THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 123 



natural, but a stage of dreadful disorder and of danger. It 

 is clear, surely, to the simplest mind, to the mind of the 

 youngest child who can read this book, that a person who is 

 lying down, unable to move naturally, unable to hear plainly, 

 unable to see correctly, unable to speak distinctly, and unable 

 to do anything more than breathe and live it is clear, I 

 repeat, to the simplest mind, that a person so placed must 

 be in a state of danger and disease as bad as any that could 

 be caused by those accidents we all shrink from, accidents 

 that wound and stun and kill. 



" If we look at the whole course of the action of alcohol 

 from the first stage to the last, we can see no good whatever 

 that is supplied by it. Every step that seems harmless is, at 

 best, nonsensical ; and every step that seems to be hurtful, is 

 hurtful beyond anything that I can explain." 



19. Results Of the Use of Alcohol It will be ob- 

 served that the four consecutive stages gradually merge from 

 one into the other. There is no distinct line to mark the close 

 of the one and the beginning of the next, and there is no 

 uniformity amongst those who drink. There are many who 

 daily use alcoholic drinks who do not experience 'the several 

 stages described, and there are some who never take enough 

 to pass beyond the first stage, but in any of these there is 

 always the danger of overstepping the limits each has pre- 

 scribed for himself. The taste for such drinks, when once 

 established, is with difficulty, in many cases, overcome. With 

 many others the desire to take more and more is irresistible. 

 There are not a few who never take enough to cause intoxica- 

 tion, but are more or less under the influence of alcohol every 

 day. They have acquired the habit in other words, the 

 brain has undergone certain subtle changes which constitute 

 a disease. Such persons are afflicted with what is known as 

 alcoholism. 



This disease may be acquired in the way mentioned, or it 



