40 A REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF THE 



from them have committed from the standpoint of science 

 a very grave offence, however much it may have profited 

 their own propagandism. 



The second thing to which I have to refer is the appear- 

 ance, since the publication of our memoir, of Dr. Wilhelm 

 Stocker's book, Kliiiischer Beitrag ztir Fi-age der Alkohol- 

 psychose7i (Fischer, Jena, 1910). The experience of this 

 book essentially coincides with that of the material col- 

 lected by the Eugenics Laboratory : The abuse of alcohol 

 is not the cause of mental defect and insanity, it is to be 

 considered itself as the outcome of a diseased mental 

 condition. Dr. Stocker writes as follows: 



' In der Mehrzahl meiner Falle handelt es sich jedoch 

 nicht nur um einfach psychisch minderwertige Personlich- 

 keiten, sondern um Kranke, bei denen sich eine bestimmte, 

 naher zu diagnostizierende Grundkrankheit nachweisen liess. 

 Also der chronische Alkoholismus hier zunachst als Symp- 

 tom einer bestimmten geistigen Erkrankung aufzufassen ist. 

 Und in diesem Nachvveis erblicke ich das wesentliche Er- 

 gebnis meiner Arbeit' (S. 293). 



He goes steadily through his eighty-nine individual cases 

 of extreme alcoholism,' inquiring into the previous history 

 of the individual, and the history of his family. He finds 

 as foundations for chronic alcoholism (i) Epilepsy (34), 

 (ii) Melancholic mania (27), (iii) Dementia pi^aecox (14), 

 (iv) Other Psychoses and Psychopathies (9), and a re- 

 mainder of five unclear cases. In other words, in more 

 than 38 % of cases he gives epilepsy as a source of the 

 chronic alcoholism. Stocker gives strong reasons for the 

 antecedence of the psychical defect, and he throws out 

 the hint that in many cases where the drinking of a 



1 His definition of alcoholic excess (S. lo) coincides almost with that used 

 by us, and it is a pleasure to find that from the medical side our definition 

 can be also considered a valid and practical one. 



