416 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ORGANS OF SENSE 



Self-indulgence, be it in gratification of such a simple desire as 

 that for candy or the more harmful indulgence in tobacco or al- 

 coholic beverages, is dangerous not only in its immediate effects 

 on the tissues and organs, but in its more far-reaching effects on 

 habit formation. 



" Self-control versus Appetite. Man is a bundle of appetites. Every 

 organ, every cell even, craves its appropriate stimulus. Animals under 

 natural conditions gratify the appetites as they arise only to that extent 

 which is healthful for the whole body. Man alone, whose highly developed 

 brain is overlord to the rest of his system, permits an unwholesome indul- 

 gence of appetite to interfere with this general well-being. Alcohol, opium, 

 and then* like are far from being the only substances whose excessive use 

 injures the organism and degrades character. Children are often allowed 

 to indulge a natural fondness for sweets to an extent which is ruinous to 

 digestion ; for sugar, which is a useful and necessary food in suitable quan- 

 tities, becomes in larger ones a poison to the system. Boys pampered 

 with dainties from infancy logically infer that a fancy for cigars or beer 

 may be similarly gratified. Appetite for even the most wholesome food 

 may be in excess of bodily needs, and the practice of gluttony is certain 

 to derange nutrition. 



" A child should be early taught that because he ' likes ' a certain arti- 

 cle of food he should not therefore continue to eat it after natural hunger 

 is satisfied, or at times when he does not need food ; while to persist in 

 eating or drinking that which experience, or the advice of those competent 

 to judge, has taught him to be harmful, should be regarded as unworthy 

 a rational being." Macy, Physiology. 



The Moral, Social, and Economic Effect of Alcoholic Poisoning. 

 In the struggle for existence, it is evident that the man whose in- 

 tellect is the quickest and keenest, whose judgment is most sound, 

 is the man who is most likely to succeed. The paralyzing effect 

 of alcohol upon the nerve centers must place the drinker at a dis- 

 advantage. In a hundred ways, the drinker sooner or later feels 

 the handicap that the habit of drink has imposed upon him. Many 

 corporations, notably several of our greatest railroads (the New 

 York Central Railroad among them), refuse to employ any but 

 abstainers in positions of trust. Few persons know the num- 

 ber of railway accidents due to the uncertain eye of some engineer 

 who mistook his signal, or the hazy inactivity of the brain of some 

 train dispatcher who, because of drink, forgot to send the tele- 

 gram that was to hold the train from wreck. 



