CHAPTER XXIV 



INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY 



Immunity to alcohol Evolution and retrogression Attempts to suppress 

 drinking in Mohammedan countries In modern civilized states In the United 

 States, Canada and Australasia Failure of prohibition Insanity Two distinct 

 kinds Lunacy Feeble-mindedness Definitions of idiotcy, imbecility and 

 feeble-mindedness The Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble- 

 minded. 



744. INTEMPERANCE. Alcohol is capable of bestowing 

 J^ keen pleasure on many, and probably some pleasure on 

 all people. But in England and many other countries 

 the amount of pleasure conferred by it is greatly outbalanced by 

 the suffering. In these countries, if no one drank, the gain would 

 be great, though not so great as if all men drank, as most men 

 smoke or as the Jews drink, in moderation. Like the microbic 

 poisons, it is a cause of disease through its action on the tissues of 

 the body. There is, however, this immensely important difference 

 between the microbic poisons and alcohol; people 'take' the 

 former in spite of their desires, the latter because of their desires. 

 They suffer from a microbic disease, because they have a certain 

 weakness of body ; from intemperance, because they have a certain 

 peculiarity of mind. It follows that the term 'immunity,' when 

 used in reference to microbic disease and alcohol, has unlike 

 meanings. Used in reference to disease, it implies that the 

 individual is physically incapable of being infected under the 

 normal conditions of life. But, though a given quantity of alcohol 

 is less poisonous to some men than to others, no man is physically 

 incapable of swallowing poisonous doses ; and many men, even the 

 most resistant physically, take it in such doses. Consequently, 

 Nature, taking as always the most direct course, evolves races 

 which are mentally, not physically, immune. Immunity to alcohol 

 implies, therefore, an incapacity to be tempted by the narcotic in 

 harmful quantities. A kind of immunity to alcohol may be 

 created by fostering a moral abhorrence of intemperance ; but 

 this voluntary avoidance of temptation bears no likeness to what 

 is termed immunity to disease neither to the inborn immunity 



456 



