The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1870-08-19
The Testimony of science.

The New York Tribune has an
article on Moderate Drinking"
from which we clip the following:
The treatise OF DR.. Elan on a
Physicians Problems, published in
London last year, is probably the
most complete essay on "Oinoman-
ia" yet issued, though it only meets
the subject incidentally. 81 assert"
he says, that this disease is almost
as well and Enthusiastically mark
ed, in its pyschical aspects, as small-
pox is IN its physical, that it is her.
editary, and that its victims I'M
Justly crowd our criminal assem-
blIes. The instincts of an oinoman-
lac seem to be as violent and little
under control from the intellect or
will as that of "A c%arniverous AMI
NAL when it tastes blood The al,
chohol-pcison acts, as any careful
observer must have noted, as rapid
" upon the blood and stomach.
We urge this subject, gloomy and
dIstasteiul as it is, upon u readers,
and sllalI not cease TO urge 1T.
at can not too soon be made =
popular conviction that alcohol is
not only liquid damnatiOn,' but the
generator Of an incurabIe physical
disease, always IN some form trans
mitted TO the offspring. Every au-
thcrity upon the subject comedies
in the opinion that the habit of
moderate drinking, apparently
harmless in the parent, manifests
Itself invariably in the child in ON
Omania, or in epileptic or insane
tendencies. We ourselves know
cases where the grandfather yet
lives, a hale, hearty tippler, and
children and grandchildren, IN
spita of moral and religious train
ing, have gone down the same lhex-
Orable path, devoured by the IRE
slstible craving for drink. For
this disease says DR.. Elan, there
is but one cure: total and entire re-
stralnt, so as to prevent for a long
period any possibility of indulgence
IN the depraved habits We trust
the day is not far off when chrome
alcoholic poisoning will be as fully
mastered as any other disease by
our physicians, and that the poor
boy who feels the first awful craving
may have no more shame in placing
l;,,eoIf -,Ior Il oora than ha
would If threatened by any other
ailment. Let science at least do
what 1t can to aid him in his strug-
gle with Death, though we legalize
a grog~shOp at every corner to
tempt him downward.
There is no lack of statistics to
prove the effect of harmless moder-
ate drinking upon the next genera
lion. Tho spirit duty was removed
IN Norway in 1925. In the next
generation the increase in insanity
was aboYe so per cent. advance on
the previous proportion; the in
crease of congenltal idiocy $50 per
cent. In Sweden, at the same time,
Magnus Huss testifies that Cor this
cause the whole physique of the peo-
pie is degenerating; insanity, sui>
eide. aud crime are frightiulIy on
the increase; new and aggravated
diseases have invaded all classes OF
society, and c~ongenital in.beclIIty
and Idiocy are In fearful proportion
to the numbers born. Moderate
drinking says an eminent authority
on diseases of the brain, sometimes
produces IN one or more of the chill
dren of the person thus INDUCING,
only a simple reuropathy, OF a VIC
lous and defective organization, but
these, when due to such an origin,
are capable of giving rise in the
next or third generation to .affec-
tons of the mind ofthe gravest pos
siblo significance"