ABSTRACT
Every one is aware of the disintegrating effect of a poison like alcohol upon self-control; how there is a freeing of the impulses because of a weakening of the restraining memories. Fear is insistent in these cases only when fear-bringing circumstances or memories are already dominant. When the coffee is taken in great excess, the physical fear mechanism may be so stimulated as to produce a kind of panic, the patient being afraid of his own disorderly exuberance. The improvement of the physical state is not the real cause of the disappearance of the fears is proved by the fact that the fears may be made to disappear psychologically even when the physical state persists. Pain or prolonged irritation may be the cause of anxiety or fear, because of the feeling of inadequacy it brings. Cenesthesopathic sensations of physical origin are themselves an entirely different problem.
