There is still another depth of ruin in this downward course, and that is insanity.  In fact, every instance of complete intoxication is a case of temporary insanity, that is, of mental unsoundness with loss of self-control.  Permanent insanity may be one of the last results of intemperance.  Alcoholism sends to our insane asylums a large proportion of their inmates, as ample records testify.

297.  Mental and Moral Ruin Caused by Alcoholism.  Alcoholism, the evil prince of destroyers, also hastens to lay waste man’s mental and moral nature.  Just as the inebriate’s senses, sight, hearing, and touch, fail to report correctly of the outer world, so the mind fails to preside properly over the inner realm.  Mental perceptions are dulled.  The stupefied faculties can hardly be aroused by any appeal.  Memory fails.  Thus the man is disqualified for any responsible labor.  No railroad company, no mercantile house, will employ any one addicted to drinking.  The mind of the drunkard is unable to retain a single chain of thought, but gropes about with idle questionings.  The intellect is debased.  Judgment is impossible, for the unstable mind cannot think, compare, or decide.

The once active power of the will is prostrate, and the victim can no longer resist the feeblest impulse of temptation.  The grand faculty of self-control is lost; and as a result, the baser instincts of our lower nature are now uppermost; greed and appetite rule unrestrained.

But the moral power is also dragged down to the lowest depths.  All the finer sensibilities of character are deadened; all pride of personal appearance, all nice self-respect and proper regard for the good opinion of others, every sense of decorum, and at last every pretence of decency.  Dignity of behavior yields to clownish silliness, and the person lately respected is now an object of pity and loathing.  The great central convictions of right and wrong now find no place in his nature; conscience is quenched, dishonesty prevails.  This is true both as to the solemn promises, which prove mere idle tales, and also as to property, for he resorts to any form of fraud or theft to feed the consuming craving for more drink.

298.  Evil Results of Alcoholism Inherited.  But the calamity does not end with the offender.  It may follow down the family line, and fasten itself upon the unoffending children.  These often inherit the craving for drink, with the enfeebled nature that cannot resist the craving, and so are almost inevitably doomed to follow the appalling career of their parents before them.

Nor does this cruel taint stop with the children.  Even their descendants are often prone to become perverse.  As one example, careful statistics of a large number of families, more than two hundred descended from drunkards, show that a very large portion of them gave undoubted proof of well-marked degeneration.  This was plain in the unusual prevalence of infant mortality, convulsions, epilepsy, hysteria, fatal brain diseases, and actual imbecility.[42]