Inebriety—A Disease.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 5099, 8 October 1891, Page 4

Inebriety—A Disease.

(BY DK 2*OKJtA> _ REEK.)

The land mourns because of drunkenness. To indulgence in strong drink must be credited a large proportion of the population of oar workhouses, prisons, hospitals, and asylums. Crime, pauperism, social disorder, immorality, actions for divorce, prosecutions for cruelty and violence, and proceedings in bankruptcy ill a great measure arise from alcoholic excesses. The financial loss which we annually sustain from drinking, if we reckon in the direct expenditure ou intoxicants and the indirect charges to which we are liable as the results of intoxication, cannot amount to less than L 250,000,000. After lengthened inquiry, I have not felt warranted in estimating our yearly premature alcoholic mortality at less than 40,000 lives cut short by personal intemperance, and double that number of lives lost by disease, privation, neglect, accident, or violence arising from the intemperance of persons other than the slain. Yet with all this tremendous talc of avoidable disaster, disease, and death, the moralist, the minister, the judge, and the politician shrng their shoulders, uttering a nam pvmmmtes, because they regard the drunkard as merely a " bad lot," who wilfully wastes his own, and often others' substance, and deserves to be punished for his misdeeds.

Is thi3 view of inebriate indulgence correct! If so, there is little hope of amendment in the future. We have had centuries of penal enactments, of restrictive legislation, and of religions zeal, with half a century of temperance effort. et to-day oar women are more drunken than ever before ; our tippling children are on the increase, alcoholic mental degeneration is njore frequently met with in our asylums, and we spent L 7,000,000 more on intoxicating liquor last year. Medical science has, however, shed a ray of light on the dark horizon. Scientific research has revealed that men and women are not all drunkards of their own choice, and are often more sinned against than sinning. Time was when the lunatic was looked upon as one who was experiencing the just penalty of his sins in a demoniac possession, which was often attempted to be exorcised (the maniac often dying under the process) by incantations, starvation, chains, exposure, and indescribable tortares. Now we know that lunacy is a disease demanding humane and scientific treatment, and we can show a substantial percentage of cures. So it has been with the inebriate. It is gradually being recognised that drunkenness is no proof of » vicious inclination, and that even fatal violence in a drunken paroxysm is no evidence of criminal intent. Of recent years several persons have been acquitted of nave charges on the ground that, when the murder or theft was committed, the accused was irresponsible while laboring under an attack of delirinm tremens or some other alcoholic affection which had

induced, for the time being, unsoundness of mind. For years past I have been able to trace back a record of some departure fro™ health previous to the appearance of the drunken habit in nearly every case of inebriety which has come under my care. Though at one time seeing only vice or sin in the drunkard, close observation has shown me that this view was_ erroneous. I would now as soon credit insanity or enteric fever to moral declension as I

would inebriety. Why do some men and women become drunkards, while the majority of then: compeers, though also non-abstainers, do not? No one starts with the design of graduating in drunkenness, but a minority "fail in their efforts at moderation. Many of the failures were conspicuous for their talents, their accomplishments, their energy, their unselfishness, and the nobility of their aspirations. In their non-alcoholic intervals not a few inebriates are men and women of refinement and culture, temperance advocates, and Christian workers. The only philosophical and scientific reply is that some individuals have, from whatever conditions, either a tendency to inebriate excess or a defective power of control and resistance. Environment, such as temptations arising out of social custom or a profusion of places where liquor can be obtained, also contributes to the development of the drunken manifestations. A bout of intoxication is no more the

disease of inebriety than is an act of violence the disease of insanity. I _ have ventured to define inebriety as a disease of the nervous system, allied to insanity, characterised by a very strong impulse to, or craving for, intoxication. It is not dipso (thirst) mania. Many inebriates

are never thirsty, unless their "coppers are hot" after a debauch, and others hate the liquor which they cannot abstain from. Inebriety is really a "tipsy mania,' or as I have proposed to designate it, a torpor narco-mania, a madness for intoxication by alcohol, or opium, or any other intoxi-

canr. . The malady may be constant, periodical, or accidental. In the accidental form, there is no symptom of confirmed disease. The individual never transgresses except on some extraordinary occasion, such as a wedding, or a funeral, or a parliamentary election. In the excitement of the moment his spirits are too absorbed and buoyant to allow him to thhik of how much he has taken, and without the slightest idea of anything of the kind, he simply glides, unknowingly, and quite by accident, into excess, manifest to others at the time, but not discemable by himself till next morning. " Once bit twice shy," and very often he is never caught a second time. The periodical inebriate, though between whiles as sober as a judge, is the subject of morbid physical disorder, wl ich may recur either at stated or irregular intervals. If he can be kept from liquor for a few hours or days, as the case may be, till this internal nervous tornado has passed over him, it will expend its force, leaving him alcohulically unscathed, and practically safe against temptation

till a recurrence of the storm. These attacks, like those of the epileptic, are of the nature of convulsions, and he may be truly called a convulsive drunkard. The constant or continuous inebriate, though

the disease may take on this form from the first, is frequently a development of the periodic form. The unfortunate habitual drunkard drinks as much as he can procure, and whenever he can get it. Palsy of will, utter loss of control, maudlin imbecility, meanness, cunning, and staggering gait, contributing to the fashioning of complete inebriate degeneration, are but the outward manifestation of shrunken brain, thickened brain coverins, and other pronounced physical degradations. In plain words, inebriety is a disease, dependent largely on physical conditions over which the inebriate had at first no control. In one-half of the cases which I have seen I have been able to detect inebriate heredity. In some other cases a defective moral control, or other defect, has been traced, beside the transmitted taint of insanity. A drunken father or mother has been the most frequent transmitter of the inebriate inheritance. Sometimes both parents have been intemperate before the birth of their first child. Til other instances the oflspring of abstaining parents have been free from any tendency of this kind, while the children of the same parents, after the latter have become drinkers, have developed a decided inclination to intemperance. The parents may have been irreproachable in their habits, yet their children may, from their earliest years, be characterised by a weakness for strong liquors. In such cases it has frequently been discovered that a grandfather or grandmother, or both, have been intemperate. In acquired inebriety, physical disorders —such as sunstroke, nervetire, or nervous shock —have often ushered in an intemperate career. An abstaining conductor, for example, has fallen from an omnibus, and sustained a severe head injury. Immediately on recovery he has plunged into intoxication.

What is the remedy ? We have tried penal measures. These are worse than useless. By a short imprisonment we have refitted the shattered drunkard, under abstinent and healthful conditions, in one of her Majesty's teetotal club houses, for going forth and renewing the excesses which he had been temporarily incapacitated from continuing. Thus the wife and family have been neglected and starved, while their bread-winner was being cared for in our present Government training school of inebriety. Temperance hysterics, religious sensationalism, mesmerism, and a host of other reputed "cures" have been loudly applauded, yet the mischief goes on apace, and inebriety is to-day the scourge of modern civilisation.

We have been sailing on the "wrong tack." Inebriety is a disease. Let us treat it as we would any other disease. Inebriates are laboring under this disease. Let us tre.it them as sick persons. By all means let us, by wise prohibitory legislation, withdraw our licensed temptations to drinking. Let us educational, intellectual, artistic, recreative, hygienic, moral, social, and religious efforts to elevate and ennoble humanity. But let us not turn a deaf ear to the heartrending cries of our _ many brothers and sisters who, handicapped in the race for temperance by inherited inebriate proclivities, or bowed down under the terrible weight of depressing environment, are gallantly, though often ineffectually, struggling for deliverance from the most degrading bondage on earth. Let us establish hospitals for the treatment of the poorest victims of this dire and fatal disease. Let us enact measures for the compulsory reception and detention, for curative purposes, of all inebriates, whatever their worldly circumstances, whose will-power has been so broken down by drink that they are unable themselves to strike a blow for freedom.

There is no "short cut" to sobriety. But, for the cure as well as_ for the prevention of the disease of inebriety, one essential condition is persistent abstinence from all intoxicating liquors.