Abstract
One of the most significant causes of insanity in the nineteenth century was drunkenness. From the beginning of the century, and particularly with the rise of the temperance movement, alcohol abuse became almost synonymous with bodily and mental disease both in medical and popular culture. From <em>The Pickwick Papers</em> and <em>David Copperfield</em> to <em>Our Mutual Friend</em>, Dickens’s novels contain a plethora of realistic descriptions of the detrimental effects of alcohol abuse on both mental and bodily health. Exploring the representation of the drunkard in Dickens’s ‘The Drunkard’s Death’ and <em>The Pickwick Papers</em>, this essay demonstrates Dickens’s familiarity with current medical debates concerning intemperance and how he utilised his extensive knowledge of psychopathology to create authentic, realistic and memorable characters. As will become evident, Dickens records the effects of both acute and chronic drunkenness with remarkable medical detail and accuracy.
Highlights
Pike has argued that ‘Dickens, while aware of medical debate[s] about the treatment of insanity, and acquainted with a variety of literature in which this subject was portrayed, tended to adopt a broadly moral framework when depicting the theme of madness, in his early novels.’[7]. According to Pike, Dickens, by drawing heavily upon the Biblical tradition, depicts the drunkard’s madness in Sketches by Boz and The Pickwick Papers ‘as the consequence of villainy and of various forms of moral failure.’[8]. Amanda Claybaugh’s recent study The Novel of Purpose has explored the representation of drunkenness in Sketches by Boz and The Pickwick Papers by highlighting Dickens’s opposition to temperance reform.[9]
As Trotter proclaimed: ‘In Medical language, I consider drunkenness, strictly speaking to be a disease; produced by a remote cause, and giving birth to actions and movements in the living body, that disorder the functions of health.’[13]. He blamed alcohol consumption for a wide range of bodily and mental diseases, including apoplexy, epilepsy, hysteria, idiocy, and madness.[14]
The disease concept of drunkenness was repeatedly emphasised by other prominent medical figures who unreservedly insisted that there was a direct link between drunkenness and mental disease
Summary
First described by the physician Thomas Sutton in Tracts on Delirium Tremens in 1813, delirium tremens, which was commonly known as ‘the drunkard’s madness,’ referred to a set of symptoms directly caused by excessive and/or prolonged use of intoxicating liquors.[38] These symptoms included tremors of the limbs, complete sleeplessness, frequent exacerbations of cold, and an incoherent speech with a tremulous voice.[39] Describing Master Warden’s descent to madness, Dickens writes that
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