If there exist a predisposition to consumption, the disease will be developed under peculiar morbific influences which would have no deleterious effect upon a subject not so predisposed.

The same law operates as unerringly in the inherited predisposition to intemperance.

Let the man with a dypso-maniac diathesis indulge in the use of intoxicating liquors, and he will surely become a drunkard.

There is no more immunity for him than for the man who with tubercles in his lungs exposes himself to cold, bad air and enervating bodily conditions." "A more serious view of the case, doctor, than is usually taken." "I know, but a moment's consideration--to say nothing of observed facts--will satisfy any reasonable man of its truth." "What do you mean by dypso-mania as a medical term ?" "The word," replied Dr.Angier, "means crazy for drink, and is used in the profession to designate that condition of alcoholic disease in which the subject when under its influence has no power of self-control.

It is characterized by an inordinate and irresistible desire for alcoholic liquors, varying in intensity from a slight departure from a normal appetite to the most depraved and entire abandonment to its influence.