Eugenics Record Office. BULLETIN No. 10A - DNA Patent Database ...

THE SCOPE OF THE COMMITTEE’S WORK. 21
3. THE INEBRIATE CLASS
With this class as with the paupers, mental deficiency appears to
be the endogenous cause. In this particular group the deficiency
appears to be of a moral nature, preventing the individual from exercising
his moral purpose or inhibitions. Under a purely functional
classification, many of the feeble-minded, the criminals, the paupers
and the inebriates would be called simply Degenerates, but, as just
pointed out, the peculiar type of degeneracy that appears in the inebriate
seems to be quite different from other sorts of degeneracy
herein described. Individuals belonging to this class present the following
special varieties: 1, Dipsomania; 2, Chronic Alcoholism; 3,
Pharmacomania.
Alcoholism has a peculiar eugenic signification in that it appears
to be inextricably tangled up with mental and physical degeneration
of all kinds. From a biological point of view, it is difficult to obtain
a clear-cut classification of inebriates.
Havelock Ellis in his book, “The Criminal,” says:
The relation of alcoholism to criminality is by no means so simple as is
sometimes thought; alcoholism is an effect as well as a cause. It is part of a
vicious circle. For a well-conditioned person of wholesome heredity to become
an inebriate is not altogether an easy matter. It is facilitated by a predisposition,
and alcoholism becomes thus a symptom as well as a cause of degeneration.
* * * It may be added that the danger of alcoholism, from the present point
of view, lies not in any mysterious prompting to crime which it gives, but in
the manner in which the poison lets loose the individual’s natural or morbid
impulses, whatever these may be.
The following statements are taken from the report of the Board
of Trustees of the Foxborough State Hospital, Massachusetts, 1909:
Drunkards are often classified for courtroom purposes as follows :
1. The accidental drunkard.
2. The occasional drunkard.
3. The habitual drunkard.
1. The accidental drunkard is one who has unwittingly drunk too freely
of alcohol at saloon or club. His drunkenness is often unintentional, and fre-
quently due to inexperience in drinking. If found without escort, he is arrested,
quite as much for his own protection as for that of the public. A large percent-
age of cases of first arrests belong to this group.
2. The occasional drunkard is one who becomes intoxicated infrequently,
and without morbid predisposing cause. Such especially are the convivial drunk-
ards, for whom holidays or celebrations involve excess in drinking. These men
seek intoxication from bravado or as the inevitable result of conviviality. Often
such customs can be followed without noticeable detriment to the man’s labor.
Cases on their second, third and even later arrests belong largely to this class.
The accidental and occasional drunkards are cases commonly accounted
responsible for their act. They are capable of refraining from intemperance
when they so wish, and to that extent are willful. These two classes, which com-