Drunkenness / by George R. Wilson.

  • Wilson, George R. (George Robert)
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drunkenness / by George R. Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/186 page 62
    The peculiar nervous organisation, favourable to the acquisition of a particular character, is all that can be transmitted ; the force of circum- stances does the rest. This theory does not of course alter the facts. It is still true that drunkenness runs in families, as other habits and vices do. It is still true that men are apt to believe what their fathers believed, to desire what they desired, to fail where they failed. The explanation of the facts is all that Weismann can dispute. If his doctrines be correct, drunkenness in the parent can make no difference to the moral character of the offspring through the direct influence of organic inheritance. A proclivity towards drunkenness may be initiated in a family as the result of the blend- ing of unsuitable maternal and paternal ten- dencies, although both parents may have been free from the vice. Or, if one of the parents have a nervous system of peculiar alcoholic susceptibilities, the taint will be transmitted unless it be more than counterbalanced by the prepotent character of the other parent. And if both parents be victims of alcoholism, the evil potentiality will most likely be exagger-
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