state of things, however,
has been permitted to go on, and the brain has been frequently brought
under alcoholic influence, its structure becomes affected, and a slow
and very insidious inflammation takes place, which terminates in a
softening of its substance. This mischief may proceed for a considerable
period without being suspected, but on a sudden _delirium tremens_ may
supervene, which will terminate, perhaps, in paralysis--perhaps death!"

"To what, Doctor," inquired the Clergyman, "do you attribute the mental
pleasures of intoxication? Can this be explained upon physiological
principles?"

"Easily, I think," answered the Doctor. "All inebriating agents have a
two-fold action--as I have already pointed out--first, on the
circulation; and secondly, on the nervous system. There can be no doubt
that the mind becomes endowed with increased energy when the circulation
through the brain is moderately quickened. This has been proved by
observation. The case has been reported of a person who having lost by
disease a part of the skull and its investments, a corresponding portion
of brain was open to inspection. In a state of dreamless sleep the brain
lay motionless within the skull; but when dreams occurred, as reported
by the patient, then the quantity of blood was observed to flow with
increased rapidity, causing the brain to move and protrude out of the
skull. When perfectly awake, and engaged in active thought, then the
blood again was sent with increased force to the brain, and the
protrusion was still greater. Under all circumstances, increased
circulation through the brain gives rise to mental excitement, and
sometimes to an unusual lucidity of ideas. It is observed in the early
stages of fever, and even in the dying--and this accounts for the
clearing up of the mind which sometimes occurs in the last moments of
life--what is called familiarly 'the lightening before death.'"

"That," observed the Clergyman, "is a very curious circumstance, which I
firmly believe; and you account for this, if I understand your meaning,
by explaining that the blood which no longer circulates in the
extremities, which may have become cold, flows with increased impetus
through the brain."

"Exactly so," replied the Doctor; "and upon this very principle, the
rapidity of ideas, and the pleasurable mental excitement attending that
temporary state of intellectual exaltation, depends on the increased
rapidity of the flow of blood throug