Aye We a Declining Race ? 



say. Drink is generally acknowledged as a 

 common cause of lunacy. Many people, no 

 doubt, would describe alcoholic excess as the 

 principal cause. 



While it cannot be denied that drink is a 

 powerful factor in the production of insanity, it 

 is not an independent cause. There is another 

 element at work, which is the cause of most 

 inebriates giving way to drink, and the same 

 element is in itself a cause of insanity. Alco- 

 holism is as much a result of demoralisation, as 

 it is a cause of demoralisation, and the inebriate 

 is not a free agent, for inebriety is itself a 

 disease. Dr. Norman Kerr, in his work on 

 " Inebriety," (p. 178,) gives a very plausible 

 reason (as I shall presently show) for people 

 giving way to alcoholism. He explains how it 

 is that many newly-married people give way 

 without being themselves able to understand the 

 cause. 



There has always been a certain amount of 

 mystery about the case of the young man who, 

 within a few months or a few years of marriage, 

 gradually becomes a sot. From this condition 

 he is almost irreclaimable, and in many cases it 

 takes but a very little alcohol to keep him in a 

 semi-intoxicated condition, because he is physic- 

 ally degraded. In such cases we must look 

 beyond drink for the cause. 



We frequently discover that it is possible for 

 one man to take a great deal more alcohol and 

 remain sober and free from its allurements, than 

 another who might get drunk and remain a slave 

 to its use, This shows that it is a physiological, 



a 



