period, when, as is well known, more frequent repetitions of the
practice of drinking are to be observed. The impulse to drink grows
stronger and stronger, the will-power is overthrown and the entire
organism becomes subject to the fearful demands for stimulus. It is now
that the stage of confirmed inebriation is formed, and _dypso-mania_
fully established. The constant introduction of alcohol into the system,
circulating with the fluids and permeating the tissues, adds fuel to the
already enkindled flame, and intensifies the propensity to an
irresistible degree. Nothing now satisfies short of complete
intoxication, and, until the unhappy subject of the disease falls
senseless and completely overcome, will he cease his efforts to gratify
this most insatiable desire."

Dr. Alexander Peddie, of Edinburgh, who has given twenty years of study
to this subject, remarked, in his testimony before a Committee of the
House of Commons, that there seemed to be "a peculiar elective affinity
for the action of alcohol on the nervous system after it had found its
way through the circulation into the brain," by which the whole organism
was disturbed, and the man rendered less able to resist morbid
influences of any kind. He gave many striking instances of the growth
and power of appetite, which had come under his professional notice, and
of the ingenious devices and desperate resorts to which dypsomaniacs
were driven in their efforts to satisfy their inordinate cravings. No
consideration, temporal or spiritual, had any power to restrain their
appetite, if, by any means, fair or foul, they could obtain alcoholic
stimulants. To get this, he said, the unhappy subject of this terrible
thirst "will tell the most shameful lies--for no truth is ever found in
connection with the habitual drunkard's state. He never yet saw truth in
relation to drink got out of one who was a dypsomaniac--he has
sufficient reason left to tell these untruths, and to understand his