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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    subject, viz.:—‘ that women who ai'e habitual drunkards, generally produce immature or idiot children.’ Lord Shaftesbury says— ‘ From my own experience as a Commissioner of Lunacy for the last 20 years, and as Chairman of the Commission during 16 years, fortified by inquiries in America, I find that fully six-tenths of all the cases of insanity to be found in these realms, and in America, arise from no other cause than habits of intemperance.’ Dr. Cor- sellis says—‘One-third of the cases in the Wakefield Lunatic Asylum may be referred to intemperance.’ Dr. Whitehead says— ‘ In an asylum at Liverpool 257 out of 495 patients became insane thi’ough intemperance.’ ” Now if we remove from the case those classes already described, we yet have others so numerous as to require interference. The confirmed drunkard should be committed, whether he have the power of self-restraint or not. If in the former predicament, he can undoubtedly mend; if in the latter, a great deal may be done for him which could not possibly be done were he at large. Every one must admit that the subject of “ Chronic Alcoholism” is a fair case for a reformatory. Mr. Haughton in the pamphlet already referred to, quotes the following:—“ We have made, as it will be seen, two distinct classes of persons degenerated in conse- quence of alcoholic excesses. One class arrives at length, by a series of well marked nervous lesions, physical and intellectual, at general paralysis. The other, although profoundly affected as regards innervation, remains stationary at a point, leading a miserable existence, characterized physically by a special condition of cachexia and marasmus, morally by a manifestation of the worst tendencies and of the lowest brutishness.” Of the first of these classes (para- lyzed drunkards) it may be said that they are comparatively harm- less ; but at what cost to themselves and to their families have they at last arrived at this melancholy state ? The tendency of dilnliing to this end cannot be too generally known. The late Dr. Todd, one of the first physiologists of his day, says, with reference to the causes of paralysis—“Whatever interferes materially with the conducting power of nerve fibre, or the gene- rating power of nerve vesicles (gray matter), will constitute a para- lysing lesion. Thus, in the first place, poisoning of the nervous matter will act in this way.'‘ Professor Miller observes “ The brain, and the nervous system in general, we have seen to be the * Clinical Lectures. 2nd Edition. 1861. p. 609.
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