Delirium Ebriositatis, Or Mania A Potu Delirium Tremens, a disease caused by the abuse of spirituous liquors, and characterized by tremor, sleeplessness, and delirium. An essential character is cerebral debility caused by exhaustion from over-stimulation. It is remarkable that a disease so well marked and so easily recognized as delirium tremens should up to the early-part of the present century have been confounded with inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and that, thus misled by a name, most physicians bled, blistered, and mercurialized their patients, thus adding vastly to the mortality of a complaint already sufficiently fatal. Delirium tremens sometimes makes its appearance in consequence of a single debauch; commonly it is the result of protracted or long continued intemperance. Occasionally, where the indulgence is very excessive, the attack occurs while the patient still continues his potations; more generally it is the result of some cause by which they are temporarily interrupted; the patient's stomach gives out, and refuses the accustomed draught, he receives a hurt, or he is affected by some of the ordinary causes of illness.

He is now nervous, uneasy, and restless; he is startled by any sudden noise, as the opening of a door or the entrance of a visitor; the hands and tongue are tremulous; he complains of inability to sleep, and if he dozes for a moment he is awakened by frightful dreams; with all this, his skin is commonly cool and soft, his pulse slow, and his tongue moist. Soon delirium manifests itself; if questioned the patient often answers rightly enough, but if left to himself he begins to talk or mutter; he imagines himself surrounded by frightful or loathsome animals; he is pursued by some one who has a design upon his life; he has terrible and ghastly visions. Though most commonly of a frightful or terrifying character, the delirium is not invariably so; occasionally the appearances are droll or ludicrous, and the patient seems amused by them. He is rarely dangerous; his predominant emotion is fear; but in the effort to escape an imaginary enemy, he may commit a murderous assault, or more probably take his own life. The delirium continues until he dies exhausted, or sinks into a sleep from which he awakes comparatively rational.

When the strength of the patient has not been seriously impaired by long continued excesses, delirium tremens is rarely fatal; but those whose constitutions have been thus broken down frequently succumb. In such cases death is often sudden; the patient rises for some trivial purpose, and falls into a faint from which he never recovers. At other times, after passing many nights without sleep, he sinks into a state of coma, which terminates in death. The same habits which cause repeated attacks of delirium cause likewise organic affections of the viscera, more particularly of the liver and kidneys, and these seriously influence the result of each new at-, tack. - Treatment. In severe cases, opium is the article which has been mainly relied on by practitioners, and in most instances it will not disappoint their expectations; still there is a class of cases rebellious to its influence, whatever dose may be given, and in these the inhalation of chloroform has sometimes been effectively employed. Lately the hydrate of chloral has been used to keep the patient quiet while his system is being built up by the administration of nourishing and easily digested food, which should be held in view as the main point in the treatment, the medicine being used more to keep the patient within control than for any certain effect.

Alcoholic stimulants, in the form of wine, ale, and sometimes distilled liquors, are also generally of service, and are sometimes indispensable. Dr. Daw in the "British Medical Journal" for May, 1873, recommends the use of hydrocyanic acid in place of opium and other narcotics. His method is to combine it with bicarbonate of potash, chloric ether, and camphor, in doses of two or three minims of the officinal solution every two, three, or four hours.