eetings (1876) of the London
Medico-Psychological Society, the general opinion of the members was,
that intemperance is the most fruitful source of the increase of
insanity, even when no other etiological element could be found, and
alcohol had to be looked upon as the sole cause of the mental disease.
Maudsley laid especial stress upon the observation, that intemperance,
without hereditary predisposition, was one of the most powerful agencies
in the production of aberration of the mind. Even Beckwith, who could
not coincide with others as to the great importance of intemperance as
an etiological element, says distinctly, that intemperance was, by far,
the most potent of all removable causes of mental disease.

In comparing the number of drinking saloons in the different provinces
of the kingdom of Prussia with the number of insane, both in public
institutions and in private families, as gleaned from the census report
of 1871, I was enabled to show conclusively, that everywhere, where the
number of drinking places, i.e., the consumption of alcohol, was
greatest, the number of insane was also largest. Without doubt, to my
mind it is in alcohol that we must look for and will find the most
potent cause of the development and spread of mental diseases.

As is well known, alcohol acts as a disturbing element upon the nerve
centers, even if it has only once been imbibed in excessive quantity. In
consequence of the acute disturbance of circulation and nutrition an
acute intoxication takes place, which may range from a slight excitation
to a complete loss of consciousness. After habitual abuse of alcohol,
the functional disturbances of the brain and spinal cord became constant
and disappear the less, as in the central organs degenerative processes
are more and more developed, processes which lead to congestions and
hemorrhagic effusions in the meninges and in the brain itself, to
softening or hardening, and finally to disappearance of the brain
substance. These degenerations of the nervous system give rise to a
progressive decay of all intellectual and also, more especially, of the
ethical functions, a decay which presents the phenomena of feeble
mindedness, complicated with a large number of sensational and motor
disturbances, and gradually ends in complete idiocy.

The number of those mental disturbances which are caused by alcohol
intoxication is a very considerable one. We do not err if we assert that
from 20 to 25 per ce