Alcoholism

Alcoholism The term alcoholism is understood to include all the changes that may occur in the human organism after the ingestion of any form of alcohol. These changes vary from the merest transient exhilaration of the cerebral functions up to profound unconsciousness, ending in coma and perhaps in death. These variations depend upon the amount of alcohol taken, the form of alcohol used, the rapidity of its administration, and the habituation of the individual to …

…other conditions its use may be advisable. Careful observations of its effects, in private practice and in extensive hospital experience, compel the writer to subscribe to this conclusion: "Alcohol in health is often a curse; alcohol in disease is mostly a blessing." From a sociological standpoint, we are compelled by incontrovertible evidence to acknowledge that it is of all causes the most frequent source of poverty, unhappiness, divorce, suicide, immorality, crime, insanity, disease, and death.