HYGIENE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 331 



or a prison to receive him, and must finally bury him at 

 public expense and care for his unfortunate family. 

 How is it that a being endowed with reason can deliber- 

 ately put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his 

 brains, and ruin body and soul ? 



Because one man whom we chance to know drinks 

 daily a small quantity of wine or beer, and does not 

 acquire that craving for more which leads to drunken- 

 ness, nor apparently injure himself in any way thereby, 

 it is never safe to conclude that another man can do like- 

 wise. Nothing is more uncertain. At the same time it 

 is a fact of common observation which no one will deny, 

 that multitudes make shipwreck of manhood every year 

 through the excessive use of alcohol ; yet no one of them 

 expected to be more than a " moderate drinker," not one 

 but would have scorned the suggestion that he might in 

 time become the vile drunkard of the gutter. 



480. There is one infallible way of escaping these ills, 

 and there is but one. That is to abstain wholly from 

 alcoholic beverages. It is also a harmless way ; it can 

 do injury to no one. While it insures a man against the 

 frightful evils of drunkenness, this course also makes it 

 possible that by the force of his example he may help 

 many a weak, tempted fellow-man to escape the seduc- 

 tions of the wine cup. 



It may be an admirable thing for a man to be able to 

 exercise the judgment, the self-restraint which permits 

 him to indulge his appetite for alcohol to exactly that 

 extent only which he believes to be harmless or helpful 

 to himself, never yielding to a temptation to exceed the 

 self-imposed limit. Is it not yet more admirable for a 

 man to recognize the weakness of human nature, and the 

 possibility shown every year by thousands of sorrowful 



