the
disturbance is usually slight; but it increases as the trouble comes
nearer and nearer to that organ, and shows itself in multiform ways
according to character, temperament or inherited disposition; but almost
always in a predominance of what is evil instead of good. There will be
fretfulness, or ill-nature, or selfish exactions, or mental obscurity,
or unreasoning demands, or, it may be, vicious and cruel propensities,
where, when the brain was undisturbed by disease, reason held rule with
patience and loving kindness. If the disease which has attacked the
brain goes on increasing, the mental disease which follows as a
consequence of organic disturbance or deterioration, will have
increased also, until insanity may be established in some one or more of
its many sad and varied forms.

INSANITY.

It is, therefore, a very serious thing for a man to take into his body
any substance which, on reaching that wonderfully delicate organ--the
brain, sets up therein a diseased action; for, diseased mental action is
sure to follow, and there is only one true name for mental disease, and
that is _insanity_. A fever is a fever, whether it be light or intensely
burning; and so any disturbance of the mind's rational equipoise is
insanity, whether it be in the simplest form of temporary obscurity, or
in the midnight of a totally darkened intellect.

We are not writing in the interest of any special theory, nor in the
spirit of partisanship; but with an earnest desire to make the truth
appear. The reader must not accept anything simply because we say it,
but because he sees it to be true. Now, as to this matter of insanity,
let him think calmly. The word is one that gives us a shock; and, as we
hear it, we almost involuntarily thank God for the good gift of a
well-balanced mind. What, if from any cause this beautiful equipoise
should be disturbed and the mind lose its power to think clearly, or to
hold the lower passions in due control? Shall we exceed the truth if we
say that the man in whom this takes place is insane just in the degree
that he has lost his rational self-control; and that he is restored
when he regains that control?

In this view, the question as to the hurtfulness of alcoholic drinks
assumes a new and graver aspect. Do they disturb the brain when they
come in contact with its substance; and deteriorate it if the contact be
long continued? Fact, observation, experience and scientific
investigation all emphat