that is within him with
unrestrained communicativeness; he becomes boisterous, ridiculous, and
sinks at length into a mere animal. Every one around him, the very
houses, trees, even the earth itself, seem drunken and unstable, he
alone sober, till at last the final stage is reached, and he falls on
the ground insensible--_dead drunk_ (alcoholic coma)--a state from
which, after profound slumber, he at last awakes feverish, exhausted,
sick and giddy, with ringing ears, a throbbing heart and a violent
headache.

The poison primarily affects the cerebral lobes, and the other parts of
the cerebro-spinal system are consecutively involved, till in the state
of _dead-drunkenness_ the only parts not invaded by a benumbing
paralysis are those automatic centres in the medulla oblongata which
regulate and maintain the circulation and respiration. But even these
centres are not unaffected; the paralysis of these as of the other
sections of the cerebro-spinal system varies in its incompleteness, and
at times becomes complete, the coma of drunkenness terminating in death.
More usually the intoxicant is gradually eliminated, and the individual
restored to consciousness, a consciousness disturbed by the secondary
results of the agent he has abused, which vary with the nature of that
agent. Whether, however, directly or indirectly through the nervous
system, the stomach suffers in every case; thus nutrition is interfered
with by the defective ingestion of food, as well as by the
mal-assimilation of that which is ingested; and from this cause, as well
as by the peculiar local action of the various poisons, the various
organic degenerations are induced (cirrhosis of the liver, &c.) which in
most cases shorten the drunkard's days.

The primary discomforts of an act of drunkenness are readily removed for
the time by a repetition of the cause. Thus what has been an act may
readily become a habit, all the more readily that each repetition more
and more enfeebles both the will and the judgment, till they become
utterly unfit to resist the temptation to indulgence supplied by the
knowledge of the temporary relief to suffering which is sure to follow,
and in spite of the consciousness that each repetition of the act only
forges their chains more tightly. From this condition there is no hope
of relief but in enforced abstinence; any one in this condition must be
regarded as temporarily insane (see INSANITY and NEUROPATHOLOGY), and
ought to be p