POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



717 



the atmosphere being removed, the gases 

 confined within the earth exert a stronger 

 pressure on the crust, or flow out and are 

 inflamed when they reach a light. Mr. 

 Baldwin Latham has found that the streams 

 flowing through the chalk, even in dry sea- 

 sons, give increased supplies of water when 

 the barometer is falling, and diminished sup- 

 plies when it is rising. 



Mental Shoek and Inebriety. Dr. T. D. 

 Crothers, Superintendent of Walnut Lodge, 

 Hartford, Connecticut, has a paper in the 

 " Quarterly Journal of Inebriety," the ob- 

 ject of which is to show how psychical trau- 

 matism, or injury from mental agitation or 

 powerful emotion, an agency whose opera- 

 tion is not generally recognized, is often an 

 active cause of inebriety. He marks two 

 distinct periods in all cases of inebriety, the 

 first of which, beginning somewhere in the 

 past, is unknown and not noticeable to or- 

 dinary observers, and terminates with the 

 first excessive use of alcohol. The second 

 period starts from this point, is noted by the 

 occasional or continuous excessive use of 

 spirits, is terminated only by recovery or 

 death, and is the period which comes under 

 the observation of friends and relatives, and 

 can be accurately studied. The causes and 

 conditions in the first, or neurotic stage, are 

 often as varied and complex as those which 

 produce insanity, and often, notwithstand- 

 ing their obscurity, present distinct intima- 

 tions of inebriety far in advance. " A cer- 

 tain progressive march may be noted, often 

 broken by long obscure halts or precipitous 

 strides, changing into various forms and 

 manifestations of disease. The neurotic 

 stage will be marked, in most cases, by 

 nerve exhaustion, instability of nerve-force, 

 and nutrient perversions. Not unfrequently 

 delusions and hallucinations about foods and 

 drinks are unmistakable symptoms. Often 

 persons who have never used spirits, and 

 become fanatical in their efforts to reform 

 inebriates, are in this stage, and sooner or 

 later glide into the next one." Psychical 

 traumatism may be considered both as a di- 

 rect cause of inebriety and as an indirect 

 cause, as which it develops conditions that 

 rapidly merge into the disorder. A num- 

 ber of incidents that have come under the 

 author's observation, some of which are ex- 



tremely striking, arc given as illustrative of 

 its operation from both points of view. In 

 all of them inebriety has immediately or 

 gradually supervened in persons who would 

 have been the last to be suspected of liabil- 

 ity to it, after some intense mental shock 

 or surprise or information of disaster. The 

 usual explanation of such cases, says Dr. 

 Crothers, would be that the victims drank 

 from despair and discouragement, "but a 

 general study will show a state of psychical 

 pain and agony for which alcohol alone acts 

 as a sedative. It very commonly appears, 

 in a study of cases of inebriety, that the pa- 

 tient will refer to some event of life, or dis- 

 ease, from which he is confident that he lost 

 some power or force which he has never re- 

 gained. These incidents do not come out as 

 reasons for his drinking, but as facts per- 

 taining to his vigor or power of endurance." 

 Such cases of loss of power are found in 

 every community, " and of course do not all 

 become inebriates, but, like a large class of 

 eccentrics, are on the border-line, or inner 

 circle, shading into inebriety or insanity. A 

 large number of persons engaged in the 

 late civil war, who suffered hardship and 

 mal-nutrition, became inebriates years after, 

 following the psychical and physical trau- 

 matism received at that time. The effects 

 of commercial disasters, of bankruptcies, 

 and panics in Wall Street, can be seen in 

 inebriate or insane asylums. In the asy- 

 lum at Bingharnton, New York, for inebri- 

 ates, at one time were eighteen cases whose 

 inebriety could be clearly traced to a great 

 money-panic in Wall Street known as ' Black 

 Friday.' Many of these cases were purely 

 from psychical traumatism, others were al- 

 ready in the dark circle close to inebriety, 

 and needed but a slight cause to precipitate 

 them over. Political failures are also fer- 

 tile fields for the growth of inebriety and 

 the action of psychical influences. Annu- 

 ally a large class, after the close of a cam- 

 paign, find themselves literally inebriates, 

 and, if they have money, go to water-cures, 

 inebriate asylums, or to the far West, and 

 begin life again. The inebriety is often of 

 the paroxysmal or dipsomaniacal type, with 

 free intervals of sobriety that give renewed 

 energy to the delusive hope that recovery 

 will follow the bidding of the will. A class 

 of moderate or occasional drinkers are al- 



