122 PHYSIOLOGY AND TEMPERANCE. 



condition the whole of the vital organs are in a state of 

 disease. The heart's action is feeble and unsteady. The heat 

 of the body, which in previous stages was slightly increased, 

 at least on the surface, is now reduced below the natural 

 temperature. The blood-vessels are over-loaded, from want of 

 proper circulation ; a state of lethargy sets in, and he becomes 

 entirely unconscious. The poor unfortunate is now "dead 

 drunk," and the fourth stage is reached. 



THE FOURTH STAGE. A person "dead drunk " may be said 

 to be at the portal of death itself. Everything that charac- 

 terizes the man is dead. The senses are all dead. The 

 voluntary muscles are the same as dead. Raise the arm, 

 and it will fall helpless, like that of a dead person. Place 

 your hand on the surface of his body, and it feels as cold 

 as death. Excepting for the heavy, labored breathing and 

 rattling in the throat, he might be considered actually dead. 

 But there remains just enough vitality in the nervous system 

 to act upon the respiratory centre and keep the heart in 

 action in a feeble, uncertain way. All the other powers of 

 life are entirely in abeyance. A person in such a state is 

 liable to die at any moment. The dose of alcohol he has 

 taken may be sufficient to extinguish what little life remains, 

 and thus close the fourth stage. His utter helplessness also 

 exposes him to death by accident. Lying out in the bitter 

 cold, he readily perishes. If he falls into water, he has no 

 power to save himself, and drowning ends the scene. Com- 

 pletely dazed, he stumbles about and, perhaps, falls in the 

 middle of the road or on a railway track, and there he lies, 

 unconscious of the approaching vehicle or train which will 

 crush out what life remains. 



Sir Benjamin Richardson, in classifying the effects of alco- 

 hol into four . stages, says, when referring to the fourth : 

 "The last stage of all, the stage just short of death, the 

 fourth stage of the action of alcohol, is clearly not only un- 



