214 NERVOUS ALCOHOLIC DISEASES. 



mad; in the intervals, utterly prostrate, sleepless, and a 

 prey to indescribable terrors of the imagination. 



Repeated drunkenness usually ends in an attack of 

 this disease, but it is more frequently the result of con- 

 tinued hard drinking in persons who have never become 

 actually drunk. It is especially apt to occur in those 

 who drink to "keep them up" while engaged in hard 

 mental work. 



Dipsomania is a diseased condition, often only showing 

 itself at long intervals, and marked by a mad passion 

 for alcohol. However disgusting a liquid containing 

 alcohol may be, the dipsomaniac will swallow it greedily. 

 While the fit is on him he is as irresponsible as a mad- 

 man, and his only safety is in being restrained as one. 



This disease is sometimes produced by indulgence in 

 drink, but is more often inherited from parents who 

 have been drunkards. Sufferers from it are entitled 

 to sympathy to which the common drunkard has no 

 claim. 



Paralysis, epilepsy, and insanity often result from drink- 

 ing. There is, in fact, no kind of madness or of nervous 

 disease which may not be, and has not been over and 

 over again, produced by alcoholic drinks. Many of 

 these diseases have other causes also, but none so fre- 

 quent as alcohol. 



Perhaps the greatest evil of intemperance is that the 

 drunkard so often transmits to his innocent children 

 some form of nervous disease. In the families of such 

 are found the weak in body, weak in mind, weak in will, 



somania? Symptoms? Treatment? Cause? Name other nervous 

 diseases produced by drinking. What is said of the causes of mad- 

 ness and nervous diseases? Of the transmission of such diseases to 

 a drunkard's children ? What do we find in the families of drunkards ? 



