Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/472

458 many cases is as follows: How far can the testimony of inebriates or persons under the influence of spirits be trusted concerning matters observed in this condition?

This question called for an answer in the following cases:

 1. An. inebriate physician, partially intoxicated, witnessed an assault, and swore to the identity and exact part which the accused was supposed to have taken in the crime. 2. A barkeeper, partially intoxicated at the time, swore to the particular man who shot another in a crowd, where several shots were fired by different persons. 3. A man under the influence of spirits testified that he saw the person accused put fire to a building which was burned down. 4. A man on his way home from a saloon, where he had spent the evening drinking, identified a man in the courtroom whom he asserted he had seen breaking into a house.

In these cases the medical witness was asked, What, in your opinion, as an expert, based on the statements of the witness, and the circumstances of the case, was the condition of the witness's mind as to the power of clearly observing and remembering the facts and incidents to which he has testified? Also, do you believe in these cases that the witness was competent to observe and clearly remember the incidents to which he has sworn?

If the medical expert has formed no higher opinion of inebriety than that it is a vice in the moral sense, and alcohol produces a state of exhilaration, his answer will be unsatisfactory; but if he is a scientific student he will form a general conclusion which will at least approximate very near to the real facts. In arriving at the facts the medical witness must start from some general principles which are recognized as established beyond question.

First, the action of alcohol is always that of an anæsthetic, benumbing and paralyzing (1) the nerve function and the consciousness of nerve impression; (2) the power of co-ordinating and regulating these impressions; (3) the reasoning or capacity of comparing acts and events is disturbed. Thus both the sense impressions and the power of analyzing and correctly estimating them are impaired. This takes place in all cases, depending on the amount and quality of spirits taken: where intoxication follows, these effects are very clear; but where a smaller amount of spirits is taken, and only partial intoxication is present, they are not so prominent. It is present in those who use alcohol continuously, and is noted as a general diminution of brain and sense acuteness. In active life, brain workers, trained experts, and all persons whose work requires delicate nerve adjustment and accuracy of brain and muscle work, soon find the use of alcohol