1885.] 
59i 
Madmen and Madness at Rome. 
drunks ds, but these were protected against excess by pro- 
hibitive laws which touched the vendor, and restrained the 
facility for intoxication. The Roman, further drank no 
spirits and the wines supplied to him cost the producer so 
little that adulteration was scarcely worth the trouble. To- 
day the sales of intoxicating liquors increase in a frightful 
proportion ; the wine is sophisticated and is consequently 
the worse for health. But the most deplorable fadt is that 
the people intoxicate themselves with spirits, the con- 
sequences of which are far more disastrous for the human 
economy. Dr. Fiordispini, taking his stand on the facility 
which the Roman people now possess for indulging their 
desire for intoxication, thinks that Rome will be soon in this 
respedt on a level with the other capitals of Europe. 
We are compelled here to draw a little closer attention to 
the change which has lately taken place in the quality of 
alcoholic drinks. The consumption of wines has decreased, 
while that of malt-liquors and spirits has increased. The 
distilled liquors of the day are no longer obtained solely from 
fiuits, from cane-sugar (we do not apply this honourable 
name to betose), nor even from grain, but to a large extent 
from roots, and are rich in amyl compounds, commonly 
known as fusel. Now amylic alcohol has a far more dele- 
terious adhion upon the brain than has ethylic alcohol. The 
introduction of the liqueur absinthe, now so widely used, has 
had a very alarming effedt. It is to be deplored that our 
temperance reformers and our sanitarians never seem to seek 
for a total prohibition of the manufacture or sale of this poi- 
son in England, or its importation from abroad. 
As regards wines they have long been fortified for the 
benefit of persons who judge a wine by its intoxicating 
power rather than by its flavour and aroma. But now the 
fortification is effedted with potato-spirit rich in fusel, and 
there are even wines which contain not a drop of the juice 
of the grape. We need therefore scarcely wonder if the use 
of such wines brings on results which were formerly unknown 
in the wine-growing distridts of Europe. The phylloxera 
has been a great demoralising agent. 
The next physical cause of insanity is heredity, one of 
those whose effedts are least open to discussion. Trelat 
pronounces it the causa causarurn of madness. Sad that our 
law makers who strain at such a gnat as the marriage of a 
man with the sister of his deceased wife bolt such an albu- 
faki camel as the intermarriage of persons belonging to 
families tainted with insanity. How much wiser were the 
laws of the ancient Buddhists ? The next cause is a 
