250 HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



ject loses the power to control his own actions, and he 

 is willing to be led by very slight influences. Last to 

 fail, as a rule, is intellectual power. It may show itself 

 after prolonged excessive indulgence, even after the 

 body is become a wreck. Sometimes it is, in a fitful 

 way, present to the last. The drunkard is indifferent 

 to all social and other questions which give interest to 

 the lives and intercourse of the healthy. His conversa- 

 tion is broken and his ideas fragmentary. Finally, the 

 memory fails in a marked degree, and he soon reaches 

 a stage of mental degeneration which renders him unfit 

 for any useful calling." 



The relation of the use of alcoholic beverages to 

 poverty, crime, suffering, immorality, debauchery, and 

 insanity is too well known to require any special dis- 

 cussion here. It is believed that alcoholism in the 

 parent is often the cause of feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, 

 and nervous disorders of all kinds in the offspring. 

 Dr. Frick of Zurich says that about fifty per cent of 

 the inmates of institutions for feeble-minded children, 

 for epileptics, and for deaf mutes are the children of 

 drinking parents. 



170. Tobacco. Tobacco, whether chewed, snuffed, 

 or smoked in a pipe, cigar, or cigarette, contains a nar- 

 cotic poison called nicotine which has an injurious effect 

 upon the nervous system, especially of the young. It 

 stunts the growth of the body as a whole, irritates and 

 weakens the nervous system, makes the user cross and 

 peevish, and unfits him for the best society. Upon the 

 adult the effect may be less marked, and yet the use of 



