Drunkenness, its nature and cure, or, Asylums for inebriates : an address delivered before the Ohio State Medical Society at its annual session, June 1859 / by M.B. Wright.

  • Wright, M. B. (Marmaduke Burr), 1803-1879.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drunkenness, its nature and cure, or, Asylums for inebriates : an address delivered before the Ohio State Medical Society at its annual session, June 1859 / by M.B. Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    energies of the system would have sank below the natural standard, and the man must have drank, not to renew the pleasures of stimu- lation, but to counteract an insufferable depression. From this time all the functions of the body were in an unnatural state—locomotion was enfeebled, the mind was fitful and uncertain, the will lost its an- chorage, and went out to be tossed, here and there, by fierce elements —the brain was diseased—the man was insane. Now, take one step back over the line from that condition of brain which consigns a man to a mad-house, and you will have the true state of a confirmed inebriate. How much more has the one man a calm control over his thoughts and actions and fierce impulses than the other? The easy or difficult management of disease depends upon its vio- lence. Scarlet fever, prevailing as an epidemic, presents every gra- dation, from the mild to the malignant; the one yielding without spe- cial treatment, the other demanding the best-directed efforts. So it is with intemperance. The insane, by a sudden impulse, by a strong, direct moral power, have been restored to reason as if by magic. Fear from impending danger has given elasticity to the lame, and made the bedridden leap like the hare; copious hemorrhage, and intense pain, have been sud- denly arrested by strong moral impressions. The sick have Jived through hope, and died through despair. Similar impressions made on the mind and nervous system of the drunkard, have revived the power and exercise of the will, and the result has been permanent reformation. But this is an exception, and is no more to be expected in confirmed drunkenness than spontane- ous cures of disease produced by malaria, changes of temperature, or specific contagion. Delirium tremens may be viewed as an extreme link in the chain of drunkenness. To establish the fact, that the brain is in an unnat- ural state during its existence, it is only necessary to refer to a few of the symptoms. They consist of restlessness, sleeplessness, and agi- tation of the whole body. The individual imagines that he hears music, the roar of cannon, the sound of bells, the clatter of the loco- tive, the rumbling of distant thunder, and all sorts of noises, undefined and painfully discordant. His eye is in constant motion, and objects, beautiful or grotesque, are incessantly flitting before it. He is ex- cited to anxiety and terror by the approach of enemies, by the open jaws and glaring eyes of a monster, by the crawling of countless