Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the RemedyTowns, Charles Barnes
Science
Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy
Towns, Charles Barnes
Alcoholism; Opium abuse -- United States; Tobacco use
There is no subject upon which society more sadly needs enlightenment. In
this educational process it is probable that the magistrate will be the
largest factor. He must realize that he is not society's instrument of
vengeance, but society's instrument of helpfulness. It should be his aim
not to punish, but to protect and preserve. He must realize that
scientific knowledge of the problems which confront him is as necessary to
his real efficiency as scientific knowledge is to the analytical chemist.
The heart of a conscientious magistrate should thrill with a special
sympathy, should be aware of a great responsibility, whenever there
appears for judgment in his court a man who for the first time has lost
control of himself through drink. To mar this man forever is an easy
task; to make him may be difficult, but it is certainly not beyond the
bounds of possibility.
The hard drinker who for the first time is haled into court as the
consequence of intoxication never is willing to concede either to himself
or to others that he needs help. His soul revolts before the mere thought
that he has more than temporarily, even momentarily, lost control. He is
likely to deny that he has developed a craving for alcohol, and
emphatically and indignantly to assert that his drunkenness has been
merely incidental to the social spirit, an accident, and in general a
thing of no primary importance. The thought that without help there is
even a possibility that he may drift from bad to worse is abhorrent to
him, and is indignantly repudiated. He will cheerfully admit that many
other men of his acquaintance have fallen victims to the effects of
alcohol, but he will vehemently deny the possibility of a similar fall on
his own part. The magistrate who thoroughly understands all the details of
the alcoholic's psychology, and who is sufficiently adroit of mind and
speech to take advantage of this understanding, giving the culprit who has
been brought before him every benefit of a carefully and intelligently
organized knowledge of alcoholism, could not fail to be one of the most
useful of society's servants and safeguards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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