414 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ORGANS OF SENSE 



four to five hours. . . . Kraepelin found that it was only more or less 

 automatic work, such as reading aloud, which was quickened by alcohol, 

 though even this was rendered less trustworthy and accurate." Again: 

 " Kraepelin had always shared the popular belief that a small quantity 

 of alcohol (one to two teaspoonfuls) had an accelerating effect on the 

 activity of his mind, enabling him to perform test operations, as the adding 

 and subtracting and learning of figures more quickly. But when he came 

 to measure with his instruments the exact period and time occupied, he 

 found, to his astonishment, that he had accomplished these mental opera- 

 tions, not more, but less, quickly than before. . . . Numerous further 

 experiments were carried out in order to test this matter, and these proved 

 that alcohol lengthens the time taken to perform complex mental processes, 

 while by a singular illusion the person experimented upon imagines that 

 his psychical actions are rendered more rapid." 



Professor Woodhead says, " After careful examination of the whole 

 question, physiologists and among physiologists I include those who 

 maintain alcohol may be useful, as well as those who hold that it is harm- 

 ful have come to the conclusion that the principal action of alcohol is 

 to blunt sensation, and to remove what we may call the power of inhibition 

 by blunting the higher centers of the brain." 



Professor David Starr Jordan in the Popular Science Monthly, Febru- 

 ary, 1898, said : " The healthy mind stands in clear and normal relations 

 with nature. It feels pain as pain. It feels action as pleasure. The 

 drug which conceals pain or gives false pleasure when pleasure does not 

 exist forces a lie upon the nervous system. The drug which disposes to 

 reverie rather than to work, which makes us feel well when we are not 

 well, destroys the sanity of life. All stimulants, narcotics, tonics, which 

 affect the nervous system in whatever way, reduce the truthfulness of sen- 

 sation, thought, and action. Toward insanity all such influences lead; 

 and then* effect, slight though it be, is of the same nature as mania. The 

 man who would see clearly, think truthfully, and act effectively must avoid 

 them all. Emergency aside, he cannot safely force upon his nervous sys- 

 tem even the smallest falsehood." 



Dr. Hammond said: " The more purely intellectual qualities of the 

 mind rarely escape being involved in the general disturbance [caused by 

 alcohol]. The power of application, of appreciating the bearing of facts, 

 of drawing distinctions, of exercising the judgment aright, and even of 

 comprehension, are all more or less impaired. The memory is among 

 the first faculties to suffer. ... The will is always lessened in force and 

 activity. The ability to determine between two or more alternatives, to 

 resolve to act when action is necessary, no longer exists in full power, and 

 the individual becomes vacillating, uncertain, the prey to his various 

 passions, and to the influence of vicious counsels." 



" Finally we have still to declare that alcohol hinders the action of the 

 highest mental faculties. A remark made by Helmholtz at the celebration 



