ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 283 
tion of the women begin to drink practically at the earliest age at 
which they can obtain access to alcohol, and the amount of menta! 
defect among those who have been drinking for many years is 
only slightly greater than that among those who are at the begin- 
ning of their alcoholic career. There is a close relationship be- 
tween the intensity of alcoholism and the mental conditions of 
the inebriates but no relationship with their physical condition. 
All this lends support to the view that the mental defect of the 
inebriate is not a gradual growth; it is born, not bred; that ine- 
briety is more an incident in the life of the inebriate than the 
cause of his mental defect.” 
This conclusion which is coming to be quite widely adopted 
receives strong support from the investigations of Stécker which 
are described in his book on Alkoholpsychosen.1 Stécker was a 
physician in the psychopathic clinic at Erlangen, Germany, and 
he endeavored to follow up the histories of the various cases of 
alcoholic delirium that were confined in the institution. He 
went into the homes of the patients wherever possible, got into 
friendly relations with their families, and obtained whatever 
information he could regarding the early life of the patients and 
especially any symptoms of disordered mentality they may have 
manifested previous to their use of alcohol. At the same time he 
informed himself as fully as possible concerning the ancestry and 
other relatives of the person in question. Stdcker was able to get 
fairly complete data in regard to ninety of the hundred and fifteen 
cases represented in the asylum. Thirty-four of these cases had 
more or less regular fits of epilepsy, and in all but two of these the 
author found epileptic symptoms before the patients started to 
use alcohol in excess. In the vast majority of the remaining cases 
including chronic alcoholic mania, dementia precox and other 
disorders there was a history of nervous or mental derangement 
before the alcoholic habit was acquired. And in most cases also 
there was a neurotic taint in the parents or other near relatives. 
But the point that seems evident from the data is that these 
victims of alcoholism were not so much deranged because they 
1G. Fischer, Jena, 1910. 
