Oenomania

Oenomania (οινος, wine, and μανία, madness) [usually Anglicized Oinomania] is a term of modern invention to denote an irresistible or insane craving for alcoholic stimulants, when occurring in a habitual or confirmed form, and requiring confinement or restraint of the person for its cure. Much discussion has taken place in regard to this and other forms of what is often called Moral Insanity; the most recent views of physicians, however, tend to show that the drinking insanity, or furor bibendi, as it was called by an early writer on the subject, is often associated with other forms of mental derangement, and is very apt to be, in connection with one or more of these forms, hereditarily transmitted, even through several generations; so that the really physical or insane character of the craving for stimulants, at least in some cases, may be regarded as a wellestablished fact in medicine. SEE MONOMANIA. Many of the considerations adduced under the art. KLEPTOMANIA SEE KLEPTOMANIA (q.v.) apply to the moral responsibility of persons laboring under this disease, and perhaps with increased force, as it has a peculiarly physical relation. Other questions relate to the general subject of temperance (q.v.).