A Mind That Found Itself An Autobiography
This story is derived from as human a document as ever existed; and, because of its uncommon nature, perhaps no one thing contributes so much to its value as its authenticity. It is an autobiography, and more: in part it is a biography; for, in telling the story of my life, I must relate the history of another self--a self which was dominant from my twenty-fourth to my twenty-sixth year. During that period I was unlike what I had been, or what I have been since. The biographical part of my autobiography might be called the history of a mental civil war, which I fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. An Army of Unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant Reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved me from my unnatural self. I am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer.
guess. One writer (Hammond) thinks it possible that it may 'somehow'
enter into combination with the products of decay in tissues, and 'under
certain circumstances might yield _their_ nitrogen to the construction
of new tissues.' No parallel in organic chemistry, nor any evidence in
animal chemistry, can be found to surround this guess with the areola
of a possible hypothesis."
Dr. Richardson says: "Alcohol contains no nitrogen; it has none of the
qualities of structure-building foods; it is incapable of being
transformed into any of them; it is, therefore, not a food in any sense
of its being a constructive agent in building up the body." Dr. W.B.
Carpenter says: "Alcohol cannot supply anything which is essential to
the true nutrition of the tissues." Dr. Liebig says: "Beer, wine,
spirits, etc., furnish no element capable of entering into the
composition of the blood, muscular fibre, or any part which is the seat
of the principle of life." Dr. Hammond, in his Tribune Lectures, in
which he advocates the use of alcohol in certain cases, says: "It is not
demonstrable that alcohol undergoes conversion into tissue." Cameron, in
his Manuel of Hygiene, says: "There is nothing in alcohol with which any
part of the body can be nourished." Dr. E. Smith, F.R.S., says: "Alcohol
is not a true food. It interferes with alimentation." Dr. T.K. Chambers
says: "It is clear that we must cease to regard alcohol, as in any
sense, a food."
"Not detecting in this substance," says Dr. Hunt, "any tissue-making
ingredients, nor in its breaking up any combinations, such as we are
This story is derived from as human a document as ever existed; and, because of its uncommon nature, perhaps no one thing contributes so much to its value as its authenticity. It is an autobiography, and more: in part it is a biography; for, in telling the story of my life, I must relate the history of another self--a self which was dominant from my twenty-fourth to my twenty-sixth year. During that period I was unlike what I had been, or what I have been since. The biographical part of my autobiography might be called the history of a mental civil war, which I fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. An Army of Unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant Reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved me from my unnatural self. I am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer.