| Description Of Item | Relates to oinomania, dipsomania, methyomania, and methystic orexia (i.e. alcohol use disorder, alcoholism, alcohol abuse, or alcohol dependence). They are classed as either dietetic, paroxysmal, maniacal, or systematic. It presents predispositions, such as hereditariness, injuries to the head, certain afflictions and periodical ‘states’ of the nervous system, age, and others. It goes over other ‘exciting causes’ (such as sexuality, and mental activity or exertion like grief or disappointment), and the ‘consecutive diseases’ linked to the overconsumption of alcohol (such as delirium tremens, mental illnesses or distress, melancholia. It also presents possible treatments. Includes an index.
Press cuttings (all related to alcoholism) pasted in:
First press cutting: Medical Circular, originally published 27 September 1865; the article is a short review of the paper ‘On the Physiological and Therapeutical Action of Alcohol’ written by Dr Francis Edmund Anstie (published in the Lancet), concluding with the author’s last remark defending the use of alcohol by ‘medical men’. According to the cutting, the development of knowledge about alcoholism enable the sure diagnosis of concealed drinking habits in patients, who once caught in their lies ‘lay the blame of their evil habits’ on a medical prescription, whereas it is known that the habit most often springs from ‘states of bodily or mental dejection and misery’.
Second press cutting: Medical Circular, unknown date; the article relates to absinthe and presents the argument of [George?] Pécholier that the perception of the liquor’s greater intoxicating power is due to the way it is taken ‘as a stimulant of the appetite’ on an empty stomach.
Third press cutting: L’Opinion National, published 15 September 1862; the article relates to absinthe consumption in France, particularly in the Var region, and the intention by authorities to surtax absinth so as to diminish its consumption. They view the liquor as causing serious health issues in the population.
Fourth press cutting: Medical Circular, originally published 24 December 1862; the article presents the yearly report of the Registrar-General, of deaths related to alcoholism, recorded as either delirium tremens or intemperance.
Fifth press cutting: unknown publication, published September 1864; the article relates the ‘mad’ conduct of William Henry Bruce Olgivie of Cowden (brother to the Earl of Airlie) while at Dunoon.
From the collection of Thomas Laycock. |