Dipsomania

[3][4][5] Brühl-Cramer classified dipsomania in terms of continuous, remittent, intermittent, periodic and mixed forms, and in his book he discussed its cause, pathogenesis, sequelae, and treatment options, all influenced by prevailing ideas about the laws of chemistry and concepts of excitability.

[9] As historian Roy MacLeod wrote about this dipsomania reform movement, it "illuminates certain features of the gradual transformation taking place in national attitudes towards the prevention and cure of social illnesses during the last quarter of the 19th century.

"[9] Although dipsomania was used in a variety of somewhat contradictory ways by different individuals, by the late 19th century the term was usually used to describe a periodic or acute condition, in contrast to chronic drunkenness.

[10] Magnan further described dipsomania as solitary alcohol abuse, with loss of all other interests, and these crises recurred at indeterminate intervals, separated by periods when the subject was generally sober.

[10] Similarly, in 1892 the influential English physician and mental health expert Daniel Hack Tuke defined dipsomania as a syndrome involving "an irresistible obsession and impulse to drink, coming on in attacks, during which the patients are in a condition of impotence of will and manifest great anguish.