I, on one occasion had the strange, though miserable, chance of viewing a similar occurrence in the brain construction of a person, who, in an outburst of alcoholic exhilaration, beheaded himself under the wheels of a train, and whose brain immediately came out from its skull by the collision. The brain itself, whole, was in front of me within one eight seconds after the end. It emitted the strong smell of spirit most markedly, and its thin, skin-like structures and tiny constructions were extremely bloody. It appeared as though it had been freshly infused with a brilliant red pigment. The white stuff of the cerebrum, decorated with red spots, could hardly be made out, when it was slit opened, by its inherent paleness; plus the pia-mater, or inner vascular membrane casing the brain, looked like a flimsy mesh of congealed red blood, so tautly were its slender vessels bloated.

I should further say that this condition continued through the smaller and the larger brain, the cerebellum and the cerebrum, but wasn’t so noticeable in either the medulla or the spinal cord’s beginning section.

The alcohol’s action carried on past the initial stage, the spinal cord’s performance is affected. When in good physical shape, we are used, via the nervous system’s this part, to execute routine tasks very mechanically, which continue methodically even while we are caught up with or discussing other subjects. Hence, a competent tradesman will carry on his mechanical job without a glitch, while his intellect is set on some other matter; and so we all execute different tasks in a wholly automatic manner, without requesting for assistance from the superior centers, barring when something out of the ordinary happens to command their service, whereupon we reflect before we do something. Under the effects of alcohol, the spinal centers become impacted, and these sheer automatic functions stop being properly executed. That a hand may get to any object, or a foot be properly placed, the superior brain center must be called upon to ensure that the happening takes place safely. A defective ability of coordinating the muscular movement ensues rapidly. The nervous system’s control of some of the body muscles is missing, plus the nervous stimulus almost is weakened. In humans the lower lip muscles are the first to fail, followed by the lower limb muscles, and it is significant to note that the body’s extensor muscles yield before the flexors. By this time, the muscles themselves are also becoming weak; they react more weakly than is normal to the nerve stimulation; they, also, are succumbing to the dampening effects of the benumbing agent, their arrangement is momentarily disturbed, and their ability to contract is decreased.

This variation of the animal acts under alcohol indicates the second level of its effects. In youthful subjects, there is at this point, normally, nausea with dizziness, followed by slow respite from the weight of the venom.

The alcoholic spirit taken to yet an additional level, the brain centers or the cerebral are impacted; they are diminished in ability, and the controlling stimuli of resolve and of decisions are missing. As these centers are disturbed and driven crazy, the balanced part of the personality of the man yields before the sentimental, organic, or arousing part. The sanity is now not at work, or is playing with work, and all the sheer animal impulses and responses are laid appallingly naked. The poltroon appears more gutless, the braggadocio more grandiose, the brutal more heartless, the deceitful more insincere, the lascivious more sullied. ' In vino veritas ' conveys, even, without a doubt, to physiological exactness, the real state. The sanity, the feelings, the senses, all are in a festive state, and in disordered weakness.

Lastly, the effects of alcohol still running on, the advanced brain centers are subjugated; the senses are fogged up, the controlled muscular prostration is sharpened, emotional response is haywire, and the body rests as a plain block of wood, lifeless by all but a quarter, on which merely its life suspends. The heart still keeps on doing what it has to do, and while it simply exists, it nourishes the respiratory power. And hence the respiration and circulation, in the otherwise still bulk, maintain the body within the sheer realm of life till such time the venom starts to withdraw and the nervous centers start to perk up again. It is fortunate for the intoxicated that, generally, the brain stops working much before the heart does, and that he neither has the strength nor the intellect to carry on his process of damage until he stops to breathe. Thus he survives to perish another day.