Show Daily Health Service Why TT People Take to Drink B By DR R MORRIS Editor Journal of the hc American Med leal ical Association and of the Health Magazine Pie nl The question as to Why some peo P Indulge Ig excessively in alcoholic whereas others do not has been one which has long given con cern to the experts in pharmacology physiology ps psychology nervous and mental menial diseases In general all are agreed that chronic alcoholics are the result of some Inadequacy to face the problems of life lite and in most cases have some defect detect of heredity The defect detect in hi heredity does not indicate in in- as ns most novelists presume some ome alcoholic ancestry but rather the iho occurrence in previous generations genera genera- of pf some mental weakness The Thc chronic alcoholic before succumbing to his habit has usually suffered some nervous symptoms of one kindor kind or another quite frequently a state t of depression which alcohol for the time being relieves This virtue in alcoholic liquors ors is one of the re reasons sons why physicians prescribe them Scientifically they have the ability to induce a state of at euphoria or a feeling of well b being which particularly in the aged is ol ot great importance One of oC the British physiologists expresses ex ex- presses this particular virtue in al al' alcohol cohol In the following manner In the terrific conflict between what he be has been taught to desire and what h ho he is allowed wed to get et a man mm has found J the thc alcohol a sinister but effective peacemaker n a wa way vay out of ot the prison house of reality Another British observer Dr D D. D Yelo points out that certain c cases rases ses of alcoholism represent certIn an nn endeavor en en- deavor to relieve an unconscious mental tension In Iii a case of those who are periodic drunkards that drunkards that is those who only occasionally indulge in excessive drinking but who are usually temperature or who may even abstain entirely from alcoholic liquors in the intervals intervals it It is i found that th the outbreaks occur when some unconscious mental tension tenion has ac aCt accumulated ac- ac cumulated until the breaking point The Te discharge or the escape from reality reality occurs in sudden occurs a debauch In those cases In which the drink ing lag Is habitual the mental problem is more constantly constanty in the mind of the individual and he Is i frequently found to have not a weak will wi or a n bad character but an unsatisfactory y emotional life The physiologists who have been primarily concerned with the effects Jr cl alcohol on the human body ef began be be- cs gan with wih the generally accepted view that alcohol Is not a stimulant but butu u depressant of the nervous system I The Trie lower centers center of Or the nervous system are the first and easiest to be depressed hence there seems to be bea a stimulation of the thc higher levels It I is this stimulation and the thc removal of the thc repression which gives rise to the feeling of exaltation and which makes the thc alcoholic talkative emo tonal and easily disturbed |