228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the very moment when some imj^ortant work, requiring all the best 

 powers of the intellect, has to be performed, and rendering its perform- 

 ance either imperfect or completely impossible. As soon as the person 

 goes to bed he falls asleep, and sleeps like a log till morning, when 

 he rises with difficulty, feeling more exhausted than when he went 

 to bed the night before, with perhaps a little tightness or pain over 

 the forehead, eyes, or temples. After breakfast he feels somewhat 

 revived, and will work comfortably for a short time, but about one 

 and a half or two hours after the meal weariness overtakes him, again 

 passing off after it has lasted a variable time. During the day this is 

 repeated, fits of more or less energy alternating with periods of lan- 

 guor and exhaustion. These languid fits may be noticed two or three 

 hours after lunch or dinner, and the sufferer is not unfrequently tempt- 

 ed to have recourse to the decanter of sherry or the brandy-bottle, not 

 only to obtain relief from the feeling of personal discomfort, but to 

 supply the energy which he feels to be necessary to enable him to do 

 the work he has in hand. But this is a ruinous course to adopt, for 

 not only does it pave the way to habits of confirmed drunkenness, and 

 leads to tissue-changes which will ultimately abolish the functional 

 activity of the most important organs of the body, and bring the indi- 

 vidual to a premature grave ; it enables him to do his work only im- 

 perfectly at the time. After an application to the decanter or bottle 

 his powers may seem to himself to be as great as or greater than usual, 

 but this is to a considerable extent a subjective feeling only, as he will 

 probably be able to discover by results. 



Now, how is it that such a change has come over the man in a few 

 months, so that he seems to be a different individual from the one who 

 returned, bright and lively, from his autumn holiday ? How is it that 

 the even-temj^ered man has become irritable, the clear-headed man 

 muddled, the active lazy, the sober perhaps a tippler, and the cheerful 

 and buoyant depressed and melancholy; that the brain performs all its 

 functions with difficulty, and the mind is so altered that it does not 

 seem to be that of the same individual ? And yet, after all, the man 

 is the same, and the brain is the same, at least in its essential structure, 

 as it was a few months ago, and as it will be in a few months more, 

 after another holiday has again put it in good working order. What 

 has happened to it in the mean time to cause such a dreadful alter- 

 ation ? Not only does the brain seem exhausted, but the whole sys- 

 tem appears to .be languid and weak ; instead of the man being able 

 for a twenty or thirty miles' walk, one of a mile or two will produce 

 fatigue, and sometimes an intense languor is felt without any exertion 

 at all. And yet all this time he may have been trying to keep up his 

 strength. He takes butcher's meat three times a day, perhaps also 

 strong soups, to say nothing of wine, or brandy-and-soda, to pick him 

 up. His tissues ought to be getting sufficient nourishment to enable 

 them to do their work, and yet it is evident that they are not in a con- 



