Another remarkable effect of alcoholic narcotism--the most hopelessly demoralizing of all--yet remains to be treated. We refer to the perpetual craving of the drinker for the repetition, and usually for the increase, of his dose. It is a familiar fact that the drunkard is urged to the gratification of his appetite by such an irresistible physical craving that his power of self-control becomes after a while completely destroyed. And it is often observed that those who begin drinking moderately go on, as if by a kind of fatality, drinking oftener and drinking larger quantities, until they have become confirmed inebriates. But in the current interpretation of these facts there is, as might be expected, a great deal of confusion. On the one hand, the teetotalers declare that the use of alcohol in any amount creates a physical craving and necessitates a progressive increase of the dose. On the other hand, the common sense of mankind, perceiving that nine persons out of ten are all their lives in the habit of using alcoholic drinks, while hardly one person out of ten ever becomes a drunkard,[7] declares that this physical craving is not produced save in peculiarly organized constitutions. We believe that neither of these opinions is correct. In all probability, the demand for an increased narcotic effect is due to a gradual alteration in the molecular structure of the nervous system caused by frequently repeated narcosis; and if narcosis be invariably avoided, _in systems which are free from its inherited structural effects_, the craving is never awakened. This point is so interesting and important as to call for some further elucidation. [7] It has been asserted by teetotalers that the mortality from intemperance is 50,000 a year in the United States alone!! It is to be regretted that friends of temperance are to be found who will persist in injuring the cause by such wanton exaggerations. In the United States, in 1860, the whole number of deaths from all causes was a trifle less than 374,000: the whole number of deaths from intemperance was 931,--that is to say, less than one in 374. See the admirable pamphlet by the late Gov. Andrew, on _The Errors of Prohibition_, p. 112. In view of these facts, it appears to us many leagues within the bounds of probability to say that hardly one person in ten is a drunkard.