Peter:
For what it’s worth, I have not yet looked at the Jellinek-era scientific
literature in a systematic way, but in regard to the issues Marconi
raised for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I have done
a lot of work with the subject of dipsomania as it was discussed in the
Quarterly Journal of Inebriety. I have found that although
inebriety specialists of the era often discussed “dipsomania” or
“periodic drink paroxysms” (Crothers used this phrase) in conjunction
with inebriety in general, they tended to view dipsomania as a fairly
distinct disease category, and they identified the sudden experience of
depression as a symptom indicating the onset of its acute
manifestations.
As I see it, inebriety specialists writing in the QJOI characterized a
consistent pattern of craving and excessive drinking at short intervals
(and many experts included daily moderate drinking here) as both a cause
and an effect of the nervous system damage that constituted the essence
of inebriety. Individuals could develop habitual drunkenness and/or
the habit of moderate drinking as an effect of the Victorian-era
neurasthenia epidemic, or of sudden circumstantial damage to the nervous
system (a blow to the head or a severe fever), or of hereditary defect
(which some linked back to the neurasthenia epidemic). However,
most specialists believed that habitual drunkenness and/or the habit of
moderate drinking could also damage the nervous system and consequently
develop into inebriety. Dipsomania was different. Experts
tended to view dipsomania more exclusively as an effect of
nervous-system damage or hereditary defect. They often described
how the dipsomaniac never seemed to experience a period of moderate
alcohol use. With the exception of the periodic paroxysms, dipsomaniacs
generally abstained from drink, and specialists noted that during their
long intervals of abstinence between periodic drink attacks, many
dipsomaniacs reacted with disgust to the mere thought of tasting alcohol
in any form.
I go into these questions further in my dissertation, which is a work in
progress. I’d be happy to discuss these issues in a less public
forum with anyone who is interested.
Tim Yates
Ph.D. Candidate in U.S. History
University of California, Davis