The Nervous System 233 



355. Evil Results of Alcoholism inherited. Children may 

 inherit from drinking parents a disordered nervous sys- 

 tem which makes them more liable to acquire a craving 

 for strong drink. Careful statistics of a large number 

 of families descended from drunkards show that a large 

 proportion of them give undoubted proof of well-marked 

 hereditary neuroses, i.e., diseases of the nervous system. 

 This heredity is proved by the unusual prevalence in such 

 families of infant mortality, convulsions, epilepsy, hysteria, 

 obscure brain diseases, and imbecility. 1 



356. Opium and its Common Forms. Opium is a gum- 

 like substance, the dried juice of the unripe capsule of a 

 variety of poppy which is grown chiefly in Asia Minor and 

 India. It is usually seen as a powder of a yellowish-brown 

 color. 



Morphine, a white powder, is a very condensed form of 

 opium. Laudanum is an alcoholic solution of opium. 

 Paregoric is a diluted and flavored form of an alcoholic 

 tincture of opium. 



357. Poisonous Effects of Opium. Opium is often used 

 solely for its narcotic and intoxicating influence. The drug 

 thus used lays its benumbing hand upon the brain. The 

 mind is befogged ; thought and reasoning are dulled. 



The moral sense after a time may become benumbed ; 

 persons once honest resort to fraud and theft, if need be, 

 to obtain the drug, till at last health, character, and life 

 itself all become a pitiful wreck. 



1 After careful examination of the whole question, physiologists and 

 among physiologists I include those who maintain alcohol may be useful, 

 as well as those who hold that it is harmful have come to the conclusion 

 that the principal action of alcohol is to blunt sensation, and to remove 

 what we may call the power of inhibition by blunting the higher centers of 

 the brain. DR. G. SIMS WOODHEAD, Professor of Pathology in Cambridge 

 University, England. 



