1804 An Essay, Medical, Philosophical and Chemical on Drunkeness and Its Effects on the Human Body

1804.  An Essay, Medical, Philosophical and Chemical on Drunkeness and Its Effects on the Human Body. by Dr. Thomas Trotter.   London:  T.N. Longman and O. Rees, Paternoster-Row.  Trotter was one of the first physicians to describe alcoholism as a disease.  Dr. Trotter states. “…and when they marry, they get wenches:  they are generally fools and cowards;”.  
     ”…the habit of temulency (drunkeness) has been said to debilitate the offspring, and produce a puny race.  It is a known law in animal oeconomy, that all secreted fluids partake of the vices of the secerning organ.  A healthy action is required in every gland, that it might secrete healthy juices.  We have seen that the mental functions become deranged, when the brain is injured in its structure.  And if this happens, can it be too gross to suppose, that the organs of generation must equally suffer in both sexes, from frequent intoxication; and if offspring should unfortunately be derived from such a parentage, can we doubt that it must be diseased and puny in its corporeal parts; and beneath the standard of a rational being in its intellectual faculties?”   
    ”Infants.  …It is well known that nurses…are in the practice of giving spirits in the form of punch to young children to make them sleep.  The effect cannot fail to be hurtful:  such children are known to be dull, drowsy and stupid; bloated in the countenance, eyes inflamed, subject to sickness at stomach, costive constipated), and pot-bellied.” 
    ”…the food of women who suckle their own children is often very improperly selected.  The quanity of the milk, not the quality of it, is studied.  It is well-known fact, that this secretion partakes very much of the the nature of the diet that is used; that is to say, certain articles passthough the breast unassimilated:  vegetables give a more asccsent(?)  milk than animal food; but all drinks, containg ardent spirits, such as wine, punch, caudle (a warm drink of wine or ale mixed with sugar, eggs, bread and spices), ale and porter (a dark beer brewed with dark malts), must impregnate the milk; and thus, the digestive organs of the baby must be quickly injured.  These must suffer in proportion to the delicacy of their texture; and the disease which flow from this souce are cerainly not uncommon.  Physicians who have prescribed a diet and regimen for nursing mothers, have not sufficiently attended to the hurtful effects of wine and malt liquors.  Porter is generally permitted in large quantities  on these occasions; a beverage, if there is any truth in our remarks, highly improper and dangerous.”

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