Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1851-02-21
NTEMPERANcE HEREDITARY.

IN OucCtS u EtASOuOA upOn nv nuA1oh SyoeNA
which have been brought to light by medical
and observation. there is not one, perhaps,
which has been received with so little creduli-
ty, as the doctrine that drunkenness is heredit-
ary-that it is impaired from parents to chill
dren. By most persons, the idea is regarded
as the offspring of over-enthusiastic minds,
rather than a well-attested truth, corroborated
by the evidence of the most celebrated Ply
sicians both Of the old and new world. Nor
is the doctrines noreI one but comes to us
sanctioned by the experience of antiquity :
Thus Plutarch says" One drunkard begets
another "-and Aristotle remarks that drunken
women bring forth children like unto them
selves" And DR.. Browne, a distinguished
Physician of a later day, makes the following
statement "The drunkard not only Injuries
and enfeebles his own system, but entails mem
taldisease upon has fa4nily. His daughters are
nervous and hysterical; his sons are weak,
Maynard, eccentric, and sink insane under the
pressure of excitement, of some unforeseen
exigency, or of the ordinary calls of duty
This heritage may be the result of a ruined
and diseased constitution, but is much more
likely to proceed from that long-continued
nervous excitement, in which pleasure was
sougM in the alternate exaltation of sentiment
and oblivion, which exhausted and wore out
the mental powers, and ultimately produced
imbecility and paralysis, both attributable to
disease of the substance of the brain. How
far the monomania of inebrirty is itself a dis
ease, and may be more the development, the
contamination, than the commencement of a
hereditary tendency to arrangement, this is
not the place to point out but there us every
reason to believe that it not only acts upon,
and renders more deleterious, whatever latent
may exist, but ~vitiates or impairs the sources
of health for several generations. That the
effects of drunkenness are highly inimical to a
permanent, healthy state of the brain, is often
proved at a great distance OF time from the
course of intemperance, and long after the a.
doptien of regular habits. Sometime since 1
was called upon to treat a remarkably fine boy
about sixteen years old, among whose relations
no case of arrangement could be pointed out,
and for whose sudden malady no cause could be
assigned except a single glass of spirits. His
father, however, had been a confirmed drunk
} ard, was subject to fits of delirium and depres-
sion, following inebriety, and died of delirum
tremens. The boy recovered. His case pre-
scented many points of interest. His head in
creased rapidly, and the two hemispheres were
of unequal size. The disease was intermit-
tent, the patient passing a week in ineonhcrent
Madness and the succeeding week in perfect
tranquility and consciousness. These states
were separated or connected by short profound
: sleep or lethargy, differing altogether from the
patients ordinary sleep, and recognized by
5 him as the eliminating point Of his disorder
At present / have two patients who appear to
inherit a tendency to unhealthy action Of the
/, brain from mothers addicted to drinking and
another, an idiot whose father was a drunkard.''
DR.. Howe, in his Report to the Legislature Of
: Massachusetts, on idiocy, says, the parents Of
: the 800 idiots in the hospital are" known to be
) habitual drunkards." Such parents it is af
e frmed, give a weak and lax constitution to Their
children, who are pre-disposed BY their very
e organization, to have1cravings for alcoholic
Y stimuIants and DR. Carpenter says such chill
= dren are " especially prone to incorporate hab
It's"
And yet many are disposed to look upon thi'
: doctrine as an ahsurdity, and say that the in
temperance of the children of drunken parents
is solely to be attributed to the example ever!
g day set before them. While we willingly yielC
that wicked examples have a direful tendenc,
d upon the young, we cannot see tchy it is2ha
10 the drunkard cannot impart this constitutions
= ailment to his offspring as well as any other
Children partake of the tempers, disposition
and ways of their parents in other particulars
and why not in this? The best of medica
writer's of the present day, term intemperanc'
a disease land cannot a disease be communi
t, Gated? The " disease" says DR.. Carpenter
|" does not consist in the mere act or habit G
becoming intoxicated, but in the irresistibl
impulse which drives the unhappy being to d
that which he knows to be pernicious an
wrong, and which in the intervals Of his parox
= ysms, he views with loathing and disgust"
With these facts staring them in the face
y how can heads of families tamper with tina
is which is sowing the seeds of disgrace, diseas
: and death in the life-blood of their own chi
n dren? Verify, they who do so, in the face {
light and knowledge, must have a terrible az
ii count to give for the misery and ruin they ma
entail upon the world. Parents! we b
seeeh you, if you have no regard for yourselve
q spare, oh, spare the innocent unborn who al
~ to come after you, and entail not upon the
as the drunkard's disease.
be