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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 11, 13 January 1873, Page 4

Intemperance and Idiocy. — A correspondent requests that we will publish the following extract from Dr. Maudsley's work on "Body and Mind'": — Idiocy is a manufactured article, 1 and although we are not always able to tell how it was manufactured, still its important causes are known and are within control. Many cases are distinctly traceable to parental intemperance and excess. Out of 300 idiots in Massachusetts, Dr. Howe found as many as 145 to be the offspring of intemperate parents; and there are numerous scattered observations which prove that chronic alcoholism in the parent may directly occasion idiocy in the child. Morel has traced through four generations the family history of a youth who was admitted into the asylum at Rouen, in a state of stupidity and semi-idiocy; the summary of which may fitly illustrate the natural course of degeneracy when it goes on through generations. First generation: Immorality, depravity, alcoholic excess and moral degeneration, iv the great grandfather, who was killed in a tavern brawl. Second generation : Hereditary drunkenness, maniacal attacks, ending in general paralysis, in the grandfather. Third generation: Sobriety, but hypochondriacal tendencies in the father. Fourth generation : Defective intelligence, first attack of mania at sixteen, stupidity, and transition to complete idiocy. He bad two sisters who were both defective, physically and morally, and were classed as imbeciles. To complete the proof of hereditary idiocy in this case, Morel adds, that the mother had a child while the father was confined in the asylum, and that this adulterous child showed no sign 9 of idiocy.