276 EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



is his nervous system; the cerebrospinal, sympathetic, and 

 vasomotor being intimately interwoven and connected, com- 

 posing the whole. The great nervous center, the brain, with 

 its hemispheres, its gray and white matter, is the most com- 

 plex of all complexities. The nerve fibers not only connect 

 every cell with every other cell, but unite all nervous struc- 

 tures into one, making the entire body a complete whole, and 

 forming close and direct sympathy between the intellect and 

 the physical organization. 



" The mind and body are so intimately connected that ex- 

 hausting excess of either acts and reacts on the other. Exces- 

 sive work, either intellectual or physical, the sudden loss of 

 property, intense disappointment, great trouble, unrequited 

 affections, etc., may impart a shock to the senses through the 

 mind, which, extending to the molecules of the brain, disturbs 

 their normal action ; and a sufferer thus worn and debilitated 

 with the cares of life, with an enfeebled will-power, the result 

 of nervous exhaustion, experiences a craving for some form 

 of stimulant to ' brace him up.' He is on the verge of ine- 

 briety, or of insanity, or both ; and if he indulges in alcoholic 

 beverages he becomes an inebriate. Any disease inherited or 

 acquired, acting either directly or indirectly upon the nervous 

 system, may act as the predisposing, exciting, or complicating 

 and protracting cause of alcoholic inebriety. 



" Inebriety is often, too often, observed to flourish in the 

 richest and most promising soil. The clergyman, the lawyer, 

 the editor, the student, and all others who use their intellec- 

 tual faculties to excess, as well as the mechanic, the laborer, 

 and those who excessively exert their physical system, have 

 unnatural longings for something to restore the exhausted 

 energies of mind and body. 



" The excessive worry of one man, the exhausting excesses 

 of another, and the overwork of others, lead to organic lesions 



