Alcohol and the human brain.

  • Cook, Joseph, 1838-1901.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alcohol and the human brain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    that scars will not wash out or grow out, although the particles of the flesh are all changed, we find two colossal propositions ; the one is that there is somewhat in us that does not change, and is not matter; the other is, that this somewhat is con- nected mysteriously with the inerasability of scars, which, therefore, may be said to exist in some sense in the spiritual as well as in the material substance of which we are made. 2. It is as true of scars on the brain and nervous system as of those on any less important parts of the body, that they will not wash out, nor grow out. 3. Scars on the brain or nervous system may be made by physical or mental habits, and are the basis of the self-propagative power of habits. 4. When the scars or grooves in which a habit runs are made deep, the habit becomes automatic or self-acting and perhaps involuntary. 5. The grooves worn or scars made by good and bad habits may be inherited. Physical identity of-parent and offspring, spiritual identity of parent and offspring — these mysteries we have discussed here ; and this two-fold identity is concerned in the transmission of the thirst for drink. When the drunkard who has had an in- flamed stomach, is the father of a child that brings into the world with it an inflamed stomach, you have a case of the transmission of alcoholic scars. 6. While self-control lasts, a bad habit is a vice ; when self-control is lost, a bad habit is a disease. 7. When a bad habit becomes a disease, the