The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1873-04-30
Transmitted Alcoholism.

| L y
steal Transmission" contributed to the Co.
temporary Reuisw, by DR.. W. B. Carpenter,
we extract the following on the hereditary
results Of alcoholic excess:
There is one class of cases in which a
particular abnormal form of nutrition that
is distinctly acquired by the individual ex-
erts most injurious influence upon the
offspring-that, namely, which is the result
of habltual alcoholic excess. There can be
no reasonable question that the continual
action Of what have been termed 'nervine
stlmulants' modifes the nutrition of the
nervous system; for in no other way can we
account for the unfortunately but too
| famlliar-that it not only comes to tolerate
what would have been in the first instance
absolutely poisonous, but that it comes to be
dependent upon repetition of the dose for
the power of sustaining its ordinary activity,
and that the want of such repetition pro-
duces an almost unbearable craving, which
is as purely physical as that of hunger or
thirst. Now all these 'nervine suimulants'
further agree in this, that while they excite
or misdrect the automatic activity of the
mind, they weaken the controlling power of
the will; and this is exactly the condition
which, intensified and fixed into permanence,
constitutes insanity. We have larger ex
perience of the results of habitual alcoholic
excess than we have in regard to any other
'nervine stmulant; aud all such experience
is decidedly in favor of the hereditary trans
mission of that acquired perversion of the
normal nutrition of the nervous system which
liz has induced. That this manifests itself
sometimes in congenital idiocy, sometimes in
predisposition TO insanity, which requires
but very slight exciting cause to develop
it, and sometimes III strong craving for
alcoholic drinks, which the unhappy subject
of it strives in vain TO resist, is the concur
rent testimony of all who have directed their
attention to the inquiry. Thus DR.. Howe,
in his report on the statistics of idiocy in
Massachusetts, states that the habits of the
parents of three hundred idiots having been
learned, one hundred and forty-fye, or near
ly one half, were found to be habtual drunk
ards. In one instance, in which both parents
born to them. DR.. Down, whose experience
of idooy is greater than that of any other
man in this country, has assured us that he
does not consider DR.. Howes statement as
at all exaggerated. Sir w. A. +. Browne,
the first medical lunacy commissioner for
Scotland, thus wrote when himself in charge
of large asylum: The drunkard not only
:
TEN, but entails mental disease upon his
family His daughters are nervous and
hysterical his sons are weak, hayward, &C.
centric, and sink under the pressure of ex
element, of some unforeseen exigency, or the
ordinary calls of duty. DR., Howe remarks
that the children of drunkards are deficient
in bodily and vital energy, and are predis-
posed by their very organization TO have
cravings for alcoholic sumulants. If they
pursue the course of their fathers, which
they have more temptation to follow, aud
less power to avoid, than the children of the
temperate, they add to their hereditary
weakness, aud increase the tendency to
idiocy or insanity in their constitution; and
this they leave to their children after them.
The experiences of those who, like Hartley
Colerid ge, have inherited the craving for
alcoholic excitement, together with the weak
ness of will which makes them powerlesS to
resist it, while all their better nature prompts
the struggle, must satisfy any one who care
fully weighs them, how closely connected
their psychical state is with the physical
constitution which they inherit. AS l heard
Robert Collyer, of Chicago, well say in an
admirable sermon on The Thorn in the
FLESH In the far-reaching influences that
90 to every life, and away backward as GER
tainly as forward, children are sometimes
born with appetites fatally strong in their
nature. As they grow up, the appetite grows
with them, and speedily becomes master,
the master tyrant, and by the time he ar
rives at his manhood the man is a slave. |
heard man say that for eight-and-twenty
years the soul within him lad to stand, like
an unSleeping sentinel, guarding his appetite
for strong drink. To be man at last I'M
der such a disadvantage, not to mention a
saint, is as fine piece of grace as can well
be seen. There is no doctrine that demands
a larger vision than this of the depravity of
human nature. Old DR.. Mason used to say
that as much grace as would make John
saint would barely keep Peter from knock
ing man down"