POPULAR MISCELLANY 



571 



to fortify himself with antidotes. He may 

 also be hung to a flexible rod by hooks 

 stuck in his ribs, or by his thumbs and 

 toes, and kept awake for a week at a time. 

 After this course, he is permitted to assist 

 his master by beating the drum around the 

 sick man's hammock, and howling to drive 

 away the evil spirits. His final trial is the 

 drinking of a decoction of carrion and to- 

 bacco-juice, after which he is regarded as 

 fully qualified to work upon the fears of 

 the tribe, and extort from them all the ser- 

 vice and tithes and tribute, and levy all the 

 black-mail his victims can be forced to pay. 

 As for medical treatment, there is none of 

 it, not even the herb-doctoring; and this 

 constitutes the chief advantage of the sys- 

 tem. 



Treatment for Inebriate Patients. — At 



the last meeting of the American Social 

 Science Association, T. D. Crothers, M. D., 

 read a paper in which he stated that, by a 

 strange shifting of events, insanity, which 

 was supposed to be a spiritual affection un- 

 til a comparatively recent date, is now stud- 

 ied as a physical disorder ; while, inebriety, 

 which was regarded as a disease twenty 

 centuries ago, is still invested with the su- 

 perstition of a spiritual origin. If it were 

 a moral disorder, it would diminish with the 

 growth of morality and intelligence, but, not- 

 withstanding the advance in these direc- 

 tions, it is rapidly increasing. The reve- 

 nue returns for twenty years bring out this 

 fact clearly. In 1862 the revenue collected 

 from liquors was six millions ; in 1882 it 

 had reached eighty-six millions, an increase 

 far beyond that of the population ; yet this 

 does not indicate the enormous increase in 

 sales by the local dealer, of which there are 

 no records. The law assumes the correct- 

 ness of the theological theory of inebriety, 

 which afiirms it to be a vice. The remedy, 

 of course, is punishment by fine and im- 

 prisonment, which never cures or prevents 

 drinking, but, on the contrary, weakens and 

 enfeebles the victim, rendering him less cura- 

 ble. Very much in the same way, the pun- 

 ishment of insanity and witchcraft always 

 made its victim worse. The hygienic influ- 

 enccs of jails and prisons are wanting in 

 every respect, and adverse to any general 

 healthy growth of body and mind. The only 



compensation to the inebriate is the removal 

 of alcohol, and the state, in doing this, 

 most terribly unfits him, and makes him 

 more helpless for the future. The heredi- 

 tary nature of many cases of inebriety is 

 well established. It is estimated that over 

 sixty per cent of all inebriates inherit a de- 

 fective brain and nerve organization. Mod- 

 erate drinking always leaves an impress ou 

 the next generation. In heredity from in- 

 ebriety there is transmitted a special nerve 

 defect, which, from certain exciting causes, 

 will always develop into inebriety, or one of 

 its family group of disorders — consump- 

 tion, insanity, pauperism, criminality, etc. 

 Another form of injury that is obscure, but 

 equally prominent as a cause of inebriety, 

 is mental shock, that is, the effect of sudden 

 grief, alarm, loss, sorrow, or other depress- 

 ing emotion, which brings on a form of 

 nervous derangement that finds relief in 

 the narcotic effect of alcohol. Children 

 from inebriate, insane, or defective parents 

 require a special education. It is a fact 

 beyond all doubt that the education of to- 

 day, applied irrespective of the natural ca- 

 pacity of the person, and along unphysio- 

 logical lines, literally destroys and unfits a 

 large class for healthy and rational living. 

 Probably the largest class of inebriates in 

 this country is without means of support. 

 Dr. Crothers recommends that this class 

 should come under legal recognition, and be 

 committed to workhouse hospitals located 

 in the country. These hospitals should be 

 training-schools, in -niliich medical care, oc- 

 cupation, and physical and mental training 

 could be applied for years, or until the in- 

 mates had so far recovered as to be able to 

 become good citizens and self-supporting. 



Old-AVorld Origin of the American In- 

 dians. — M. Dabry de Thiersant, a French 

 author, has published a book on the " Ori- 

 gin of the Indians of the New World and 

 of their Civilization," in which he asserts 

 that " everything authorizes the supposition 

 that the New World was peopled, at an 

 epoch difficult to determine, by colonies of 

 the Mongolian race, coming over by way of 

 Behring's Strait or of the Aleutian Islands." 

 They were followed by the immigration of 

 another race which played an important 

 part in the development of American civili- 



