Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic

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Synopsis
"This important study explores the medicalization of alcohol abuse in the 19th century US&” and its influence on American literature and popular culture (Choice). In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn examines the rise of pathological drinking as a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in 19th century America. At the heart of that story is the disease that afflicted Edgar Allen Poe: delirium tremens. Poe&’s alcohol addiction was so severe that it gave him hallucinations, such as his vivid recollection of standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate his mother&’s body—an event that never happened. First described in 1813, delirium tremens and its characteristic hallucinations inspired sweeping changes in how the medical profession saw and treated the problems of alcohol abuse. Based on new theories of pathological anatomy, human physiology, and mental illness, the new diagnosis established the popular belief that habitual drinking could become a psychological and physiological disease. By midcentury, delirium tremens had inspired a wide range of popular theater, poetry, fiction, and illustration. This romantic fascination endured into the twentieth century, most notably in the classic Disney cartoon Dumbo, in which a pink pachyderm marching band haunts a drunken young elephant. Rum Maniacs reveals just how delirium tremens shaped the modern experience of alcohol addiction as a psychic struggle with inner demons.
Copyright:
2014

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
277 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780226099927
Related ISBNs:
9780226099897
Publisher:
The University of Chicago Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
The University of Chicago Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Medicine
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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