The Anaconda standard., 1898-01-09

DR. F. w DEvelyn of Alameda. Cal,
graduate of the ancient Scottish uni
versity of Edinburgh, has come for
ward as the savior of those who. born
of drunken parents, are blighted from
the natal hour with the curse Of afco-
holism. DR.. D'Evelyn has no faith in
a so-calied t'cure" for drunkenness.
His plan is preventive-to keep the
child from developing into drunkard.
He argues that drunkenness is dis
ease, and that the children of parents
who have been addicted to drink are
born with an inherited taste for liquor
for which they are no more to be
blamed than for an attack of the
measles or whoopng cough. Starting
with this hypothesis, DIR. DEvelyn has
worked out what he claims is a sure
means of eradicating the disease.
First he takes a horse and makes
him gloriously drunk. keeping him in
this condition for weeks, until his blood
is surcharged with alcohol like that of
the habitual whiskey fiend. With a sort
of antitoxin obtained from these ine-
briated horses, which DR.. d Evelyn calls
''equsine," he inoculates the children.
who, according to his theory, are born
to be drunkards, and thereby renders
them proof against the power of alco-
hol
DIR. DEvelyn has been inoculating
with his Drink Preventative" the boys
aminng their blood to make sure that
they are born with the taint of alco-
holism. and he makes very startling
statements regarding the success of his
treatment. One little waif from the
San Francisco streets who has been
treated with the equisine is an extraor-
dinary specimen of infant depravity.
This youngsters mere baby-had
developed q taste for whiskey which
was Unsuitable. Although scarcely able
10 talk, he had learned how to ask for
liquor and swallowed it like veteran
of liquor shops. DR.. d Evelyn claims
that he has succeeded in eradicating
from this infant phenomenon the germs
CT alcoholism, and his statement is sup
ported by disinterested persons who
nave examined the child.
The following is the doctors signed
story:
The clinician at a very early period
in his career recognizes the fact that
disease naturally subdivides itself into
two great classes, the congenital and
the acquired. The distinction between
these may at all times be marked, yet
they will be found woven one with the
other in a manner that modifies char
acteristieS of both. Prevention is bet
ter than cure, and the trend of scientiti-
ic and practical medicine is in this
direction. The more successfully We
combat the element of heredity, the
more satisfactory will be our progress
toward the annihilation OF disease.
Many classes of diseases are so univer-
sally deemed hereditary that even the
laity are accustomed to denominate
certain types as the 'consumptive child,
the 'scarlentic child etc. Extensive
observation carried over a period of
many years in the movement of clinics
has impressed upon me that many of
these conditions are not in themselves
actual diseases, but more properly the
symptoms of pre- existing conditions.
Lately this has demonstrated itself un-
mistakably. and / am compelled TO rec
ognize that the peculiar perversion Of
function resulting from continued use
of a foreign and irritating element de-
yelops a peculiar train of conditions
which only require attention TO be