Heredity and Alcoholism in the Medical Sphere: The Netherlands, 1850–1900

Abstract

The diversity of opinions around alcohol use and its connections to heredity in the nineteenth century are well illustrated by the two quotations above. By 1900 it was generally accepted that chronic alcoholism could be inherited or transmitted to descendants as morbid nervous predisposition. Together with tuberculosis and syphilis, alcoholism was regarded as a major cause of degeneration and as such defined as a public threat that should be curbed by public health measures. In a number of countries support was mounting for ‘‘hard-line’’ policies of eugenics, such as marriage restrictions and involuntary sterilizations. But other scenarios of fighting the ‘‘alcoholism peril’’ were also enacted. To understand how these scenarios took shape in medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century, we need to take into account the diversity and fluidity of medical and public debates around degeneration and heredity. We also have to pay attention to the continuously changing information regarding heredity emanating from German, French, and British centres of medical research. From this perspective we will raise the question: what were the connections between various concepts of heredity and the medical and social problem of alcoholism? It is commonplace in the historical literature to relate medical positions on alcoholism in the nineteenth century to evolving concepts of degeneration and heredity. Two recent