovery is slowly and surely taking its place among the great events of the age. As in all other discoveries and advances of science, it is challenged and must pass the ordeal of indifference and fierce denial before final acceptance. This first stage is past, and the second stage of contradiction, denial, and oppo- sition is rapidly drawing to a close. Dr. Turner’s discovery that inebriety was a disease and curable in special hospitals, is a fact generally accepted by the scientific world to-day. By-and-by contests of priority will begin. Some one will 19 come to the surface to show that this was no discovery, and that Dr. Turner was not the first one to organize and give vitality to the facts concerning inebriety. But happily all this tumult of criticisms and sneers comes from untrained intellects and non-experts in science. The pioneers whose lives have been one exhausting struggle with the facts gleaned on the hill-tops of science speak with bated breath and downcast eyes of the mysteries yet to be solved, while those who know nothing of the disease of inebriety or its relations to science still deny all this grand array of truth that is steadily centralizing around this fact. To the scien- tists this new discovery of facts has opened up a new conti- nent, and revealed new phases of mind and matter, and pointed out wide ranges of physiological and psychological facts, the application of which will change the race-march and the history of civilization. From the date of Dr. Turn- er’s discovery, inebriety has come into the realm of science, and the great facts can no more command attention along the levels of supernaturalism and superstition; they have passed up above the fogs and mists of theory and delusion. SENILE DEMENTIA IN INEBRIETY. In all cases of inebriety many and varied degrees of dementia and degeneration are present. The following case is given as an extreme type, and unusual, except where asso- ciated with other well-marked insanities. James P. was brought to me for an opinion, with this history: He was twenty-one years of age; came from a neurotic ancestry. His grandfather on his mother’s side died an inebriate and his father was a moderate drinker. He graduated at Yale College at nineteen years of age, and soon after entered upon a career of general dissipation. He traveled and drank to excess continuously for the next two years. He was sent to an insane asylum in England, and finally was returned home. His condition was one of restlessness and suspicion of injury from others. His memory was very defective, and he alternately laughed and looked grave and 20 angry. He would commence some remark, and leave the idea and go on to some other topic, always ending with a boast of his powers and capacity to commit some great deed. He exhibited some muscular strength for a few moments, then would be exhausted. He would start out for exercise and would have to procure a carriage, being unable to walk back. He insisted on having spirits every day, and was given about a half a pint of whisky or brandy in twenty-four hours. All efforts to withdraw this provoked violent opposi- tion and shouting. Nearly a year after his return home he was brought to me, with the following appearance: His face was that of a man over sixty, covered with lines and wrin- kles, thickened and in folds; the hair was nearly gone; the beard was short and straggling, the nose was flat and shrunken, and the eyelids and eyebrows had fallen out; the teeth were decayed, and the abdomen enlarged, also the mus- cles of the leg and arm were emaciated. The facial expres- sion was one of vacancy and vacuity. He was also bowed over, and walked in a trembling, hesitating way. He talked slowly and would stop in the middle of a sentence, and seemed to have a mixture of aphonic, amnesic, and paretic symptoms. When spirits were refused he would shout some sentence or word in a loud discordant tone, and keep it up until, for the sake of peace, it would be given him. He never seemed intoxicated, but would be quiet and stupid when given a quantity of spirits. His friends succeeded in gradu- ally withdrawing the spirits and substituting bitter drinks in the place, but the same mental enfeeblement and dementia ended in death from pneumonia a few months after. This case was noted for the profound degeneration and dementia unattended with any special delusion or mania. It is com- mon observation that inebriates who inherit a very defective organization always have symptoms of dementia and senile degeneration.