A DRUNKARD'S BRAIN

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1881

A DRUNKARD'S BRAIN.

Hyrtl, by far the greatest anatomist of the age, used to say that he could distinguish in the darkest room by one stroke of the scalpel, the brain of the inebriate, from that of a person who lived soberly. Now and then he could congratulate his class upon the possession of a drunkard's brain, admirably fitted, from its hardness and more complete preservation, for the purpose of demonstration. When the anatomist wishes to preserve a human brain for any length of time, he effects that object by keeping that organ in a vessel of alcohol. From a soft, pulpy substance, it then becomes comparatively hard; but in the inebriate, anticipating the anatomist, the brain begins the indurating process before death—begins it while the brain remains the consecrated temple of the soul—while its delicate and gossamer-like tissues still throb with the pulse of heaven-born life. Strange infatuation, that thus desecrates the God-like! Terrible enchantment that dries up all the fountains of generous feelings, petrifies all the tender humanities and sweet charities of life, leaving only a brain of lead and a heart of stone! —Scientific American.