The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-06-02
THE MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE OF
INEBRIETY.*
BY MRS. NJ. LOUISE THOMAS.


1 know of no question within the
range of human thought so difficult of
dicussion and so impossible of solution
as the Jurisprudence of Inebriety,'
and if this was all of the subject be-
fore us tonight 1 should declare the
task hopeless.
1t is appalling to consider how much
of legislative action has already been
had, and to how little purpose to stem
the tide of inebriety. We have laws
to manufacture, and not to manufac-
ture intoxicating liquors. We have
low license and high license, and local
option and prohibition, tax for revenue,
Maine law, and to guard minors, and
wives, and confirmed inebriates, and
so many other forms of law that their
aim is defeated as much by their num-
Der as by their general weakness.
Friends of temperance shake their
heads with sad forebodings, while those
engaged in the traffic lift theirs in proud
defiance, and thoughtful minds are led
to doubt whether laws can be framed
that will guard equally the individual
and the State, punish the violater of
law, and yet allow just libertysto all.
But, adding third side to our angle
and making it the Medical Jurispru-
dence of Inebriety," we have PROPOSE
tion which in symmetry of thought and
reasonableness of purpose awakens a
hope that even that stupendous evil,
which, to paraphrase the words of an
other, is ''the source of all human mis-
cries." may not be entirely beyond con-
troll.
1t is so reasonable to conclude that
inebriety, in all its forms and every
stage, is disease, following distinct
lines of tendencies, developments and
effects, that I marvel it has not so
stood upon our statute books from the
first. Every symptom, from the awak
ened morbid appetite, through all its
stages, down to final darkness and
death, attest the helplessness of the
victim, and call for the enlightened
skill and guiding care of the wise ply
stefan. The wonder grows why lead
ing temperance workers have not SOON
er perceived this point and called upon
medical science, from whence their help
must come.
dare not declare with many others,
most excellent people, that the desire
for any and every sort of stimulating
drinks is in itself altogether wrong and
sinful. 1t may be so, but if so, then all
laws permitting, licensing or counte-
nancing the traffic are also sinful. We
have no more right to license this than
any other form of social crime or evil.
1t seems 10 me to be natural appetite
or instinct, the same as hunger or
thirst or any other natural human de-
sire, and the abuse of it is what makes
the trouble.
1t is found among all kinds and con-
ditions Of men, in the earliest savage
tribes and among civilized races. 1t
is expressed in love of tea and coffee
and high spices, as well as in the use of
fermented drinks, wherein, not only
the grape and the grains are made to
do service, but also all the fruits, the
milk of the cocoanut, and even the
honey, that nectar of the flowers, food
fit for babes are made to yield by fer
mentation most active and virulent in
toxicants. And still further, if public
manufacture were wholly stopped by
statute to-day, it would be found going
on tomorrow in cellars and caves and
hidden places of the earth until the
public mind shall be educated to per-
ceiye and understand its danger as
promoter of disease.
1t is the abuse of this natural appe-
tite, then, and this ready ingenuity in
gratifying it, together with a general
ignorance of the fatal character of the
Read before the Medico-Legal Society of