NARCOTICS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 135 



in mind as to be incapable of attending to business. Many 

 a man has been compelled to give up his business because 

 he has been a steady drinker in such small amounts that 

 even his friends have not suspected him. His trouble is 

 really a beginning insanity. 



262. Delirium tremens. There is a disease called 

 delirium tremens which any drinker may get. Hard 

 drinking alone may cause it, but an injury r may bring it on 

 in any drinker. Delirium tremens is a disease in which 

 the victim imagines that he sees all manner of foul animals 

 coming to torment him. The disease is one of the most 

 terrible known, and is very dangerous to life. 



263. Heredity. Another evil, even greater than the 

 others, is that the effects of drinking are handed down to 

 one's children. Nervousness and weakness of mind and 

 body often result. But worst of all, children often grow up 

 with a desire for drinking. Yet no person has the right to 

 drink because his father drank. It is within the power of 

 any person to abstain from drink, if he will. 



264. Drinking a disease. The drinking habit is a 

 disease of the mind. While a person should be punished 

 for the crimes he commits while drunk, he should not be 

 punished for drinking any more than an insane man should 

 be punished for being insane. Neither should you laugh 

 at the drinking habit any more than you should laugh at 

 any other kind of sickness. The friends of a drinker must 

 be the same comforters and helpers that they would be if 

 he were sick in any other way. He must be led to use his 

 will in putting away the habit. He should be made to 

 know that he is sick and unfit for work. When people 

 cease to be amused at drunkards and learn to treat them 

 as sick in mind, drinking will become unpopular, for men 

 do not like to be called sick. Fifty years ago men were 



