Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/95

 PREVENTION OF MENTAL DISEASES 8l

experience the results of internal and external excitement, and that hysteria appears in the girl. The young people now are subject to the consequences of the nature of the education which they have received; and if they are nervous or predis- posed to mental weakness, the moment becomes critical. The parents should guide them by their counsels and especially direct them to a career in harmony with their psychical constitution : a very difficult matter, since it is necessary to be constantly watch- ful, and to prepare the young persons who are thus predisposed so that they can overcome the threatened evil.

The history of heredity conducts us to akoholistn, and these two should be considered the principal causes of degeneration. Authors are unanimously agreed that there is no way of con- trolling alcoholism without total abstinence from alcoholic liquors. Alcoholic victims are innumerable. We encounter them in all classes of society, as well in the asylum as in the privileged classes. Alcoholism is not merely dangerous in relation to mental diseases, but it is a public evil, because it affects different functions of the human being. France, as well as Belgium, holds the record in this matter. The only good use of alcohol is as an anaesthetic to diminish the sensation of fatigue. It also produces a cerebral excitement which momottarily antagonizes moral pain, which dissipates annoyances by inducing an artificial quiet, and this is desired with avidity by those who do not know its consequences.

The popular belief that alcohol imparts energy is a gross error. The proof has been given by many experiments during recent years. Alcohol gives strength to no one. Workmen who believe that the use of water enfeebles and that alcohol sus- tains them for labor give a wrong interpretation to facts. It is true that, if we stop the use of alcohol as a habitual stimulant, we induce feebleness ; but the same thing occurs with morphine takers, with whom deprivation of their poison plunges them into a pitiable state. That which we have affirmed of spirits is true of wine and of all other drinks which contain alcohol. The civiliza- tion which developed inside of the Gra^co- Roman world, that of