How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

accessory agents which shall bring him quick relief from the oppressive burdens of reality. To many men the emergency relief measures which nature has provided are too slow, to others too long deferred. The more civilized man becomes, the more he becomes aware of his miseries, the more discouraged he becomes if he does not live according to the rules which have been laid down by the inscrutable forces of life, the more frequently, therefore, he seems to require immediate relief from the pain and anguish of intolerable situations. Modern medicine has secured relatively certain relief from physical pain, but mental anguish, because of its intangible quality, often defies the ordinary consolations. In every age and in every climate, therefore, men have cultivated drugs which have hastened the solace of nature. Placed in the service of humanity these drugs are the basis of valuable anaesthetics without which modern surgery could not exist. Placed in the service of deserters from the front of life, they have given rise to the curses of drug addiction and alcoholism. And there have always been panic-stricken men and women, too sensitive or too timid for this world, who have sought and abused the precious peace of the poppy, or the transient stimulus of alcoholic intoxication. No matter how the use of narcotics and intoxicants begins in the life of the individual, their continued use is an escape from the oppressing realities of his vital situation. The morphine addict frequently begins the use of his drug to relieve pain, and continues its use until the consequent state of peace becomes a psychological necessity. In turn, the further use of morphine depresses the general functioning of the body, and leaves him less capable of meeting the realities which he has essayed to escape. The addict gradually increases the dose of the drug, as his body becomes accustomed to the initial dose and no longer responds with the same physiological euphoria. The more of the drug he takes, the less capable of meeting his problem the addict becomes. At periods of