The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-07-11
Intemperance as a Disease.

"A WOih Wy liz 4 OIL
IRISH of Burlington, n. j., entitled Alco-
holic Inebriety," is replete with informa-
ton and suggestion for the reformer and
philanthropist. For years they have
waged warfare with this giant evil, and
the results of their work are not to be I'M
derestimated. But spite of the public
sentiment they have created, the legisla-
ton they have secured, the educational
safeguards they have effected, drunken
ness is not decreasing as it ought, and the
reform of an inebrIate is not frequent
occurrence. May not this be because in
struggling against intemperance as vice,
we have too much overlooked the fact that
it is also disease, and omitted to suggest
treatment for it as such Z We would by
no means blink the first and more general
conception of the evil. Beyond question,
in most cases, the drunkard by voluntary
sensual indulgence brings upon himself
the disgrace and suffering of the drunk
ards lot. The sin of his yielding to such
temptation cannot be too strongly stated
and censured. But according to DR.. Par
IRISH, and the best medical authorities
agree with him, the habitual drinkers IL
cense brings its swift punishment his
indulgence ceases to be purely voluntary
and becomes the requirement of disease.
DR.. Peddie of Edinburgh says "The
habit OF drinking sometimes goes on in a
slow, stealthy manner as if from uice to
disease, binding in the last link the vic
tim as slave OF a passion from which
he cannot free himself, struggle however
hard he may. The disease, therefore,
may be acquired, springing out of vicious
courses"
Indeed, DR.. Parrish quotes scientific
men of standing who consider inebriety
from its earliest stages, simply and al
ways disease, and compare it with forms
Of insanity whose first symptoms are ap-
parent ci&nges in character and haolts.
In general, however, his authorities would
agree with him in the parallel which he
draws between drunkenness and giut-
tony: at the latter may be, like drink
ing, a sensuous habit merely, running ON
till it assumes the form of gastric dis
ease but it is more frequently symptom
OF cerebal disorder" And again The
boundary line between the vice of glut-
tony and the diseases which follow it, in
which there is visceral inflammation and
deterioration, is readily distinguished by
the very same class of SYMPTOMS that desig-
nate the disease of inebriety. AS the
vice passes into state of visceral de-
rangement, which is disease, the change
OF character begins to manifest itself.
Nothing is more common than the irrita-
BILE temper of dyspeptics, the gloomy
moodiness that accompanies liver de-
rangement, or the odd fancies and vaga-
ries of hysteris, which so commonly rep
resent sympathy with diseased organs.
The same law is applicable to the subject
In hand and no one who has observed
closely can have failed to notice the dit
terences of character which are exhibited
In the career of an inebriate as he pro-
crosses from the careless, motiveless be-
ginning to the stage of cerebral disorder"
Perhaps the most valuable part of this
little work is that which treats of the al
coholic craving as hereditary faint, and
It's relation to other, transmitted diseases.
Incidents are cited which indicate the
close connection between inebriety and
insanity as cerebral disorders, the I'M
soundness shoYing itself sometimes in
one form, sometimes in the other, in the
same family. Gas water is changed into
ice, 80 one disease may be transmitted
into another form, and be known by
ing the same original qualities.
lntemperance crops out in some families
where there has been no previous lodg-
ment of the faint, but where other disor-
ders have been active from which inc
briefly Is simply deviation from the di-
rect line" Some reports of reformato-
ries have been tabulated. They present
startling disclosures OF diseased parent
Ar - IT, - n
at Fort Hamilton, l.. L., has looked into
the family history of one hundred and
slxty-one patients there. He learned that
nlnety-eight of the number had drunken
fathers, six drunken mothers, and sixteen,
grandparents and other near kindred,
who were incorporate. Fifteen were of
families in which insanity existed, some
times along with inebriety, illustrating
the close relation of the two diseases
Quotations might be multiplied to show
tnat physicians consider intemperance a
hereditary disorder. DIR. Anstie affirms
" The tendency to drink Is disease of
the brain which is inherited" DIR. Dru-
lit OF London, says: "The condition
which gives rise to intemperance is hered-
ltary." And more significant yet, DIR.
Elan states "The habit of the parent
when inebriated, does not appear in the
child merely as habit, but in most cases
as an irresistible impulse, a disease"
Now comes the practical question, If
these things are so, what then ? How
should these facts affect our treatment of
the problem OF intemperance The evil
must bediminished in two ways By pre-
ventive and curative measures. OF the
latter there are temperance societies and
places of confnement-prisons, insane
asylums and inebriate homes. A small
proportion of drunkards reform by their
own effort, "work out their own saliva
tion." They are estimated at three per
cent of tie whole number. The temper