The drinking man's disease: the 'pre-history' of alcoholism in Georgian Britain.

Abstract

SummaryDrinking played an extremely important social role in eighteenth century England, and heavy drinking was considered manly. At times, especially during the ‘gin craze’ of the 1730s and 1740s, consumption levels rocketed alarmingly, creating vast social and medical problems and perturbing public opinion. The medical writers of Georgian England had no doubt that heavy alcohol consumption was often responsible for ill‐health and disease, and not least was one of the triggers of madness (and for this reason much health advice literature was at pains to moderate consumption). But was habitual drunkenness itself seen as a disease? Conventional wisdom amongst historians is that the disease concept of habitual drunkenness (which later became labelled ‘alcoholism’) essentially stems from the writings of Benjamin Rush and Thomas Trotter. Scrutiny of earlier writers on the subject, however, particularly those of Lettsom, Cheyne and Mandeville, indicates no substantial differences between their outlooks and those of Trotter. Trotter was part of a continuing tradition, rather than the beginning of a new one.