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PHYSICAL HEREDITY 



31 



individuals are sane only when confined in an 

 asylum." ^ 



We now come to one of the most terrible feat- 

 ures of this terrible habit. The vice of one gen- 

 eration, when inherited, does not appear in the 

 second generation merely as a habit, but in most 

 cases as a disease. This disease, known as oino- 

 mania or dipsomania, is easily distinguished from 

 ordinary intemperate habits. It is described as 

 " an impulsive desire for stimulating drinks, un- 

 controllable by any motives that can be addressed 

 to the understanding or conscience, in which self- 

 interest, self-esteem, friendship, love, religion, are 

 appealed to in vain ; in which the passion for 

 drink is the master-passion, and subdues to itself 

 every other desire and faculty of the soul."^ Of 

 this class M. Morel says : " Such cases present 

 themselves to our observation with the predomi- 

 nance of a phenomenon of the psychical order, 

 which I have already had occasion to mention, i.e. 

 a complete abolition of all moral sentiments. One 

 might say that no distinction between good and 

 evil remains in the minds of these degraded 

 beings. . . . They quit their homes without 

 troubling themselves where they may go ; they 



1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 41. 



2 Ibid. p. 73. 



