94 THE JUKES. 



Out of thirty men in table XIV. seventeen of them have begun pros- 

 titution before or at the same time they have begun the habit of 

 alcoholic indulgence, and the average age at which those who have 

 contracted diseases resulting from sexual passion is actually below 

 that at which they become habitual drunkards, the average age of 

 infection being 20.84, that of habitual inebriety 21.56 — a difference 

 of nearly nine months. 



In the present stage of positive knowledge respecting inebriety, 

 it would seem that, in a certain number of cases, intemperance is 

 the cause of crime. "The best and most unprejudiced observers 

 are agreed that the families of inebriates develop forms of nervous 

 and brain diseases which could only be referred to the habits of 

 drinking in the parent. Dr. Magnus Huss, of Stockholm, declared 

 that drinking produced partial atrophy of the brain, which was 

 handed down to the children. The brain was then too small for its 

 bony case, and lunacy was the result. The same fact had been 

 observ^ed in the lunatics of Massachusetts. In France, Dr. Morel 

 had observed the same result of diminished brains, through several 

 generations, leading to imbecility, homicidal insanity, idiocy and 

 final extinction."* 



In another class of cases both inebriety and crime are the 

 results of a common antecedent cause or causes ; sometimes in- 

 sanity or epilepsy in the parents, which, by transmission, changes 

 its character to dipsomania ; sometimes by physical exhaustion 

 induced by starvation carried to a point that breaks down the con- 

 stitution, or by habits of sexual debauch which create an appetite 

 for alcoholism, or by other causes. What the specific cause may 

 in each case be, must be determined if we wish to apply remedial 

 measures, and the character of the remedy must differ with a differ- 

 ence in the initial, cause. With such inebriates as have acquired 

 the habit, an appeal to reason, to tender memories and to self- 

 respect may avail, because there may yet be will power left to affect 

 a cure, when no such appeal will be of the least use where this 

 failing is congenital, because it must be first and primarily treated 



* Alcoholic Ebriety. Discourse by Elisha Hvris, M. D., before the National Temperance 

 Society, January 21, 1875. 



