The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-09-21
a DIRE INHERITANCE.
Thu Hidden Fountain Head of the Curse
of Drunkenness.


brains" Erasmus Darwin gave strong
testimony to the fact that diseases
arising from the use of liquor are liza
BILE to become hereditary even to the
third generation, gradually increas-
ing, if the cause be continued, till the
family becomes extinct.
Much of the drunkenness of to-day
can be traced directly to the cider BAR
rels of fifty years ago. The first gent
Grafton drank cider; its alcohol called
for more of the same in the next gen1
GRAFTON, so that the cider drinkersj
children wished stronger liquor, and
their children, the drunkards of to-
day, demand 'whisky straight"
An appetite for drink does not by
any means exhaust the Inheritance
bequeathed children by the drinking
habits of parents. Strictly speaking,
what is transmitted by alcoholic
heredity is diseased nervous organ
ism which may show itself in hysteria,
epilepsy, ST. Vitus' dance, i'd AoS
various other forms If -4ae ne = 60
pairment In this way is it that "
daughters of drunkards suffer forGheI
sins of their fathers Women&e So
shielded and guarded against empta-
tions to drunkenness that theheredi-
tary faint has little chance 70 show
itself in that direction, but j. power
is felt in the various forms ofnervous
diseases which make life aourden to
thousands of women.
DR.. Henry N. Hurd. for many years
superintendent of the Eastern Michi-
gan Insane Asylum, whe.e he made
the study of nervous diseases spec
ialty, and now superintendent of Johns
Hopkins Hospital. Baltimore, says:
'Some of the children Of drunkards
inherit Immediately from their parents
diseases like epilepsy, chronic chorea,
hysteria, idiocy or imbecility. As a
rule, such children are precocious.
They develop prematurely. and show
considerable Intellectual quickness.
They often possess a taste for music or
painting, or for special handicrafts,
and are ingenious, winning and at
tractive. They are tasteful in dress,
if females, and show almost brilliant
in conversation and bearing. They
sometimes display from tender years
perversions of moral sense. They are
untruthful, INSCRIPTIONS as to the
means employed to accomplish cher
ished plans; Indifferent as to the prop
erty rights of others, lacking in an APP
probation of abstract right and JUS
tice. They usually display lack Of
mental equilibrium, and frequently
lose those traits of mind which in
childhood proved so attractive. They
are hayward, jealous, suspicious and
perverse, and often shock their par
ents and friends by acts of appare9tl,y
wanton cruelty toward younger 5Ss{lZ
dren or animals. AS adult pfeAs
reached, if females, they become hyA
terical and nervous, and often sink
into condition of invalidism which
terminates, sooner or later, in actual
insanity. Males at corresponding age
become restless, reckless, dissipated u
Prof. Krofft-Ebing, in very learned
work published in Stuttgart, 1888,
| gives this genesis of alcoholic hered-
ity: I'm the first generation there is
found in the children of drunkards
moral depravity and tendency to al
| coholic excess. The second genera
ton are subject to attacks of insanity,
the drink mania and general paralysis;
the third show hypochondria. with a
tendency to murder, and to the fourth
comes imbecility, idiocy and extinc-
ton of family, thus verifying the Di-
vine law: Visiting the iniquities of the
fathers upon the children to the third
| and fourth generation. When ex-
tinction of the family does not occur
there comes an utter revolt of the
whole nature, loathiug for drink
which presents bright side of he
redity.
1t is the testimony of experts that
these fearful hereditary effects are not
alone transmitted by hard drinkers;
they are often entailed by moderate
drinkers who, though they may never
have been dead drunk in their lives,
kept their system continually under
the influence of alcohol.
Is there not enough even in the bare
possibility of transmitting such a dire
inheritance to his children tt make
any man ,pause before allowing his
blood to become contaminated by al
cohol or nicotine? To noble nas.&s
there can be no stronger incentiSe Is
pure living than the thought that in.
nocent children are to suffer the pen
atty of his indulgence in "heshly lusts
that war against the soul" Those who
sow wild oats do not garner the whole
crop. Much of the baneful harvest
remains to curse the lives that spring
from their own.-Union Signal.
A POWER FOR EVIL.