382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A momentary dig-ression may be permissible at this point ; it will 

 help to illustrate what is to be said shortly. In an elaborate paper on 

 alcohol, read before the Medical Society of London last winter, by Dr. 

 Lauder Brunton, F. R. S., to which was awarded the society's medal, 

 it was stated that the first eflfects of alcohol are felt in the higher or 

 controlling portions of the brain. The consequences are, that the lower 

 or animal impulses manifest themselves, freed from the control to which 

 they are ordinarily subject. Such are the first symptoms of intoxica- 

 tion, after the stage of exhilaration has been passed. Then the motor 

 centres are implicated ; and complex movements, like walking, ordi- 

 narily habitual, require a conscious effort for their execution, and even 

 then the performance is imperfect. After this the lower portions at 

 the base of the brain are involved, leaving nothing but the respiration 

 and the circulation in action; while still further intoxication arrests 

 these movements, and the organism perishes. 



It is this effect upon the higher centres of the brain Avhich induces 

 the most disastrous social outcomes of alcoholic indulgence. The per- 

 son who takes alcohol to excess becomes a lower form of being by com- 

 parison with those around him. This is seen alike in the individual 

 and in the aggregate. There is a diminution so brought about in the 

 power to exercise self-control, and to estimate aright the claims of the 

 future upon the present ; there is produced a state of thrif tlessness and 

 recklessness, and a lack of consideration for others. These effects are 

 demonstrated distinctly in two out of many practices. The one is that 

 form of improvident self-indulgence — early and premature marriage, 

 where the rite is robbed of all sacredness, and degraded to a mere form 

 of license for unrestrained indulgence. This is common in the pit dis- 

 tricts of Durham, where comparative children present themselves to be 

 married, who can scarcely have realized the gravity of the step they 

 are taking. Another form, sadly too common, is that of living in any 

 hovel where the rent is small, so that a larger sum weekly remains 

 over to be spent in drink. This is especially found amid the Irish in 

 towns. The moral effects of decent houses, with sufficient sleeping ac- 

 commodation for the two sexes, are well known; the disastrous im- 

 moral effects of huddling different sexes and ages together, from want 

 of proper sleeping-space, are equally notorious. Not only are these evil 

 consequences of such overcrowding produced, but, when alcohol gives 

 the rein to the passions, these consequences are aggravated and inten- 

 sified. There are then blen-ded the direct and the indirect outcomes of 

 alcoholic excess, each of which aggravates and adds to the other. 



It is unnecessary to multiply illustrations of the deterioration of 

 character induced by alcoholic indulgence. Just one more may be ad- 

 duced. When recently on a visit to the South Yorkshire Asylum, near 

 Sheffield, Dr. Mitchell, its accomplished superintendent, informed me 

 that even in the victims of mania and general paralysis there was a 

 marked contrast in the degree of violence manifested betwixt the pa- 



