An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body (Psychology Revivals)

Thomas Trotter, Roy Porter

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317962885
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Addiction in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

It was during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the problem of chronic alcohol dependence in modern society and its consequent medical effects emerged. The topic of drunkenness figures prominently in the thinking and writing of social reformers, politicians, theorists, medical practitioners, and psychiatrists. Eventually, by the mid-nineteenth century, 'alcoholism' was named as the disease of habitual drunkenness. Possibly the most important book to predict this was Trotter's Essay, written in 1804. Through case studies based on wide experience, he detailed the manifestations of alcoholism, ventured therapeutic recommendations, and squarely termed drunkenness a disease – indeed, a mental disease.

Originally published in 1988 as part of the Tavistock Classics in the History of Psychiatry series, Roy Porter's Introduction to this facsimile reprint locates Trotter's work within the wider history of the evolution of the idea of alcoholism. It also examines the Essay in the context of Trotter's own life and mind – a mind preoccupied with what he saw as the degenerative tendencies of modern civilization and with the wider issues of drug dependence.

APPENDIX 1:
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS TROTTER

 

Trotter, T. (1786) Observations on the Scurvy: with a Review of the Theories Lately Advanced on that Disease; and the Opinions of Dr. Milman Refuted From Practice, Edinburgh: Charles Elliot & J. Robinson. (2nd edn, 1792)

Trotter, T. (1797–99) Medicina Nautica; an Essay on the Diseases of Seamen; Comprehending the History of Health in His Majesty's Fleet Under … Earl Howe (with an Appendix Containing Communications on the New Doctrine of Contagion and Yellow Fever, By American Physicians, etc.), 3 vols, London: Cadell & Davies.

Trotter, T. (1800) Suspiria Oceani: a Monody on the Death of Richard Earl Howe, K.G., Admiral of the Fleet, etc., London: J. Hatchard.

Trotter, T. (1804) An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical, on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 2nd edn.

Trotter, T. (1807) A view of the Nervous Temperament; being a Practical Enquiry into the Increasing Prevalence, Prevention, and Treatment of those Diseases Commonly Called Nervous, Bilious, Stomach and Liver Complaints; Indigestion; Low Spirits; Gout, etc., London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme (2nd edn, 1807) [A third edition appeared in 1812].

Trotter, T. (1819) A Practicable Plan for Manning the Royal Navy, and Preserving our Maritime Ascendency, without Impressment. Addressed to Admiral Lord Viscount Exmouth, Newcastle and London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown.

Trotter, T. (1829) Sea Weeds. Poems Written on Various Occasions, Chiefly During a Naval Life, London: Longman.

APPENDIX 2:
TROTTER'S MD THESIS: DE EBRIETATE

 

In 1788 Trotter defended and published his MD thesis, De Ebrietate, Eiusque Effectibus in Corpus Humanum. Typically of Edinburgh MDs of that vintage, it ran to some forty pages, amounting to perhaps about 8,000 words. It was written in a simple, though quite pure, Latin, and liberally sprinkled with quotations from literary sources, both Classical and English.

Although no more than perhaps a tenth as long as the Essay … on Drunkenness, it is quite unambiguously the parent of the longer and later work. The verbal and stylistic similarities are great. For example, the dissertation begins ‘Homines semper studiosi voluptatem aegre inter mala recensuerunt quae ab luxuria orta sunt’, which, literally translated, becomes the first sentence of the essay (‘Mankind, ever in pursuit of pleasure, have reluctantly admitted into the catalogue of their diseases, those evils which were the immediate offspring of their luxuries’). Already in the dissertation Trotter is proposing ‘ebrietatem quasi morbum tractare’ (to treat drunkenness as a disease). Above all, the structure of the thesis is remarkably repeated in the Essay. The thesis moves from 1. definition, 2. symptoms, 3. proximate causes, 4. original causes, to 5. therapeutics; and this ordering of materials is obviously closely reproduced in the later Essay, with much the same reliance upon identical authorities such as Cullen, Morgagni and Boissier de Sauvages.

Certain details and anecdotes are present in the earlier work which have disappeared by the latter, not least, reports on drunken sailors on board his first ship, the Berwick. But there is very little indication that any of the views embraced in the De Ebrietate were later abandoned. Obviously there is much in the Essay without equivalent in the thesis, not least the entire discussion on spontaneous combustion. But there is also evidence of a general broadening of interest in the interim. The Essay is noteworthy for the scope of Trotter's concern with the problems of habit and habit-forming substances in general, within the context of (a) the analysis of a drug-consuming culture, and (b) the notion that drunkenness is a disease of the mind. Neither of these concerns had been crystallized in the earlier work. Thus it is fair to say that Trotter began with posing drunkenness as a medical problem; only subsequently did he evolve his major insight, the need to investigate the wider problem of habit and addiction as a whole.

 

 

AN

E   S   S   A   Y,

MEDICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND CHEMICAL,

ON

DRUNKENNESS.

 

 

AN

E   S   S   A   Y,

MEDICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND CHEMICAL,

ON

D R U N K E N N E S S,

AND

ITS EFFECTS ON THE HUMAN BODY.

 

By THOMAS TROTTER, M. D.

STATE PHYSICIAN TO HIS MAJESTY'S FLEET UNDER THE COMMAND OF ADMIRAL EARL HOWE, K.G.; AND TO THE SQUADRONS COMMANDED BY ADMIRAL LORD BRIDPORT, K.B. ADMIRAL EARL ST. VINCENT, K. B. AND THE HONOURABLE ADMIRAL CORNWALLIS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBUROU; AN HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF APERDEEN, OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY SOCIETY OF NEWCASTLE, &c. &c.

 

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O ! thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou haft no name to be known by, let us call thee—Devil. SHAKSPEARS.

 

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LONDON:

PRINTED FOR T. N. LONGMAN, AND O. REES, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1804.

DEDICATION
TO
DR. JENNER.

MY DEAR SIR,

AFTER having addressed you on the occasion of your GREAT DISCOVERY from the first medical station in the public service of the country, which I had then the honour to hold, you will be the less surprised to hear from me in my present obscurity. In laying the following Essay before the world I feel so independent in motive and expectation, that nothing but the patronage of Dr. Jenner can satisfy me. I shall thus escape the common accusation brought against authors of being flatterers. The man whose labours go the length of saving annually half a million of his fellow-creatures, is as far beyond the sphere of compliment as he has outstripped the measure of human gratitude, and can need no adulation from my pen. I have, therefore, to request that he will accept of all that, as a private man, I can offer him, which is to say, that, with all sincerity,

I am, my dear Sir,

Your most faithful friend, and

Most humble servant,

Newcastle-on-Tyne,    Dec. 26, 1803.

T. TROTTER.

PREFACE.

WHEN I became a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, in the University of Edinburgh, I was rather anxious that the subject of my Inaugural Dissertation should be something that had never been noticed by any former graduate. This was a difficult point; for scarcely any thing remained that had not been previously discussed. After much consideration, however, several objects of inquiry presented themselves, and I fixed upon Ebriety. But some doubts arose in my mind whether such a thesis was proper matter for an academic exercise; and as soon as I was enabled to put it into a regular form it was submitted to the judgment of the late worthy Dr. Charles Webster. The doctor was delighted with the work, and gave it as his opinion that it would be highly acceptable to the professors. When my private examinations were finished, it became the task of Dr. Gregory, now Professor in the Practical Chair, to give it his sanction for being printed. Dr. Gregory perused it with great pleasure, and encouraged me to think of it as a subject worthy of future investigation. In the public hall my venerable friend and preceptor, Dr. Cullen, was pleased to introduce my examination with some elegant allusions to the thesis; and after a few facetious remarks on the author, in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Half Title page 1
• Front
• Title Page 1
• Copyright Page 1
• Contents 1
• Preface 1
• Introduction
• Appendix 1 Bibliography of the Writings of Thomas Trotter
• Appendix 2 Trotter's MD Thesis: De Ebrietate
• Half Title page 2
• Front 1
• Title Page 2
• Dedication
• Preface 2
• Contents
• Introduction
• Definition, of Drunkenness
• Phænomena and Symptoms of Drunkenness
• In what Manner Vinous Spirit affects the Body
• The Catalogue of Diseases induced by Drunkenness
• The Method of correcting the Habit of Drunkenness, and of treating the Drunken Paroxyfm