Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-10-23
Causes of Insanity and Race Degenera-
tiOn

From the annual report of DR.. Benz
Blackboard, Superintendent of the
| Western State Hospital, to the Board
of Directors of that Institution at their
meeting held on Tuesday, October Is,
1895, we make the following extract
| showing the effect of alcohol, cigarette
smoking, and immoral habits and ex-
cesses in producing insanity and the
degeneration of posterity:
ut is matter of some interest to as
certain how. prominent factor in
| temperance is in the causation of in
sanity. Alcoholic insanity is now
we'll recognized form of mental aliena
ton. Alcohol has peculiar affinity
for the brain and nervous system. No
man can dNink alcohol habitually to
excess without suffering mental impair
ment. it matters not how strong he
may be endowed mentally. The bright
est mind becomes clouded and daZed
and the moral sense blunted, he looses
that keenness of perception and power
of sustained effort SO necessary to sue
cess in life, and, if persisted in, the
| degenerative process goes on till it
ends in mental and moral imbecility.-
| While it is quite true that the direct
evil effects of the alcohol habit can be
overestimated, it is just as certain that
it is easy to underestimate the indirect
evils that are the outcome of intemper-
ance. In the descendants of the drunk
ark we look for them and in many in
stances it is a simple matter to trace
the connection between cause and eff
| feet. Certainly the drunkard is apt to
beget children who have nerve cells of
the most unstable kind and who are
frequently, physically and morally,
unable to successfully cope with the
trials and temptations of every day
life."
ITO the same extent, the same could
be said OF the penicious cigarette
smoking habit now so prevalent
among, and undermining the moral.
physical and mental health of the
youth of our country during the period
of youth and development when the
brain is tender and plastic and easily
affected by the noxious inhalations
kissing through and around the nerve
centres. His nervous organization is
apt to become more shattered by the
cigarette habit than if be were adj
dicted to alcoholic stimulants during
that period, and will surely be the first
to give away, and of course, the first to
suffer, especially during the period of
puberty, with it's strain on the nervous
system The youth at college, who
burns the midnight oil is to be com
mended for his industry, but too often
he burns out his brain at the same
time with the accompanying cigarette,
the process of waste and injury to the
nervous system may be greater than
the repair, and mental bankruptcy
may be the result. Better to lay the
foundation of u good healthy physique
in youth on which to build a healthy
superstructure of mental power.
IN this connection we may also re
fer to the moral, physical and mental
wreckage wrought by the terrible
Scourge of Syphilis. Acquired in one
generation, 1t insldiously propagates
itself to future generations, until who
| can tell, when once acquired, that they
are entirely free from it. 1t masque-
rades under so many assumed names,
that it often taxes the skill of the most
experienced physicians to diagnose it.
Strange to say, that only in the recent
years the true relation of this disease
to insanity was discovered. That in
sidious, but fatal form of insanity, now
so common, known as general paresis,
has been fully demonstrated as trace
able to this virulent poison"
ut is very true, as Professor Moa
Nordedu, in his interesting work on
Degeneration says, When under
any kind of noxious influences an or
ganism becomes debilitated, it's success
sors will not resemble the healthy type
of the species, with capacities for de-
velopment, but will form a new sub
species, which, like all others, possesses
the capacity of transmitting to its off.
lspring in a continuously increasing
degree, its pecullarities, there being
morbid deviations from the normal
form, laps in development, malforma-
ton and infirmities''