On the relation between intemperance and mental disease / by Bedford Pierce.

  • Pierce, Bedford.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation between intemperance and mental disease / by Bedford Pierce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    On tfyc (Kcfrtfton 3nfetnp«<mce «ni (IlUnfaf ©teeae£. considering the relation between alcohol and jK mental disease, the first question that arises is the extent to which insanity is produced by jjinct alcohol. Every text-book upon mental diseases describes a special form of insanity due to alcoholic intemperance, independently of that acute form of mental disorder known popularly as delirium tremens. It is unnecessary for me to point out the characteristic features of alcoholic insanity, even if it were easy to do so ; but I may remark that it presents no constant symptoms, and that unless one knows the history of patients suffering from it, there is great difficulty in distinguishing them from those labouring under other [ona forms of mental disease. Hallucinations of hearing, in the form of “ voices,” are common ; also delusions of suspicion, and such patients may be very dangerous ; in other cases they are profoundly depressed, with a strong tendency to suicide. A large proportion of those “ found drowned ” and reported in the press are, if their history were known, chronic alcoholics, and it is noteworthy that no less than 20-8 per cent, of the suicidal male patients admitted into our asylums give a history of intemperance. Profound mental enfeeble- ment is the termination of almost all cases that do not recover. Alcoholic insanity, however, when not of long standing, is one of the more curable forms of