120 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



the effect of the dinner in drafting off a part of the blood supply from 

 the brain to the stomach, but chiefly from the benumbing effect of 

 the alcohol that he has imbibed on his highest nerve regions, his 

 mind is not as clear nor as vigorous as it is wont to be. The con- 

 fusion is not great; he can make an after-dinner speech of average 

 intelligence, can reckon his legal cab fare, and so forth, but he will 

 not trust himself to settle a delicate matter of negotiation. He feels 

 that the keen edge of his intellect is blunted. It is the very high- 

 est of all his intellectual faculties that have been dulled. Similarly 

 on the bodily side — he can walk perfectly straight, can light a cigar 

 without bungling, and button his overcoat with facility; but when 

 he tries to play billiards he finds 'his hand is out.' He is not cer- 

 tain of his strokes. He can no longer regulate his movements with 

 the nice precision that is required for success. Of bodily, as of men- 

 tal capabilities, he has lost the most elaborate, the most oelicate, the 

 most precise. At the same time that he shows these signs of defect 

 in his highest nerve arrangements, he shows some sign of over- 

 action of somewhat lower arrangements. By the annulling and placing 

 out of action of the highest, control is removed from those just below 

 the highest, which are consequently 'let go' and tend to over-act. The 

 staid and self-enclosed man of business becomes an expansive, jolly 

 companion. He gets on back-slapping, rib-punching terms with his 

 convives. He tells little anecdotes about his past career, with winks, 

 and wheezes, and warnings that they are not to be repeated to his 

 wife. His discretion and reticence are diminished by the loss of his 

 highest centers and he exhibits a phase of character inferior to his 

 usual standard. No one would call this state of things insanity; 

 but for all that it is the beginning of a process which, if continued, 

 would become insanity. It is the point at which divergence from the 

 processes of health begins to occur. It is not insanity, but it is the 

 rudiment of insanity. Let us trace the process further and see what 

 it develops into." 



When one looks at tills subject from the standpoint of educa- 

 tion he sees that the university, student less than any one else 

 should need to quicken and intensify the psychic life by the 

 employment of an artificial excitant. While it is the testimony 

 of those who should know that the initial effects of wine are 

 stimulating to thought and feeling, and there is a general buoy- 

 ancy and perhaps elevation in the entire being, yet this advan- 

 tage can be secured in other ways more normal and therefore 

 more beneficial to the finest quality of mind. That mental 



