The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-09-27
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE.
TRANSMITTING THE EVIL.

Did this moral and social ruin end
in the person of the dipsomaniac only
the course of the drink-craving would
lose half its terror. But the full force
of this terrible vice is only realized
when we consider it's effects in the
physical deterioration and mental
degradation of the drunkards chill
dren. The Indebtedness attendant
upon starvation diet and insufficient
clothing, intensified by ill-usage, is
pitiable enough; but it is not SO sad
and deplorable as the inherited men
tai alteration, the criminal tenden-
cles, that are transmitted through con-
ception during state Of intoxication
and perpetuated during the pregnancy
OF the habitual drunkard Nay. more.
to transmit these evils intoxication is
not necessary. l give the very words
OF DR.. B. Richardson, the highest
authority on this question, and a true
friend of humanity:
All the evils resulting from heredi-
tary alcoholism may be transmitted
by parents who have never been noted
for their drunkenness. Long-contin-
ued habitual indulgence in intoxicat-
ing drinks is not only sufficient to
originate and hand down the morbid
tendency, but is more likely to do so
than even oft-repeated drunken out
breaks, with intervals of perfect So
briefly between"
The late Dr. Andrew Clarke. one
or the most eminent medical men of
our time, discussing the same truth.
says:
1t is not they alone ii. e., those
who drink to excess) who suffer. but
so soon as a man begins to take one
drop more than what l have called
the physiological quantity (Which, in
his opinion is exceedingly minute),
the desire is not only begotten in
him but the desire becomes a part of
his very nature and that nature so
formed by his acts is calculated to
1nf1ict curses inexpressible upon the
earth when handed down to the gen
erations that follow after him as part
and parcel of their being"
For Gin the inscrutable designs of
nature none is more manifest than
this, that physical vice, like physical
feature and virtue, descends to pos
terity; but no one of the transmitted
wrongs, physical or mental, is more
certainly passed on to the yet I'M
born, than the wrongs inflicted by al
cohol"
Deaths that are attributed to nat
ural cause, such as cerebral apoplexy.
cardiac valvular affections, cardiac
and renal dropsy, ascites, diabetes,
Bright's disease, paralysis of various
kinds, gastric disorders, and-particu-
larly in affections of the blad-
der and generative organs of later
| life, which render their last DAYS pain
full and miserable-all these are not
generally associated with, or ascribed
to, alcohol. But they are as surely
the result of it in the case of drinkers
as that there is sun in the heavens
The relationship is more frequently
realized in the instance of the liver,
because the direct results are more
easily traced in this organ than in
others.
But whether quickly or slowly, alco-
hol inevitably Injuries all. Nothing
is more striking than the quantity Of
alcohol that may be taken by some
person with apparent impunity, even
for number of years. Graves, in his
Clinical Lectures" described a case
in which, for twenty years, over a
pint of brandy or whiskey was taken
daily before the breakdown came in
the form of dropsy and other affec-
lions, but it came surely and terribly