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5 Addictions and Depression
The habitual use of poisons for the purpose of inducing euphoria - a feeling of mental well-being and happiness - is a universal remedy for the pain of consciousness. Euphoric intoxication is of especial interest in this study because of convincing proof that there exists in the chacma a state of mind similar to that which induces the use of euphorics in man.
I do not know of any human race, savage or cultured, which has not developed, or acquired from other races, the habit of using some poison, generally of vegetable origin, for the purpose of creating euphoria. There is hardly an exception to the rule that every race has discovered in their own habitat some such poison, or a method of manufacturing one. The only exception would, of course, be the Arctic races, but even they have all at one time or another acquired intoxicants from their neighbours in both East and West. On the other hand, I do not know of any species of animal under natural conditions that has discovered or acquired a knowledge of this kind and so formed a definite new habit. The one exception in this country is the chacma.
The poisons most widely used by man are opium and alcohol, but a list to in- | |
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clude all the vegetable substances that are so employed throughout the world would fill a respectably large volume. All of them have one property in common: the first, and chief, physiological effect is a temporary feeling of happiness which wears off as the poison is eliminated by the system. Among savage races, alcohol is used for one purpose only: to get drunk. But even among the most highly cultured European races, alcohol was, within the memory of man, used for the same purpose by all classes of the community - to get drunk completely and unequivocally. The disrepute into which drunkenness has fallen among the higher classes in Western civilisation is a thing of comparatively recent growth.
As to the purpose in the use of all such poisons, I do not think there can be any question: A state of mental exhilaration or happiness is sought by the individual which he does not otherwise possess. The euphoria of intoxication replaces a condition of unhappiness varying in intensity in different individuals. But it is not every case of mental suffering which seeks relief in intoxication. It still remains mainly a matter of temperament. And even in cases where the pain of consciousness is acute and the temperament favourable, there may be sufficient correctives in the environment to rival the poison as a remedy. When these exist and when, in addition, a clear perception of the danger is temperamentally possible, the powers of subjective inhibition may be strong enough to keep the temptation at bay.
It is often said that a man ‘takes a drink’ on account of some disadvantageous change in his condition. I think in such cases the determining factor is nonetheless the pain of consciousness that was present and which became dominant by the removal of what had been a continuous restraint. Men drink on happy occasions, too, because they have the assurance that in this manner all vestiges of mental gloom will be lifted and they will attain a state of pure joyousness more in accordance with the environment.
The supreme danger which lies in the use of intoxicants as a cure for mental suffering and which often renders the remedies worse than the disease is of course the morbid organic changes resulting from habitual use. Cessation of use causes what are known as symptoms of abstinence, of a severity and painfulness proportionate to the usual dose and the duration of the habit. These symptoms are always painful, and a dose of the poison invariably affords relief from their immediate effects. Long-continued habits, therefore, set up in time a double ‘pull’ - the craving for the characteristic euphoria and a dread of the painful symptoms of abstinence. It is to those temperaments in which pain is a predominant element of consciousness, and in which some quality of suffering is inseparable from thought, that alcohol and all joy-creating poisons constitute the greatest threat. Under its influence the individual experiences a complete respite from intolerable suffering:
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The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord, That all the misbelieving and black Horde Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.
In such cases life becomes a continual struggle to render permanent by excessive use the very fleeting happiness these poisons bring, or even to attain a higher state of mental exaltation, an endeavour which can never be realised. There is continual alternation between the deepest gloom of abstinence and a mental state, when drunk, which through continuous use of intoxicants begins to resemble sluggish mental anaesthesia rather than positive happiness: but even this psychological narcosis is a respite and becomes to the individual preferable to the normal condition of suffering. It is in such cases that all the bonds of civilised life are eagerly snapped, where the strongest springs of human conduct - love of friends and relatives, position, honour - are restraints more powerless than plumed reeds to stop the whirlwind in its course. Everything held priceless in normal psychic life is carelessly cast into the maelstrom. The sufferer drifts into a vicious circle and, like the scorched fly, spins in vain upon the axis of his pain. The black horde that normally infests the soul is replaced by an ordered league of deadlier foes against whom the Allah-breathing Lord now in vain unsheathes his whirlwind Sword.
Proof that it is some type of mental gloom which induces the use of euphoric poisons is further afforded by the strength and universality of these habits among peoples in whom melancholy of temperament is a definite racial characteristic. The Russian peasantry and the Chinese might be cited as outstanding examples of nationalities whose pessimism and lack of joyousness are the first traits to engage the attention of a stranger, and there are few other races upon whom habits of intoxication have gained so strong a hold.
In this country the Bushmen are the embodiment of mental misery. It is amusing to read today the observations of earlier investigators in this respect. Many of them were in doubt as to whether these people could cough or sneeze, but they seemed to be quite sure that they did not know how to laugh! (Martin Hinrich Karl Lichtenstein [1803]: Reisen im südlichen Africa ...) Even their pleasures are sad beyond words. Their songs are dirges, their dances funeral processions and their favourite music a monotonous wail of misery. And never was a race so quickly and effectively devastated by habits of intoxication.
They had a poison of their own - a wild hemp widely smoked by the yellow races11 in South Africa. But dagga had apparently created a high degree of tolerance or was not virulent enough to suit their taste. They seized upon the white man's intoxicants, alcohol and tobacco, with avidity. Lichtenstein described their method of using tobacco in his time. They drew the smoke from a tube of antelope bone and swallowed it. It was not inhaled and exhaled
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from the lungs as cigarette-smokers do these days. By swallowing, the smoke was passed directly into the stomach, so that a whole pipeful was consumed without any escaping from the mouth. It quickly induced profound unconsciousness succeeded by violent sickness, during which the swallowed smoke gradually escaped, each patient (if so he can be named) being assisted in turn by the recovered members of the party.
The yellow races of the more northerly areas (Hottentots, Griquas, Korannas) have gone a step further in the use of tobacco as an intoxicant. The tolerance set up by a century of abuse has rendered all the usual applications quite ineffective and they have now acquired the habit of consuming the thick viscous oil concentrated in old tobacco pipes. The oil is placed behind the lower lip and gradually swallowed with the saliva. It seems almost incredible that sufficient tolerance could be created for the body to become proof against such doses of a poison so active and deadly.
It will readily be imagined what effect alcohol had upon a race so strongly predisposed to its use by every trait of character and every circumstance of their lives. While it was still possible for them to procure brandy from traders without any restriction, this constituted the chief, if not the only, article of commerce supplied by the whites in exchange for the products of the industry and skill of these cattle-breeders and hunters. So powerful was the craving for drink that every restraint went by the board. They bartered not only their wealth, their cattle and skins for brandy, but their means of livelihood as well. When all else had gone, ploughs, wagons, and guns were offered. In the times of desperate need, the quantity of brandy they received in exchange was of small importance, so long as it was sufficient to cause complete intoxication. As a last resort, they invariably offered their wives and children, and it is wellknown that numerous Koranna ‘apprentices’ were so procured by brandytraders in former days. There was the same utter want of restraint in consuming the fiery liquids they purchased so recklessly and paid for so dearly. The visit of a trader to a stat was invariably followed by numerous deaths directly due to acute alcohol-poisoning.
The race has almost disappeared. As a united nation they exist no longer, and I do not think that any South African historian of the future will hesitate to ascribe the rapid decline not so much to the hostile invasions and conquests of white and black foes as to the destructive effects of alcohol.
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Intoxication in the Chacma
On the central plateau of the district of Waterberg near the source of the Palala River we came on one occasion into contact with a very large troop of baboons which we kept under observation for a considerable time. Our interest was due
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to the fact that we had been told that they had discovered for themselves a method of intoxication. We had previously heard numbers of stories to the same effect about other troops, so we took this opportunity, which looked promising enough, to ascertain if possible the truth of the matter. Unfortunately, the circumstances were against us and in the end we were unable to settle our doubts definitely. But the observations are worth recording.
This troop had no less than five widely separated sleeping places, they were extremely wild, and the moment our attention aroused their suspicions they trekked away into the most inaccessible parts of the Hangklip Mountains, from the precipices of which they maintained a careful watch on all our doings. Systematic observation under such circumstances was quite impossible.
On this plateau and on the surrounding mountains of this region grows a shrub-like tree belonging to the family Cycadacoae. It is a rare plant and seems to have a very limited habitat. The leaves are a vivid green, and the tree bears a small plum-like fruit of a dull red colour when ripe. Among local people this fruit has the reputation of being extremely poisonous. In spite of a great scarcity of food at the time, we found no direct evidence that it was being eaten by either birds or insects. Some trees, however, had been stripped bare and it was evident that these had recently been visited by baboons and there was every reason to believe that they had plucked the fruit. We were assured that several troops of baboons in the region were in the habit of eating this fruit, even during times of plenty, and that the animals became ‘drunk’ after such a feast. The drunkenness manifested itself in staggering gait, inability to move quickly, and in utter carelessness of danger, all of which rendered them, at such time, an easy prey to the hunters' dogs and rifles.
We saw none of this behaviour personally, and experiments with the fruit on captive baboons had negative results. Neither long starvation nor any other enticement would induce our chacmas to eat it. Both in smell and in flavour it was ‘sickly’ and unpleasant. The pulp of two of the ripe fruits killed a fullgrown cock in about twenty minutes. About a year subsequent to our first visit, three little children in the Palala district ate some of the fruit, and the relatives sent to us for assistance. We reached the farm-house about four hours after the fruit had been eaten. Emetics and several other home remedies (mostly utterly useless if not actively harmful) had been administered. The eldest of the three children - a girl of ten - had died in convulsions about an hour after eating the fruit. It is possible that some of the innumerable remedies administered may have had a share in bringing about the fatal result. She was described as having fallen into a deep and quiet sleep just before death. The convulsions came on suddenly; none of the three children had previously shown any convulsive symptoms. Of the other two (a boy and a girl of eight), the boy had recovered. He was still sick and lethargic when we arrived, but was able to give an account
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of the incident. He told us that they had each eaten two of the fruits, but the result of the emetics seemed to show that this was untrue and that many more had been eaten. The second girl was comatose and all efforts to rouse her proved unavailing at first. She was insensible to pain, the face was flushed, the pulse full and slow, the breathing deep, regular and very slow. The pupils were dilated and insensitive to light. She remained unconscious for about six hours and had to be kept awake forcibly for some time after she had regained consciousness. It was about thirty hours before she had recovered sufficiently to be pronounced out of danger. There were no convulsions.
The symptoms seemed to be those of a narcotic poison. Whether there was any euphoria it was of course impossible to ascertain from the children, and it must be borne in mind that even in known euphoric poisons the pleasant feeling is generally experienced only after considerable use and after a certain degree of tolerance has been set up.
Our own troop of wild baboons very often chewed and sucked the roots of a semi-aquatic plant which was generally known as poisonous. It was frequently used in small doses by the local people as a combined emetic and purgative, and although we never heard of a case of fatal poisoning, I can well believe, judging from its effects when used as a medicine, that a large dose would cause death. I cannot believe that its habitual use would induce euphoria. Why the baboons ate it is a mystery. In taste it was extremely nasty and its immediate physiological effects were not those which one commonly associated with joy of mind and body. But I have already referred to this inexplicable habit, which the chacma has, of chewing absolutely ‘inedible’ plants and leaves - substances which no human being could use except as a punishment or an act of selfsacrifice. But it must be borne in mind that to other races many of the delicacies we white people eat and drink are equally unpleasant and the reason why we enjoy them is just as mysterious to them as the strange tastes of the chacma are to us.
It will be seen that I am by no means prepared to say, as a result of my own observation, that the chacma has discovered poisons which it uses for the purpose of euphoric intoxication in the same way that man does, but my knowledge of the general character of the animal and its habits in captivity and under natural conditions makes me strongly inclined to believe that the statements made to us and referred to above are true. But whether or not it has acquired such habits under natural conditions, one thing is certain: In captivity the chacma has a powerful psychological predisposition to the use of intoxicants, and it may be argued that this predisposition is due to the same cause as in man - namely, some kind of suffering inseparable from the new mind which, like man, it has acquired in the course of its evolution.
The South African baboon in captivity is singularly like the Bushman in its
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predilection for tobacco and alcohol. It needs little observation to convince one that the taste for tobacco is not instinctive and hereditary. Wild baboons certainly never make use of it even where there is every opportunity for doing so. I have often seen baboons pass through tobacco fields daily to reach mealie lands and orchards, but I never saw them touch the plants, and this, I think, is the general experience of residents in Waterberg. Our own wild troop were for a long period constantly within reach of a number of tobacco plants that grew in the vicinity of our huts, but they never touched them. In captivity, on the other hand, the chacma's taste for tobacco is so common that it was almost impossible for us to determine when any particular individual had first acquired it. All captive baboons beg for tobacco and eat or chew it with all the zest of a long-established habit. One old male showed a great liking for pipe-oil similar to the craving of the Hottentots. He had taught himself to scratch the oil out of a pipestem with a blade of grass which he then cleaned on to a piece of paper, rolled up and chewed.
Every observer of the South African Bushmen describes their craving for tobacco and alcohol in exactly the same terms, and all that has been said of them could, as a matter of fact, be applied word for word to the chacma. The desire for tobacco, for instance, is always spoken of as an inborn one. Of course it is not so - but, like the chacma, the individual so immediately succumbs to the appeal of this poison that it always appears to the observer as if the inclination had existed all along and was not created purely by experience. With regard to alcohol, the Bushmen required some little teaching, as there was always an initial aversion to the taste, but it is a common saying, based on the experience of the white races in South Africa, that a Bushman, without any previous knowledge of alcohol, becomes a drunkard the moment he once clearly experiences its intoxicating effect.
As a result of a great many experiments on the chacma, the following can be stated as a general rule to which there were, in our experience, no exceptions: An adult male chacma12 that has once taken alcohol in sufficient quantity to experience its euphoric effect ever after evinces a strong craving for it.
There is a great difference between the reaction of the chacma to alcohol and that of all other animals below the primates which we had an opportunity of studying. We tried the effects of the continued administration of alcohol on the following animals: vervet monkey (Cercopithecus aethiops pygerythrus), warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus aethiopicus), saddle-backed and maned jackal (Proteles cristatus), and klipspringer (Oreotragus saltator). The spirit used was absolute alcohol diluted with water in such different proportions as the circumstances of each individual case seemed to indicate.
The first rule which we deduced from these experiments was that it is impossible in any of these animals to create a craving or even an inclination for al- | |
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cohol by its repeated administration so long as the time interval between the doses is long enough to avoid any chronic organic disturbance. It makes no difference how long the administration is continued. The animal's natural distaste for alcohol seems to increase rather than to decrease with the continuance of forced doses.
If, however, the quantity of alcohol is gradually increased and the interval between doses diminished until a marked tolerance has been set up, then, if the administration is suddenly stopped, co-called symptoms of abstinence very similar to the human symptoms under analogous circumstances may manifest themselves. There is a general systemic disturbance. The digestive process becomes abnormal and there is a rapid falling off in condition and weight. Restlessness and sleeplessness are invariable accompaniments. In some cases, tremors involving the entire nervous system are an initial symptom, and continual whimpering cries indicative of persistent pain continue, subsiding only with the organic symptoms. Now, all these symptoms of organic suffering can be arrested at any time by a dose of the poison which caused them, and it is possible in the vervets and jackals to create a memory by repeating the process. The animal can be made to remember that a dose of alcohol will end its suffering immediately. It can be made to associate, under such circumstances, the taste and smell of alcohol with the cessation of pain. Once you have created and fixed that memory, you have also created a temporary craving for alcohol which lasts as long as the symptoms do.
It will be seen that the presumption that the chacma is in some degree liable to the same quality of suffering which is undoubtedly an attribute of human consciousness rests upon more certain grounds than the mere fact that it exhibits the same degeneration of certain mental processes that man does, processes which assume in human consciousness the appearance of being the whole and only cause of this quality of psychological suffering. That would be a very slender foundation for such a theory if it stood alone; because at the very outset one is met by the objection that it is more than possible that this appearance of cause-and-effect is entirely fallacious. In other words, that the degenerate mental processes and organic states which I have discussed are not the cause of the pain of consciousness but are far more probably, together with the latter, the effects of a common and more deeply seated mental mischief.
If the craving for alcohol in the chacma is a strong proof of this theory because it resembles in all ways the same psychological process in man, and in this respect stands unique in the animal world, then the existence in the animal of the human ‘hesperian depression’ would, to my mind, be an equally strong one. Here, too, one has to deal with a mental state apparently characteristic of man alone, and quite evidently an attribute of his consciousness.
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Hesperian Depression in Man
Normal mental pain in man, generally speaking, is tidal in character. With sunrise or during the early morning it is at its lowest ebb, to reach its highest flow in the evening about the time of the setting sun. In great cities and in the midst of strenuous civilisations it is difficult to study the nature of this tidal swing because of the infinite influences which all tend to modify the normal manifestation, and also because of the many remedies which man, when congregated in great numbers, devises to counteract the diurnal crisis. It is just when under more natural conditions the psychological process would assert itself, and become clearly apparent, that the lights flash out in houses and streets, that a thousand places of amusement stand out most enticingly. It is then that man, assisted by an artificial environment created, if unconsciously, nonetheless certainly to that end, can shift the centre of mental attention completely. It is not
...in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury, and outrage: and when night
Darkens the streets, when wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine13
where normal Hesperian depression can best be measured and appreciated.
It is under more natural conditions, where all these artificial remedies are wanting, that this depression appears as a clearly recognisable attribute of human mentality. On the veld it is known and discussed by both Europeans and natives with the same familiarity that any other universal common mental state is recognised and discussed. It is very remarkable and interesting that the depression reaches a climax immediately after sunset and endures for a short period only. When darkness has once settled, the mental condition changes entirely. Among the natives these phases are very noticeably translated into behaviour. An air of quietness and dejection falls upon the village just about sunset. The men and women go listlessly and mournfully about such tasks as still remain to be done. The old people gather in sheltered corners or about the fireplaces, quite silent. Conversation ceases. No song is heard and no sound of musical instruments. It seems very much like the dejection of utter physical weariness.14 The little children are by no means exempt. All laughter ceases, the games come to an end and there is a general tendency to creep closer to the mothers and elders; an apparent craving for protective fondling and endearments. As the night falls, the scene changes. The fires are newly made. Conversation and laughter are heard once more. Songs and the sound of music arise
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and under the brightening stars the young people congregate at the dancing-place, where the last vestiges of dejection and weariness vanish.
It is interesting to note that here, too, there is a general tendency to describe the depression as the product of reason. The more uncivilised natives ascribe it to a fear of approaching darkness. It is during the dark hours, they suggest, that wizards go forth to create misery and distress; to sow disease and death among their defenceless neighbours. It is then that the spirits of the dead have the opportunity of manifesting themselves in a manner profoundly malevolent to the living; and other evil powers of unknown origin have all to wait for the night to attain their wicked purpose. Small wonder, therefore, they say, that human beings should become thoughtful and distressed at the time of approaching night. Why the condition should change for the better when darkness has actually arrived they are (like their more civilised neighbours) quite unable to explain, or the explanation is childishly illogical. The Boers explain the condition, as might be expected, on more abstract grounds. The coming of night suggests the approach of death; the utter futility of human life; the distressing certainty of the end of all things; and the helplessness and paltriness of man. Of all this the setting sun is a recurring emblem.
If this state of mind is not easily recognisable in the midst of great civilisations, it must not be assumed that it is absent. In some degree it is universally experienced and has been an attribute of human mentality since the beginning of history. In the sun-stories of the dawn of civilisation the daily death of the great luminary appears as typifying the feeling. In poetry and art it reappears throughout the history of human culture. No artist has fixed upon canvas the colour and light and atmosphere of this special time of day without in some degree imbuing his composition with the ‘sadness that comes with the evening’. Even under the chisel of the sculptor it has found expression in every age in innumerable stones.
In religion all pronounced and common human psychological phases are represented in some form. This ‘evening melancholy’, which would naturally be accentuated in the religious temperament, appears magnificently in the stately formalities of both Eastern and Western Christian Churches. In all religious literature man's helplessness in the presence of an evil against which his own inward means of defence are so clearly powerless is constantly expressed:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide...
It is in poetry, song and music, however, that this psychological process has come to striking utterance. How many ‘nocturnes’ are there not which owe their popularity chiefly to the profound melancholy which the artist was able to
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express in beautiful words, colours or tones, and which finds an instant echo in most human souls? Very often it is the powerful suggestion of death which is accepted and expressed as the cause:
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ...
But even when it is the beauty of the evening which makes the stronger appeal, it is seldom that that beauty can be expressed without revealing its inherent melancholy. One remembers as an example of this Milton's lines from Paradise Lost which Newton described as unparalleled in verse:
Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
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Hesperian Depression in the Chacma
In few phases of behaviour did our troop of baboons appear to us more human-like than in the unquestionable expression of this ‘evening melancholy’. They generally reached their sleeping-place some time before sunset, to spread over the banks and rocks of the gorge-stream. Groups would collect in several shady spots and one could hear the animated ‘talking’ of the elders above the sound of the perturbed waters. Among the younger members of the troop this was the favourite time for mating, for strutting and boastful calling, and very frequently for romping games. It was especially the hour of the little ones. The favourite playground was a shallow rock-pool with an earth-slide on one side and a huge branch-swing that must have been used by their ancestors for generations, to judge from the mirror-like polish imparted to the bark. It was during the hour before sunset that games were indulged in with the utmost joyousness. Incessantly the happy ‘laughter’ and shrieks of excitement and delight awoke the echoes of the great shadowy gorge, while the older fathers and mothers sat watching the activity.
With the setting of the sun and the first deepening of the shadows a singular transformation came over the entire scene. Silence fell upon them gradually. The ‘talking’ ceased. The little ones crept cuddlingly into the protecting arms of their mothers. The romping young folk joined different groups, generally on the higher flat rocks from which a view could be had of the western horizon. The older ones assumed attitudes of profound dejection, and for long intervals the silence would be unbroken except for the soft whimpering complaints of the little ones and the consoling gurgling of the mothers. And then from all
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sides would come the sound of mourning, a sound never uttered otherwise than on occasions of great sorrow - of death or parting. I do not think there is any possibility of mistaking the state of mind which determines this behaviour - even by one not well acquainted with the character and ways of the animal. One need only compare them with a native village under the same conditions to realise beyond any shadow of doubt that you have here a representation of the same inherent pain of consciousness at the height of its diurnal rhythm. In the case of the chacma the condition also disappears with the settling darkness. When the troop finally moved on to the krans or to the entrance of the sleeping-cave, the games were resumed and sometimes on moonlight nights continued for several hours.
In the presence of these proofs, it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that the chacma suffers from the same attribute of pain which is such an important ingredient of human mentality, and that the condition is due to the same cause. |
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