220 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF MAN 



which show that both these elements in mental work are 

 influenced by the use of alcohol. 



Several men who were allowed to drink no alcohol util- 

 ized half an hour daily for six days in adding figures. 

 Their ability to add increased each day. On the seventh 

 day the work was begun under the influence of alcohol. 

 In spite of the skill gained in the previous practice, their 

 accuracy did not increase, but on the contrary began to de- 

 crease rapidly. On the nineteenth day the use of alcohol 

 was stopped, and immediately an improvement in the work 

 manifested itself ; but on the twenty-sixth day, when the 

 use of alcohol was resumed, a decided decrease in the 

 power of adding manifested itself. 1 



It is difficult to estimate how efficient each of us may 

 become in our life work, but one thing is certain, that if 

 we use alcohol, we shall lose that perfect control over our 

 nervous systems, which enabled the two players to be so 

 efficient in the ball game. It is also equally certain that 

 if we use alcohol, we shall find fewer men willing to em- 

 ploy ns in places of responsibility, not only because of our 



1 Schiller was wont to say, " Wine never invents anything," and Helmholtz, 

 one of the greatest observers and thinkers of the nineteenth century, noted in 

 himself the effect of alcohol in interfering with the highest powers of thought 

 and conception. At the celebration of his seventieth birthday in Berlin, when 

 the courts of Europe and the whole scientific world joined to confer numerous 

 honors upon Helmholtz, he described in the course of a speech the coudition 

 under which his highest scientific thoughts had matured and come to fruition. 

 He said : 



" Frequently they slyly enter the mind without one's immediately attach- 

 ing any importance to them ; later some very simple accident or circumstance 

 may be sufficient to reveal to us, when and under what circumstances they 

 arose, or they may be present without our even knowing from whence they 

 came. At other times they come to us suddenly, without any exertion what- 

 ever, just as an inspiration. As far as my experience is concerned, they 

 never came to a wearied brain, or at the writing desk. They were especially 

 inclined to appear to me while indulging in a quiet walk in the sunshine or 

 over the forest-clad mountains, but the smallest quantity of alcohol seemed to 

 scare them away." 



