Reformatories for drunkards / by T.W. Belcher.

  • Thomas Waugh Belcher
Date:
[1862]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reformatories for drunkards / by T.W. Belcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    A few words will suffice to describe the oinomaniac:—He feels an irresistable propensity to swallow stimulating drink of any kind, whenever and wherever he can get it (avc have known several instances where persons having access to drugs of which the con- ve}dng media were wine, brandy, or spirits, used every means to take the most nauseous chinks, simply for the stimulating properties of them); he dislikes society, and drinlcs, if possible, in secret; nor can it be said that he drinks for drinking’s sake; it is to free him- self from the fearful misery occasioned by the non-gratification of this impulse; he knows he does wrong, and bitterly regrets it, but has not the slightest control over the will; he is regardless of health, life, property, and every other consideration; will sacrifice the dearest interests of his best friends, and in some cases display a pro- pensity to commit suicide or homicide. A more full description of this malady may be found in Dr. Cai’penter’s well-known book aheady referred to. He quotes at length from Dr. Hutcheson, of Glasgow, to show that it appears in three forms: the acute., arising in the com’se of certain diseases, and disappearing with their cure; the periodic, or recurring paroxysmal form, arising mainly from intemperance, sometimes from hereditary transmission, and occa- sionally fi'om certain diseases—its principal featm-e being, that between the attacks the subject becomes quite well, and apparently cm*ed; and, lastly, the most common or chronic form, wherein the whole life becomes one constant scene of miserable degradation. That a wretch of this kind is a lunatic we assert. In the eye of the law a lunatic is one who knows not right from %vrong, and who is therefore an irresponsible person. The main character of insanity, in a legal point of view, is the existence of delusion,^ and hence the law hesitates to recognise any insanity but that of the intellectual powers. “ There may, however,’’ be no pri- mary disorder of the intellectual faculties, and the insanity may essentially consist in a tendency to disordered emotion—as excite- ment, which affects the course of thought, and consequently of action, without disordering the reasoning processes in any other way than by supplying wong materials for them. This is now termed ‘ Moral Insanity and in it the subject is moved by a powerful impulse, amounting to necessity, volition being at the same time in complete abeyance, and he perfectly aware that he both does wrono- & ® Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence, p. 772. 4th Edition. *’ Carpenter’s Principles of Human Physiology, p. 837. 4th Edition.