DIPSOMANIA (Gr. dipsa, thirst, and mania, madness, or eager desire) is a term intended, whether correctly or not, to denote a condition in which certain individuals manifest an irresistible craving for alcoholic drinks. OINOMANIA (Gr. oinos, wine), used by German writers; and the English DRINKING INSANITY, are also intended to designate the same state. It is of importance to distinguish dipsomaniacs from ordinarily intem perate and drunken individuals. In our streets and in society, we are only too familiar with the various phases of the habit and vice of drunkenness, and the different grades and circumstances. of drinkers, such as the ,morning drain-drinker; the jolly social drinker; and the individual who, knowingly and intentionally, gives himself up to a debauch. While many thus of their own choice degrade and injure themselves, they are generally able, for a time at least, to perform tolerably well their usual occupations during business hours. Many hard drinkers can exercise wonderful control over them selves, choosing the time to drink and the time to keep sober: and while sober, can dis charge all their family, professional, social, or even religious duties—so far at least as outward appearances go. Some of them may drink continuously, until attacked by what is called delirium tremens (q.v.), or fall into the state of delirium ebriosum (q.v.), or what has been called mania a potu; but when the supplies are stopped, and the neces sary treatment is undergone, they are soon able to resume their usual duties, and too scon, in general, their former practices.
There is, however, especially in persons of a nervous and sanguine temperament and constitution—and more readily in women than in men—a condition in which the mere vice is transformed into a disease, the vicious habit into an insane, impulsive propensity, and then the drunkard becomes a dipsomaniac. The alcoholic principle, by habitual abuse, perverts the action, if not the nutrition, of cerebral matter; and the fre quent disturbances of the mental functions from fits of intoxication, the loose and irregular habits engendered, and the alternate states of remorse and attempts to drown conscience by more copious libations, all combine to create the dipsomaniac. He loses entire command over his will; has no power to resist the craving for alcoholic stimuli; and is transformed into the involuntary slave of an insane propensity. Physically, the dipsomaniac has a lamentably broken-down aspect; limbs feeble and tremulous; visage pale, leaden-colored, or sodden; and eyes watery and lusterless. But in the mani festations of mind and heart, the change is still more sad. A process of mental deterioration goes on simultaneously with the habit of indulgence; the main aim of life is how to obtain liquor; capacity for business is limited to the means of gratifying the craving; the precepts of morality and religion, the ties of nearest and dearest kin, have no sway over him; indeed, no consideration, human or divine, will interpose any barrier in the way of gratifying the propensity, whenever it is possible. or does he now drink with real relish, socially and convivially, but will swallow spirits, away from society and observation, even as it were a drug; and the only satisfaction derived from the act is, that it secures insensibility to the wretched state of mind which prompts the insati able desire. When this has gone on for some time, although a suspension of the use of stimulants be imposed by the interference of friends, or the occurrence of an attack either of the form of delirium or maniacal excitement mentioned, yet his mind has suffered so materially, that unless control is exercised over him, and continued for a considerable period, he returns immediately like the " dog to his vomit." His moral
feelings become more and more perverted, and his intellectual powers weakened. lie is thus rendered either facile or wasteful, and incapacitated for the ordinary business of life; or he is irascible, resentful, or mischievous, and torments and annoys those about him, or commits homicide or suicide; or he becomes decidedly insane. Such is acquired dipsomania. But very frequently it is met with as a disease, ab origine—n constitu tional, and, in the greater proportion of instances, a hereditary affection. Wlisai it takes this character, D. resembles other constitutional diseases; and such cases especially illustrate its affinity to insanity. It is well known that gout and rheumatism, or disease of the heart, may be developed from errors in the mode of living of individuals in whose family connections there is no sign of predisposition; while, on the other hand, these diseases may also exist in virtue of a strong hereditary tendency, without any appre ciable infringements of the laws of health. And so also D.; for, while frequently resulting from acquired vicious habit, it occurs likewise from an insane hereditary taint, very frequently visited on children by the sins of their parents, especially if the latter have suffered from repeated attacks of delirium tremens. or have been in reality con firmed dipsomaniacs. Indeed, it has even been met with in the offspring of dipso maniacs during the years of childhood, and that also in the sudden paroxysmal form. But what goes still further to prove its affinity to insanity, is the well-known fact. that in the family of the dipsomaniac, not only several cases of this drink-craving propensity are often met with, but marked instances of mental disorder in other forms. Some interesting examples of this may be found in the Edinburgh Medical Journal for April, 1858, by Dr. Thompson of the Perth prisons. When D. thus occurs from constitutional organization, the disease is assuredly of a worse type than when it springs merely out of the vicious habit of drinking. There is generally more eccentricity of habit and deportment, more perversity of mind and disposition, and more untruthful ness and deceit, which is a remarkably uniform feature in this malady. The victim of it is more unscrupulous in the means employed to gratify the ruling desire of existence; and when the disease is fairly developed, and allowed to take its course unrestrainedly, the moral sense becomes utterly perverted, and the intellect annihilated, so that the affected is readily led to the :...ommission of crimes which would not otherwise be per petrated, or sinks into a state of complete imbecility or hopeless mania. Whether, therefore, the disease exists in its ordinary phases and intensity from voluntary intemper ance; or whether it springs out of the propensity, as a consequence of abnormal organ ization—and these are sufficiently characteristic to present a marked line of distinction from the ordinary vice of intemperance—the pathological and mental phenomena and results are the same—viz., an insatiable craving for alcoholic stimulants, with complete loss of self-respect and self-control in gratifying the desire, despite all obligations duo to God and to man. There are generally also some special features in each case, afford ing additional evidence of decided mental unsoundness. Some Of these are wasteful ness and senseless extravagance; ridiculous eccentricity of conduct; gross indecency of behavior, and obscenity and profanity of language; tendency to theft of articles of little or no value—often of one class or kind of things; extreme perverseness and vindictive ness of disposition; and impulsive violence, which leads readily to the commission of homicide or suicide.