80 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
also of the nervous system_, and the staggering gait is another 
confirmation of this fact. Schiller tells us that wine invents 
nothings but only reveals things ; and the truth is, that the 
drunkard is noisy, lachr 3 ^mose, sentimental, &c., just in accord- 
ance with the natural ground- work of his individual character, 
when the paralysis of moral sense and prudence permits this 
to appear. It is absurd, then, to speak of the unsteady, 
though violent, flickerings of the drunkard^s mental energy as 
a case of over-stimulation.^"’ 
If the reader will follow up for himself the train of reason- 
ing suggested by the illustrations which I have given, he will 
perceive that there is an absolute necessity for some definite 
change in our phraseology. The phenomena hitherto expressed 
by the phrase, eftects of over-stimulation,^^ must receive 
some new name or names ; and we shall be in a better position 
to appreciate the principles of the new nomenclature when we 
have defined the genuine effects of stimulation. 
True stimuli produce efiects which may be ranked under one 
or other of the following groups, — I. Relief of pain; 2. Arrest 
‘of muscular convulsion, tremor, and spasm; o. Removal of 
delirium, maniacal excitement, and coma, and production of 
natural sleep; 4. Reduction of excessive secretion; 5. Relief 
of fatigue and disability of the organism in general, or of the 
brain or some other organ in particular ; 6. Reduction of a too- 
rapid circulation ; 7. Compensation for the absence of supplies 
of the materials usually called food ; 8. Increase of local nutri- 
tion this is deficient. 
I am not going to detail here the numerous proofs, from 
modern clinical and physiological observation, which attest 
that the above are the true functions of stimuli, as I have 
already done that at length in another place ; it is enough to 
say, that any observant practitioner will be able, on reflection, 
to endorse them from his own experience. What I desire to 
call attention to is this, that these efiects can only be produced 
by any physiological agent, ivlien it is given in moderate dose. 
For every single remedy there is a limit, beyond which it 
ceases altogether to produce its stimulant effect, and becomes 
active in an entirely different sense. The line may fluctuate 
(just as does the line of normal alimentation, or feediug) in 
accordance with constitutional peculiarity, and very notably in 
accordance with the existing state of health ; but a line there 
nevertheless is, in every case, beyond which the medicine or 
food becomes a poison. With regard to the articles which 
in common parlance we call food and to some other substances 
alhed to them, this limit is not reached except by the adminis- 
tration of a very enormous dose. But with regard to all other 
members of the Materia Medica it is to be noted that their 
