Heredity and Alcoholism in the Medical Sphere: The Netherlands, 1850–1900
Med Hist. 2007 April 1; 51(2): 219–236.

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Alcoholism provides an exemplary case study of the dynamics of medical hereditarianism, since it was considered to be an important cause and consequence of degeneration, resulting in mental disease. As Gianna Pomata has written, “It is significant that most of the 19th century doctors' interest in hereditary diseases shifted from gout, the patrician malady, to insanity—a disease considered to be endemic at the other end of the social ladder.” We therefore wish to focus on the questions of how, to what extent, and why knowledge of inheritance was anchored in medical concepts and practices around alcoholism.

The case study centres on the roles played by notions of heredity in Dutch medicine, by analysing discourses on prevention and treatment of alcoholism and alcohol abuse in the Dutch medical literature.
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