Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dr. Bucknill on drunkards. 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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![gentleman who, according to his own statement, has given more thoughtful consideration to these matters ‘1 than any other man in the profession,” “ the felt injustice of having his opinions ignored” might possibly be capable of wounding his self-esteem. Let me hope that the opportunity which he has seized of placing one side of his opinions before your readers in lengthy quotations from his writ- ings, and the further publication of the other side of his opinions which I must ask you to permit me to quote, will induce him to condone this part of my offence, which, I can further assure him, was committed most unwittingly. But if t have ignored his “ sentiments” about dip- somaniacs how can I have mis-stated them? That is a thing which no man can understand, unless his “ brain-plasm” can unravel a mystery. To the third count I must distinctly plead not guilty. Dr. Peddie says—“ I cannot believe that you have read a sentence of the paper referred to but the real truth is that, before I wrote my letter to you, I had read his paper through several times, in the earnest effort to understand it. Dr. Bodington—with whose wrath I am also threatened, but of which I am not much afraid, seeing that he leaves one in no doubt about what he means, and, if we differ, as we certainly do, the battle we shall have to fight will be about facts and their interpretation, and not about “ sentiments ”—Dr. Bodington says—“ The confusion between drunkenness as a disease, and drunkenness as a vice, must be cleared up. For my part, I look upon habitual drunkenness as a disease, and I would boldly call it dipsomania. It is in its character as a disease that we physicians are entitled to deal with it. I would sink the notion of its being a mere vicious propensity. When fully developed there are not two kinds of habitual drunkenness. The cases are, one and all, cases of dipsomania, of irresistible, uncon- trollable, morbid impulse to drink stimulants.” That, without doubt, is a sentence entirely devoid of “ hair- splitting distinctions.” No two sides of the same shield there painted different colours; or dark cloud with a silver lining. Dr. Peddie has quoted a large portion of his paper (though it was already accessible enough in the pages of the “ British Medical Journal”) to prove that “ my [his] sentiments have ever been such as appear to accord with those you have quoted as Dr. Clouston’s, and, consequently, that we are all three in timth agreed as to the persons who may be styled dipsomaniacs !” But, if so, where is the need for dispute ? In point of fact we are by no means agreed, for the real gist and purpose of Dr. Peddie’s paper turns upon his 4th class, namely, those who acquire “ the propensity to intemperance ” through a course of vicious indulgence in stimulants. About maniacal and delirious cases he admits that there can be no doubt; they are proper subjects for a hospital or an asylum, but it is for the “ unfortunate individuals](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22366775_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
