732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ruately, unless there are considerable interruptions, the individual 

 or the family is stamped out, as is every individual or family 

 which pursues a too restricted, too artificial, or too one-sided 

 career. 







SPECIFICS FOR THE CURE OF INEBRIETY. 



By T. D. CKOTHERS. M. D. 



W'HEN any great truth begins to receive public recognition 

 it is always first welcomed by the credulous and visionary 

 enthusiast, who surrounds it with the most extravagant expecta- 

 tions. This brings out the charlatan and empiric who studies to 

 turn all such facts and conditions to his own personal profit. In 

 this way the credulity of the one and the charlatanism of the other 

 envelop the truth with a confusion and mystery that often conceal 

 it for a long time. Only the student and the scientist realize that 

 behind this glamour and illusion there is a uniform evolutionary 

 movement along different lines from that suggested to the popular 

 mind. 



The growth of truth may be compared to that of plants first 

 seen in the seed, then the stalk, the shrub, and finally the tree, al- 

 ways following a distinct and fixed line of march through separate 

 periods and stages. The first stage is that of indifference, neglect, 

 and denial. Then follows the credulous period, in which the truth 

 is partially recognized and accepted, with extravagant conceptions, 

 associated with wild empirical efforts to incorporate it into practi- 

 cal life. Finally, the truth is fully understood, studied, and ac- 

 cepted, and becomes a part of the world's great possessions. This 

 is the natural history of every new fact of science and every new 

 discovery concerning the evolution of humanity. Often these 

 stages extend over long periods of time and are unrecognized ex- 

 cept by a few persons ; or they follow each other rapidly, but al- 

 ways along the same lines. 



The dawning truth that the drink evil is a disease, and curable 

 as other diseases are, has passed the first period of neglect, indif- 

 ference, and denial, and has come to the second stage of partial 

 recognition and acceptance. The same army of the credulous, 

 the enthusiasts, and marvel-hunters are welcoming this fact, and 

 the same wild expectations of its practical possibilities fill the 

 air. This is followed by the same old charlatanism and empiric 

 efforts to make personal profit out of these truths by the use of 

 the same old quackish means and methods. 



These efforts are prominent by the same assumption of supe- 

 rior knowledge of discovery of new facts, of new remedies, and 

 new methods, all of which are concealed. Then follow claims of 



