Insanity and intemperance : a paper read before the Psychological Section of the British Medical Association at the Annual Meeting in London, August, 1873 / by D. Yellowlees.

  • Yellowlees, D. (David)
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity and intemperance : a paper read before the Psychological Section of the British Medical Association at the Annual Meeting in London, August, 1873 / by D. Yellowlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    there is no money to spend in drinking, and there is no time to think of anything but the strike. This moral cause is more potent than might at first appear. The strike excites universal interest, and, in the districts chiefly affected, there is continual discussion of its varying prospects, its certain advantages, and its probable termination. The subject has the deepest personal interest for all, and so engrosses attention, that it gives stability and force to weak and wavering minds—just as a demented patient becomes reasonable and intelligent for a time when his attention is aroused and his scattered faculties concentrated by an illness or an accident. But the enforced abstinence from drinking and debauchery is beyond doubt the chief cause of the decreased insanity; and this-is strongly confirmed by the f act- that the diminution is observed only among the men, a large proportion of whom are habitually dissipated. Intemperance has a threefold relation to insanity; it may be a cause, an early symptom, or a result. These relations are often associated and often confounded. Each claims separate notice. The temporary insanity px'oduced by a single intoxicating dose of alcohol sufficiently indicates the baneful effects which its frequent and excessive use must entail on mind and brain; and experience too sadly confirms this indication. With the single exception of hereditary predisposition, intemperance is by far the most fruitful of all the causes of brain-disease; and even hereditary predisposition is often but another name for parental intemperance.