Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/444

428 great enthusiasm, and asking the prayers of every person he met, to save him. His mind seemed troubled with intense fear of failing to get to heaven, and every thought and exertion seemed directed to this end; but secretly he drank constantly, never to be stupid, but just enough to keep up a degree of excitement. This would last two or three weeks, then merge into a low form of nervous fever, from which he would recover and remain sober for an indefinite time. . . . The other three had been good church-members before inebriety came on, but on becoming inebriates left the church." Another case was that of a clergyman whose inebriate fits always began when he was administering the wine at the communion. After quoting a few other cases, pertinent but of not quite so striking a character, Dr. Crothers states his conclusions, which are according to the view he has steadfastly held, that "inebriety is a physical disease which must be reached by both physical and psychical means. All methods of treatment must be along the line of natural laws, and include all means, both physical and spiritual, that can build up and strengthen the entire man. Spiritual means are only valuable as they are used with other means, and where they are effectual alone they are the exception to the rule, and can not indicate any direct line of treatment."

Butcher's-Meat and Headaches.—The prescription of a diet largely vegetarian has long been known to be good for persons subject to attacks of headache. Dr. Alexander Haig relates, in "The Practitioner," a case that came under his treatment which indicates to him that this disease and its attendant phenomena are largely the result of a poison circulating in the blood, which poison is a product of the digestion of certain foods, especially butcher meat; and that a cure is best effected by cutting off entirely the noxious food, and aiding the elimination of the poison by the kidneys. The patient was a chronic sufferer from headache, and the afflictions that usually accompany it. lie was a hard student, and was most troubled in winter. On the adoption of a strict vegetarian diet, the attacks, which had been severe, ceased at once, and for six months of the cold half of the year there were only one or two slight ones, although they had been recurring weekly. A less strict diet was subsequently allowed, and gave practical immunity, provided butcher's-meat was avoided. It was also found that two or three tumblers of hot water taken every night at bed-time gave increased immunity, and enabled the patient to take even a little butcher's-meat occasionally without fear of an attack. The disease was evidently caused by impure blood, and that by imperfection of the digestive process. The connection with butcher's-meat was indicated directly by the facts in the case. It may be accounted for possibly by reference to Dr. Michael Foster's suggestion that the pancreatic digestion of the proteids in excess. is accompanied by the development of bacteria giving rise to fermentative changes; or by the suggestion made in "Le Progres Medical," that alkaloids are formed in the intestines during digestion similar to those that have been found in the cadaver, and, if they are absorbed in excess, or are not excreted by the kidneys, cause disorders.

Another Side to the Clothes Question.—"An Anthropologist" protests, in the "Pall Mall Gazette," that, if an attempt is made to impose European clothing on the natives of New Guinea, they will all be killed off. It is clothes, he asserts, and not liquor or immorality, that has been fatal to so many natives of tropical countries. The Australians and Tasmanians have been clothed, and exterminated, while the North American Indians have been left in their traditional costumes, and thrive. This matter of the natural garb of savages is one "in which Nature can not be safely tampered with. Whether tribes are found clothed only with a loin-cloth, or only with paint, it is the result of a long evolution, an adaptation to environment, and no foreigners should go among such peoples who can not adapt themselves mentally and morally to customs representing that environment. . . . In the day that these natives of New Guinea begin to clothe themselves beyond what has sufficed for their health, 'they will surely die.' The exact reason for this has not been satisfactorily shown, though I have been told in several places that clothing checks some