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Show WHAT IS DRUNKENNESS? Twenty-five years ago a prominent citizen of Ogden was a resident of Evanston, Wyoming. During a small-' small-' pox epidemic In that Wyoming town, . he advised that the patients, in the J pest house be screened from the flies, as there was a possibility of the files carrying the disease and inoculating people at a distance. The doctors laughed at tho Idea, but since then they have learned the importance of guarding against the 1 spread of dls- case, including typhoid, by Insects. Now this same citizen has another theory that he says may provoke another an-other laugh but which he ventures to put forth as a suggestion to be acted upon. He notes that some persons aro afflicted with a thirst for strong drink and others care nothing for liquor, except ex-cept to take a drink occasionally or not at all. He believes the condition of the blood Is the source of this thirst, that In the veins and arteries of the drinker there are organisms which, when excited to activity, sometimes by alcohol, create a greater desire for alcoholic stimulants. Why not, instead of trusting to prohibition alone, seek to euro this disease by treatment, not as does the Keeley cure, which has little or no merit, but much In the some manner that we drlvo diphtheria diph-theria from the blood with an antitoxin anti-toxin serum? There Is some merit in this suggestion'. sugges-tion'. More thought In that direction should have been given in tho past. There was a time when the drinker was looked upon as a fellow with a perverse nature, who drank like a glutton eats, simply because it pleased his appetite, but today the heavy drinker is viewed as one wiiose will power is overtaxed by his craving for ardent spirits. The seat of tho trouble may be the brain cells the most powerful, pow-erful, dominating brain cells which are excited by germs or poisons in the blood and, once excited, are In command of the whole mental Hold, irresistibly ir-resistibly forcing their attention and making their demands paramount. For centuries cholera has, at recurring recur-ring periods, swept away millions in Asia. India has viewed tho disease as a visitation of a wrath from on high. The natives have said there Is nothing to do but f!ee from the plague. But even in plague-afflicted India there has been progress. It has been discovered discov-ered that by reinforcing the.'fluld constituents con-stituents of the blood in the veins or by peritoneal injections,- the mortality in plague cases can be reduced one-half. one-half. We are making advancement in the treatment of all diseases, except that of inebriation, and even today the great majority of mankind falls to see in the thirst for strong liquor anything but an uncontrolled desire to drink. |