The disease of inebriety from alcohol, opium, and other narcotic drugs : its etiology, pathology, treatment and medico-legal relations / arranged and compiled by the American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety.

  • American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety.
Date:
1893
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disease of inebriety from alcohol, opium, and other narcotic drugs : its etiology, pathology, treatment and medico-legal relations / arranged and compiled by the American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Psychological Journal, a physician describes two Cases where tape-worms excited inebriety and mental hallucina- tions, which disappeared on their expulsion. Several instances are on record where the use of pessaries in pro- lapsus uteri and the prolapsus alone, has been the cause of mental disturbances of which drunkenness was the most prominent symptom. The irritation from prolonged lactation, or in dysmenorrhaea, ammenorrhea, nymphomania and functional disturbances of the genital organs, are frequently the beginnings, and in many cases the active causes of this disease. A case of chronic masturbation, which ran into inebriety, came under my notice lately. Numerous cases of puer- peral insanity, preceded or followed by inebriety, are recorded in the English obstetrical journals. Cases of drunkenness during pregnancy, ending at delivery, are not uncommon. A remarkable case was noted at the Dublin Lyi ng-in Hospital, some years ago, of a woman, who during the period of lactation, drank gin to excess. This craving for stimulus began when the child was born and continued until the death or weaning of the child, the former being the most common termination. When lactation ceased the desire died away. Another case of equal interest is reported in a western journal. A soldier, wounded at Pittsburgh Land- ing, previously temperate, became a paroxysmal drunkard. A portion of the shaft of the femor was injured, and con- tinued to exfoliate dead bone until 1873, when it was removed by an operation. From the healing of the wound his drunkenness disappeared, and he is now one of the most enthusiastic of temperance men. Previous diseases are also active causes. Dipsomania, erotomania or monomania often are associated with epilepsy in some of its obscure forms, as natural stages in its progress. Epilepsy, with its disordered fancies, auras and impulses, ending in apparent recovery, only to be followed after time by a repetition, closely simulates the impulsive drunkard.