The dogma of human responsibility : more especially as it related to inebriety : being a paper read before the last annual meeting of the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, and published in the September number of the Journal of Inebriety, 1877 / by the Rev. J. Willett.

  • Willett, J. (John), -1881.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dogma of human responsibility : more especially as it related to inebriety : being a paper read before the last annual meeting of the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, and published in the September number of the Journal of Inebriety, 1877 / by the Rev. J. Willett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the education of their children, out of their personal estates and the rents and profits of their real estates, respectively. In the above-quoted provision we find drunkards classified with idiots, lunatics, and persons of unsound mind, and the custody of their persons and estates is placed at the disposal ot the Supreme Court. The reason assigned is because they are incapable of conducting their own affairs by reason of habitual drunkenness. Does not this law virtually recog- nize that condition of mind which Blackstone defines as the want or defect of will?'''' The Supreme Court, of course, performs these functions by proxy, and appoints a committee to take charge of the person and property of the inebriate. That committee may, at its pleasure, dispose of the person, by placing him either in a Lunatic or inebriate asylum, or even in a prison, or sa'd committee may elect to permit the inebriate to roam abroad at his own discretion. If during the time of his incarceration in a lunatic asylum the inebri- ate, witlvout imbibing intoxicating liquor, should kill a jel- low inmate or one of his keepers, it is almost certain that he would be acquitted of the crime of murder on the ground of insanity. But suppose the committee allowed this same man the liberty of his person, and that while in a state of intoxication he should smite down a fellow passenger on the cars or a stranger on the streets, the chances are that he would suffer death as the penalty of his crime. Take another view of this subject. According to the returns of the highest authorities on lunacy, the most prevalent cause of insanity is the excessive use of alcoholic liquors. Drunkards and their offspring throng