48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Individuals, too, should be treated on that plan, and, next to abso- 

 lute abstinence from stimulating poisons, the most essential condition 

 of a permanent cure is a liberal allowance of healthful stimulants^ in 

 the form of diverting pastimes and out-door exercise. For the chief 

 danger of a relapse is not the attractiveness of intoxication, but the 

 misery of the after-effect, the depressing reaction that follows upon 

 the abnormal excitement, and for several weeks seems daily to gain 

 strength against the reformatory resolves of the penitent. This apathy 

 of the unstimulated system can become more intolerable than positive 

 pain, and embitter existence till, in spite of prayers and pledges, its 

 victims either relapse into alcohol or resort to cognate stimulants — 

 chloral, absinthe, or opium. In stress of such temptations the prophy- 

 lactic influence of a mind-stimulating occupation is almost as effective 

 as is the deliquium of disappointed love. Ennui is the chief coadjutor 

 of the poison-fiend. On the Militar - Grenze, the "Military Frontier" 

 of Eastern Austria, a soldier's life is a ceaseless guerrilla-war against 

 smugglers, outlaws, and Bulgarian bed-bugs ; yet hundreds of German 

 officers solicit transfer to that region as to a refuge from the tempta- 

 tions of garrison tedium, deliberately choosing a concentration of all 

 discomforts, as a Schnapps-Kur, a whisky-cure, as they express it with 

 frank directness ; and for similar purposes many of Fremont's contem- 

 poraries took the prairie-trail to the adventure-land of the far West. 

 Frederick Gerstaecker found that the California rum-shops got their 

 chief patronage from unsuccessful miners ; the successful ones had 

 better stimulants. 



For the first month or two the convalescent should not content 

 himself with negative safeguards, but make up his mind that tempta- 

 tions will come, and come in the most grievous form, and that active 

 warfare is nearly always the safest plan. The alcohol-habit is a phys- 

 ical disease, and a Rocky Mountain excursion, a visit to the diggings, 

 a month of sea-side rambles and surf -baths, will do more to help a con- 

 vert across the slough of despond than a season-ticket to all the lecture- 

 halls of the Christian Temperance Union. 



But such excursions should be undertaken in company. Soldiers 

 in the ranks will endure hardships that would melt the valor of any 

 solitary hero ; and in the presence of manly companions the spirit of 

 emulation and " approbativeness " will sustain even an enervated fel- 

 low. The esprit de corps of a temperance society is more cogent than 

 its vows. 



An appeal to the passions is the next best thing. Everything is 

 fair in the war against alcohol : love, ambition, pride, and even ac- 

 quisitiveness, may be utilized to divert the mind from a more bane- 

 ful propensity — for a time, at least. For, after the tempter has been 

 kept at bay for a couple of months, its power will reach a turning- 

 point ; the nervous irritability will subside, the outraged digestive 

 organs resume their normal functions, and the potency of the poison- 



