The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1889-09-19
a DIRE INHERITANCE.
The Hidden Feuntaia Head Of the Curse
OF Drunk ennesa

OF Drunkennes&
Nothing Is more fully proved than
that alcoholic liquors and tobacco
work physical 'attaints OF blood
more surely than did treason work 1t
politically. Gellius said three hun
dred years ago: The children Of
drunkards are not likely TO have sound
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, IL 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 gen.
Grafton drank cider; its alcohol called
for more of tho same in the next gen.
GRAFTON, so that the cider.drinkers'
children wished a stronger liquor, and
their childrea, 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
he redity 10 a diseased nervous organ
ism which may show itself in hysteria,
epilepsy, ST. Vitus' dance, idiocy or
various other forms OF nervous i'm
pairment In this way is it that the
daughters OF drunkards suffer for the
sins OF their fathers Women are so
shielded and guarded against tempta-
tions to drunkenness that the heredi-
tary faint has little chance to show
itself in that direction. but its power
is felt in the various forms OF nervous
diseases which make life a burden to
thousands of women.
Dr. Henry N. Hurd, for many years
superintendent OF the Eastern Michi-
gan Insane Asylum, where he made
the study of nervous diseases a 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
rule, such children are precocious.
They develop prematurely. and show
considerable intellectual quickness.
They often possess taste for music or
painting, or for special handicrafts,
and are ingenious, winning and at
tractive. They are tasteful in dress,
il females, and show almost brilliant
in conversation and bearing. They
sometimes display from tender years
perversions OF mo. al 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 Maynard, jealous, suspicious and
perverse, and often shock their par
ents and friends by acts OF apparently
wanton cruelty toward younger chill
dren or animals. AS adult life is
reached, if females, they become hys-
terical and nervous, and often sink
into condition of invalidism which
terminates. sooner or later, in actual
insanity. Males at a corresponding age
become restless. reckless, dissipated. "
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, a loathing for drink
which presents bright side of he
redity.
1t is the testimony of experts thas
these fearful hereditary effects are not
alone transmitted by hard drinkers;
they are often entailed by moderate
drinkers who, though they may mover
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 dire
inheritance to his children to make
any man pause before allowing his
blood to become contaminated by al
cohol or nicotine? To a noble nature
there can be no stronger incentive to
pure living than the thought that in.
nocent children are to suffer the pen
atty of his indulgence in ''fleshIy 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.
o-
A POWER FOR EVIL.