Inebriety : a clinical treatise on the etiology, symptomology, neurosis, psychosis and treatment : and the medico-legal relations / by T.D. Crothers.

  • Crothers, T. D. (Thomas Davison), 1842-1918.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inebriety : a clinical treatise on the etiology, symptomology, neurosis, psychosis and treatment : and the medico-legal relations / by T.D. Crothers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    The chapters in this book give an outline of the con- fused theories and teachings concerning the practical relations of crime and the responsibility of the inebriate. The importance of this subject is merely indicated in this work, with the hope that in the near future a more extended study will be given in a separate volume on the practical relations of inebriety and crime and their medico- legal considerations. One of the prominent conclusions which the evidence in this work sustains is that inebriety is a disease and its phenomena are controlled by uniform laws, which move with exactness and certainty along lines of origin, develop- ment, decline and extinction; also that it is possible from a larger knowledge and study of these causes to prevent, cure and stamp out this neurosis with the same certainty as in germ diseases. The physiological and chemical action of alcohol on the brain and nervous system has been the subject of many exhaustive studies, and the impression has been encouraged that alcohol is the specific and only cause of inebriety. This, a clinical examination of the history of cases, fails to confirm, but indicates that the use of alcohol is very often a symptom of disease and later it becomes an active cause, hence a specific study of this drug gives only a limited view of the great factors and causative agents of inebriet3^ This work is practically a continuation and more advanced study of the subject so admirably begun by the late Dr. Norman Kerr, of London, England, in his work on Inebriety and Narcomania, which passed through several editions and is still being sold. It is also intended to make prominent the conclusions from scientific studies, that the entire problem is one of scientific, curative and preventive medicine, which the trained physician is most competent to study and understand. Hence, it is a