NATURE 



Q7 



THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1907. 



ALCOHOLISM. 



TJic Psychology of Alcoholism. By George B. 

 Cutten. Pp. xvi + 357. (London and Felling-on- 

 Tyne : The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd., 

 1907.) Price 55. 



The Drink Problem in its Medico-Sociological 

 Aspects. By Fourteen Medical Authorities. Edited 

 by Dr. T. N. Kelynack. Pp. viii + 300. (London : 

 Methuen and Co., n.d.) Price ys. 6d. net. 



MR. CUTTEN writes lucidly and well. He has 

 delved deeply in a somewhat dreary field of 

 literature. All men know that alcohol when taken 

 in excess is very injurious, and may be lethal. It 

 has contributed much to the gaiety, but more to the 

 gloom, of nations. In the present work many of 

 the physical and apparently all the mental ill-effects 

 ever alleged by anyone as due to alcoholism are set 

 forth in detail. A large part of the book consists 

 of quotations, some of which {e.g. footnotes, pp. 210 

 and 211) obviously controvert, and were intended by 

 the original writers to controvert, the opinions in 

 favour of which they are quoted. There are some 

 errors. It is stated (p. i) that 



" The use of alcohol is universal. . . . Some form 

 of intoxication has always been found by the investi- 

 gators of the most primitive people." 



Doubtless all peoples who have been in a position 

 to obtain alcohol have abused it, but until recently it 

 has been beyond the reach of various savages, for 

 example, the Esquimaux and Tierra-del-Fuegians. 



" Moderate drinking has rarely been carried out 

 successfully, for it almost invariably develops into 

 excess ; but to-day there appears to be less and less 

 control, the moderate drinker passing very quickly 

 into the impulsive, violent consumer " (p. 2). 



As a fact, all races {e.g. Red Indians) when first 

 introduced to drink are " furious drinkers, furious 

 in their drink." But during the lapse of many 

 generations they grow more moderate, as witness 

 the Jews and south Europeans, who were drunken 

 anciently, but to whom alcohol is now " like the taste 

 of sweetness whereof a little more than a little is 

 b" much too much." The statement that in England 

 " the women drunkards equal or exceed the men in 

 number " is an exaggeration. 



The author gives a very full account of the mental 

 effects of acute and chronic alcoholism, but passes 

 lir^htly over that vital matter, the psychology of the 

 potential drunkard. Why do men drink? Presum- 

 ably because the act promotes pleasure or surcease of 

 pain or discomfort. Why do some men drink in 

 moderation and others in excess? Formerly it was 

 believed that moderation depended entirely on self- 

 control. But almost any moderate drinker may 

 satisfy himself by introspection that he exercises little 

 restraint. He drinks, as a rule, as much or nearly 

 as much as he desires. At least he has not to 

 struggle against that dire longing that drives the 

 NO. I 96 1, VOL. 76] 



dipsomaniac to destruction as with the force of a 

 tempest. A headache or two, and a little experience 

 of "hot-coppers," suffice to secure his sobriety. A 

 drunkard faces them every day, and ruin, ill-health, 

 and death as well. Men differ, therefore, in 

 their susceptibility to the charm of alcohol. Those 

 who are most tempted tend on the average to drink 

 most, and so to perish. In the course of ages the 

 survival of the fittest results in a race of moderate 

 drinkers, such as the inhabitants of the vine belt 

 in Europe and of the palm-toddy region in Africa. 

 Neither climate, strength of beverages, civilisa- 

 tion, nor race has any influence. Drunken races 

 are found in all zones of the earth; peoples {e.g. 

 some savages) who have experience of only very 

 dilute solutions in scanty quantities are very drunken 

 when opportunity serves; some civilised and some 

 savage races are drunken and some are temperate; 

 and all races which now are temperate were anciently 

 drunken. The invariable rule is that every race that 

 commands a sufficient supply of alcohol is temperate 

 {i.e. resistant) precisely in proportion to the duration 

 and severity of its past experience of alcohol. The 

 same is true of opium and every lethal disease. 

 Thus, of all peoples that are in the habit of indulging 

 in opium, the natives of India, who have used it 

 longest, are most temperate, and of all peoples 

 exposed to malaria, the natives of tropical Asia, 

 Africa, and America are the most resistant to the 

 disease. 



By way of demonstrating that parental drunken- 

 ness is a cause of filial degeneration, Mr. Cutten 

 quotes the opinions of various physicians who have 

 proved that it is not uncommon amongst the ancestors 

 of asylum patients. Unfortunately, the extent to 

 which it has prevailed amongst the ancestors of 

 people in the same class of life who are not insane 

 has not been ascertained. No race that has long 

 used and abused drink shows any signs of de- 

 generacy. Thus Italians, south Frenchmen, and 

 Germans are not more degenerate than Tierra-del- 

 Fuegians or Australian Blacks. The protective 

 evolution of races which have been exposed to 

 narcotics or disease is not seriously disputed nowa- 

 days. It is difficult to understand, therefore, how 

 races can grow stronger in each generation through 

 the survival of the fittest, and yet, as implied by the 

 authorities quoted by Mr. Cutten, weaker through 

 th; inherited effects of parental drunkenness. 

 Obviously, natural selection has no scope if every 

 child is inferior to the parent. 



' The Drink Problem," though shorter, is more 

 comprehensive than Mr. Cutten's book, and is 

 altogether a valuable, practical, and readable volume, 

 refreshingly free from fanaticism. Dr. Harry Camp- 

 bell discusses very interestingly drinking amongst 

 ancient peoples and primitive races, and traces the 

 natural evolution of sobriety. Prof. Sims Woodhead 

 deals with the pathology of alcoholism, and Dr. Claye 

 Shaw with its psychology. Dr. Hyslop discusses 

 alcoholism and mental disease. Other interesting 

 essays are "Alcohol and Public Health," "Alcohol 

 and Life Assurance," and "Alcohol and Pauperism.'^ 



