34 social history of alcohol and drugs, volume 28, no 1 ... · 34 social history of alcohol and...

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 28, No 1 (Winter 2014)34

SHAD (Winter 2014): 34-56

Franca Beccaria is a sociologist and partner at Eclectica, Turin, Italy; Enrico Petrilli is a sociologist and junior researcher at Eclectica.

Abstract. This article considers the ways in which Italian scholars con-ceptualized alcohol and drug addiction between 1860 and 1930. Based on the analysis of more than 40 books and 5 scientific journals (112 issues), it is argued that in the period 1860-1930, scholars were more interested in alcohol than any other substance. Indeed “alcoholism’ was the term used the most to describe alcohol problems, although its meaning changed over time. At the beginning of the period alcoholism was seen as a consequence of drunkenness, later on its definition became more precise, including both physical/pathogenic factors and the addictive power of alcoholic bever-ages. In contrast, the debate about drugs involved fewer scientists and their description of the topic was divided between poisoning and addic-tion. There was an evolution in the definition of addiction-related concepts and also a heated exchange of conflicting views among scholars. In the scientific debate experts with various backgrounds such as jurisprudence, forensic science, criminal anthropology, sociology and different medical specialties were all involved. This article highlights the vitality of interest among the Italian scientific community regarding addiction themes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

IntroductIon

This article presents the results of the Italian case study within the “Addiction Through the Ages” workpackage as part of the ALICE RAP (Addiction and Lifestyles in Contemporary Europe Reframing Addictions Project) project. Specifically, this article considers the ways in which Italian scholars concep-tualized alcohol and drug addiction between 1860 and 1930.

In Italy, very few authors have written about the concept of addiction relat-ed to this historical period. Our aim, therefore, is to give the clearest possible picture of the first representations of alcohol and drug addiction among the Italian scientific community. The article gives room to the complexity of this phenomenon, showing both differences among diverse scientific disciplines and scientists, and how addiction was conceptualized for different psychoac-tive substances.

After an exploration of the limited existing historiography of what has

the coMplexIty oF AddIctIon: conceptIons oF Alcohol And

drug AddIctIon AMong ItAlIAn scholArs, 1860s-1930s

FrAncA BeccArIA And enrIco petrIllI

Beccaria and Petrilli: Conceptions of Addiction among Italian scholars, 1860s-1930s 35

already been written about alcohol and drug addiction in Italy in the time span under investigation, the results of our research are presented. Results are divided in two sections. The first section gives a general overview of the changing use of addiction related concepts and their frequency of use over time through a content analysis of the selected books and articles. The second section presents a deeper, qualitative analysis of how the various addictions were represented.

Based on the analysis of more than forty books and five scientific journals (112 issues), it is argued that in the period 1860-1930, scholars were more interested in alcohol than any other substance. Indeed “alcoholism” was the term used the most to describe alcohol problems, although its meaning changed over time. Furthermore, we observed when different addiction-related terms entered the Italian scientific discourse, as various addictions were represented, and if these definitions changed throughout the seventy years under consideration.

hIstorIogrAphy

Issues connected to alcohol and drugs do not seem to have been a field of interest for Italian historians. Instead, these themes have been investigated by researchers from different backgrounds such as sociologists, physicians, jurists and ethnobotanic scholars who have also tackled in-depth historical aspects in their work.1 It is not surprising, therefore, that in his chapter on the various sources within the social history of alcohol JeffreyVerhey does not quote any Italian author and does not even present a close examination of the country, as he does for other states of continental Europe.2 The only histori-cal work about the Italian alcohol issue during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was written by two American historians.3

The reason for the Italian historians’ lack of interest in alcohol can be explained by referring to the traditional Italian drinking culture, because as illustrated by Franco Prina inside a wet culture not only are alcoholic beverages integrated into everyday life, the prevailing values attached to alcohol use are the nutritional and socializing ones. Wet cultures, in contrast to dry cultures, are also characterized by a lower level of problematization of alcohol issues that leads to lower research development, especially for the non-medical specializations.4 Nevertheless, a brief overview of the historiography of the alcohol issue in Italy from 1860 to 1930 is of value to set our study in context.

The Italian nation was itself a new and fragile concept for much of the period under study. The Kingdom of Italy was born in 1861, the first step towards the unification of the country which was completed in 1870 with the annexation of Rome. Problems soon emerged, however, that slowed the development of national identity: the Italian language was little used, the population mainly spoke in regional dialects, and the level of literacy was only about 20%. To these cultural issues were added structural problems, such as the high public debt of the new state, and the use of taxation to balance the budget, a fact that


increased population discontent.5

These were also the years in which Italy started the slow process of industrialization, somewhat later than in other European countries. The transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized one changed the relationship between the Italian people and alcoholic beverages: they began to drink more often and in the public arena, such as the osteria, a local tavern, or the bettola, a sort of lower class establishment typical of urban proletariat neighbourhoods. During this period an increase in per capita alcohol consumption was recorded. The consumption of spirits grew in the decade 1881-90, and the drinking of beer and wine increased after 1900.6 Scholars started to stress alcohol-related problems, and for the first time alcohol control became relevant in the national political agenda.7

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century jurists and physicians were the professionals most worried about the people’s lack of moderation. According to Paul Garfinkel, after the unification of Italy there was a political conflict within the Liberal state, in which the bourgeois intellectual elite “by replacing spiritual truths with scientific ones” wanted to establish itself as the foundation for a secular morality in contrast with the predominant Catholic institutions.8 In compliance with the idea of scientific truth, alcoholism was no longer understood as a sin or a vice, but as a sickness with an origin in the patient’s body not in his soul. The most famous theory of alcohol use in those years was that of Cesare Lombroso.9 The founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology claimed that criminality was inherited: due to biological determinism the outlaw was born with a predisposition to criminality.10 Within this worldview alcohol was called into question for two reasons: first of all, it pushed and helped criminal activity, and secondly, later it led to physical and moral degeneration.11

Although the Positivists’ point of view dominated the scientific community, the sociologist Amedeo Cottino paid attention to several criticisms advanced by authors such as Napoleone Colajanni and his follower Amedeo Pistolese, who assumed a position based on what was called legal socialism (socialism giuridico) strongly criticizing capitalism for its responsibility for the proletarian condition.12 For these scholars alcohol use among the lower social classes was designed to compensate their deficient diet due to economic and social disadvantage.

Another approach to the alcohol question came from the temperance movement. Among both the anticlerical bourgeoisie and the clergy, the temperance movement played a leading role in defence of the “moral fabric of society.”13 The first anti-alcohol organization in Italy was called “Società di temperanza” (Temperance society) and was founded in Turin in 1863 by Dr Luigi Chirici. Slowly, a sobriety front was formed: in the 1890s new temperance organizations started in Florence and Lucca, in 1903 the first anti-alcohol congress was organized in Venice and in 1907 several associations joined the Italian Anti-Alcohol Federation (FAI) that became a national


pressure group able to influence the state’s alcohol policy.14 Patricia Morgan noted that even if it was less popular compared to its North America or European counterparts, the anti-alcohol movement in Italy was well organized and effective: indeed, she argues that temperance ideology, developed by a limited number of people before World War One, became, during the Fascist period, the main way to look at alcohol-related problems.15

Thanks to the work of the afore-mentioned Italian and foreign scholars it is possible to have a sense of how the alcohol issue was addressed in post-unification Italy, however, it is not easy to do the same for drugs since the available sources are fewer and less detailed. Even if these substances were already present in different segments of the population before World War Two, Italian scholars mostly showed interest in the phenomenon since the 1960s when drug consumption began to be a mass phenomenon, and it emerged as a social problem.16 Researchers have paid little attention to understanding how Italians established their relationship with drugs, from their experimental introduction in medicine during the nineteenth century to their use as narcotics by lay people.

As a result of the limited historical literature on this topic, it is not made clear exactly when in the nineteenth century doctors and pharmacists began to use substances such as morphine and cocaine for medicinal purposes. What instead is widely reported is how physicians and pharmacists were the most common drug addicts in the mid nineteenth century because they experimented upon themselves with morphine.17 Well worth a special mention is the famous Paolo Mantegazza who published the first books on psychoactive substances and was defined by Giorgio Samorini as the pioneer, not only in Italy, of studies on drugs.18

Thanks to the meticulous work of Samorini in his reconstruction of the history of Indian hemp in Italy we know for sure that the first experiments with this substance were made in 1847 by the medical team led by Giovanni Polli in Milan.19 The use of hashish by physicians was not so unusual, even in southern Italy doctors like Nicola Porta and Raffaele Valieri were known to use it in their therapeutic practice.20

In Europe, drugs such as cocaine and morphine had been used for their intoxicating properties since the mid nineteenth century, but with differences among social classes: the proletariat drank alcohol to ease their toil, while high-class ladies gave themselves gold syringes so that they could enjoy the pleasure of morphine.21 In Italy, the use of substances like cocaine among working people was established after the First World War, in the 1920s, later than in other European countries.22 However, according to Luigi Cancrini drug consumption among the popular classes was still rare, and until the 1950s drug addiction affected mainly physicians.23

All around Europe, including Italy, the first people to experience the ecstasy of drugs, especially cocaine, were artists and intellectuals. Romanticism, due to its Counter-Enlightenment position, was the first artistic movement to


consider psychoactive substances as pleasurable stimulants, a non-medical use of drugs that was far apart from that of doctors and patients.24 Recreational drugs use among artists according to Caramiello set in motion a “mechanism of literary socialization,”25 which led to an increase of cocaine use among the bourgeoisie.

Journalists also begin to show interest in this matter in the 1920s, mainly with a tabloid gaze. The alarmist and moralizing writings of the time claimed that the consumption of drugs flooded factories, prisons and brothels, until even the most conservative newspapers came to talk about a pandemic.26 Meanwhile the scientific community, still influenced by Lombroso-style positivism, agreed to consider drug users as sick persons who shared a common predisposition, defining them “as abnormal people and to search... their generative disease, often due to an hereditary defects.”27

Methods

Now let us turn to our research and see what this adds to the picture. In this study we analysed scientific publications published from 1860 to 1930. Al-though the international research group decided to focus on general medical journals only, in Italy in that period there were no general medical journals; they were all specialised. In the early phase of the material search eight spe-cialist journals and more than forty books were identified. Five of the journals were selected; they were both the most complete in terms of issues and the ones that covered the widest period (Table 1).

The first phase of the study consisted of a content analysis to look for the first time that a term with a meaning akin to “addiction” had been used and the frequency of different substance-related terms in scientific journals - a useful way to better understand the overall attention given to these issues. None of the journals were digitized, so we did a manual search through every volume index and also in the subject index when available. For this reason

Journal Issues Years of pub. NoteArchives of Criminal Anthropology, Psychiatry, Forensic Science and related Science

50 From 1880 to 1930

A single number for 1918 and 1919 issues

Experimental Journal of Psychiatry and Forensic Science of the Mental Alienation

31 From 1896 to 1930

Some missing numbers during wartime

Journal of Forensic Science 11 From 1894 to 1904

Journal of Forensic Science and Medical Jurisprudence

10 From 1897 to 1920

Several missing numbers

Zacchia - Archives of Forensic, So-cial and Criminological Medicine

10 From 1921 to 1930

Table 1. Sample of Scientific Journals


it was impossible to decide in advance a specific list of terms to search and we decided to incorporate all the substance-related articles found during the data collection in order to evaluate if the contents were related to the issue of addiction. In this way twenty-one substance-related terms were used: nine about alcohol, four on morphine, three about cocaine, and five on other drugs (Table 2); and 154 units were extracted.

The only substance-related articles that have not been taken into consideration were those which developed an analysis of the chemical components or which focused their attention only on the effect of drugs and alcohol on the organs and tissues, unless they included insights relating to intoxication or dependence. In order to fulfil the content analysis we used an Excel matrix to organize and calculate the data.

Through the second stage of analysis, the qualitative research, it was possible to understand which meanings were related to these concepts. We were particularly interested to observe when a specific addiction-related term entered the Italian scientific debate and if these definitions changed throughout the seventy years of investigation. In this analysis, besides the articles published in scientific journals, books have also been included.

With regard to books, in Italy there were no general medical textbooks written by national scholars, although a large number of specialized textbooks were produced. So, in order to understand the changes in substance-related Table 2. Substance-related termsTerm English translationAlcolismo AlcoholismAvvelenamento da alcol Alcohol poisoningDelirium tremens Delirium TremensDipsomania DipsomaniaIntossicazione alcolica Alcohol intoxicationPsicosi alcoliche Alcoholic psychosisUbriachezza DrunkennessUbriachezza abituale Habitual drunkennessUbriachezza patologica Pathological drunkennessAvvelenamento da morfina Morphine poisoningMorfinismo MorphinismMorfinodipsia Morphine dipsomaniaMorfinomania MorphinomaniaAvvelenamento da cocaina Cocaine poisoningCocainismo CocainismIntossicazione da cocaina Cocaine intoxicationAvvelenamento da eroina Heroin poisoningAvvelenamento da oppio Opium poisoningIntossicazione da nicotina Nicotine intoxicationIntossicazione da tabacco Tobacco intoxicationNicotinismo Nicotinism


terms it was decided to search for those books that dealt with the research topic. In the first phase of book selection we collected the most famous scholars’ texts (e.g. those of Lombroso, Zerboglio, Colajanni etc.), then we made use of the Forensic Science Department library of the University of Turin, that has an extensive collection of books from the second half of the nineteenth century which are catalogued by historical period and substance. Finally, we searched in the bibliographies of both journals and books to find other significant books. This process led us to select forty books on alcohol and drugs which came from several different fields, such as jurisprudence, forensic science, criminal anthropology, sociology and other medical specialties.

FIndIngs

An overall view: the rise of addictionIn the content analysis we examined the frequency of different addiction relat-ed terms in the scientific journals. From the beginning, a remarkable problem emerged because at that time in Italy the concept of dipendenza, commonly used as a translation of addiction, was not used.28 Hence, all the terms which represented behaviours or diseases with descriptions similar to those of addic-tion were selected, with the aim to investigate how and if they were used with a meaning similar to that of addiction.

Overall, if we look to all addiction-related concepts without considering the differences among substances, there was a constant increase in the number of articles dealing with the issue of addiction: in the thirty years from 1860 to 1889 only seven articles were published; in the next two decades (1890-1909) the number rose to fifty-seven; and in the last two decades there were ninety articles concerning addiction-related issues (Figure 1). Although the researched period began in 1860, the first article to use an addiction-related concept was published in 1880; hence, that is the first year taken into consideration in the figures.

Looking at the distinct substances, alcohol received the most attention (123 articles), followed at a considerable distance by morphine (14) and cocaine (12). Other substances did not seem to be of interest to researchers: tobacco was the topic of only three articles, while heroin and opium featured in one each (Figure. 2).

Over the period 1860-1930, alcohol-related issues received increasing attention from scientists: during the years under consideration both the number of articles devoted to this topic and the range of terms used rose. Regarding all the alcohol-related articles published, there were seven articles in the 1860-89 period, increasing to 45 in the 1890-1909 time span, and finally 71 between 1910-30. Likewise, if during the first thirty years only two terms were used, this increased to 5 in the second period, and then in the last two decades eight concepts were employed. In the last period (1910-30), concepts related to diseases due to alcohol abuse acquired more attention in specialist journals. Starting from 1910 terms such as alcoholic psychosis, alcoholic paranoia,


Figure 1. Frequency of all addiction-related terms

pathological drunkenness and delirium tremens came onto the scene. So, there was a proliferation of different terms at the same time as the number of uses of these terms was also increasing.

In the alcohol field, the concept most used was “alcoholism”: it was the most frequently mentioned (88 times), the first one to be used (in 1880), and it was the only one quoted throughout the whole period without significant interruption. The other alcohol-related term which received significant attention from scholars was “drunkenness” (mentioned fifteen times), while other terms such as “alcohol poisoning” or “intoxication,” “habitual” or “pathological drunkenness,” “alcoholic psychosis,” “dipsomania” and “delirium tremens” were rarely utilized (Figure 3).

1st Alcohol

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1st Cocaine1st Other substances

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1880-84 1885-89 1890-94 1895-99 1900-04 1905-09 1910-14 1915-19 1920-24 1925-30

Alcohol relatedterms

Morphinerelated terms

Cocaine relatedterms

Other terms

Figure 2. Frequency of addiction-related terms by substances


Figure 3. Frequency of alcohol-related terms

024681012141618

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Morphinism

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If the focus is shifted to cocaine and morphine-related terms, it is clear that none of the concepts used to describe the use of these substances had a pattern of continuing use like that of alcoholism: they were all employed sporadically. However, it can be observed how the attention of researchers on these substances was concentrated in two periods, the turn of the century (1895-1905) and in the roaring twenties. For both the substances the articles were divided in a fairly similar way between those interested in physiological aspects such as “morphine and cocaine poisoning” or “intoxication,” and those that deepened the pathological issues (e.g. “morphinism” and “cocainism” or “morphinomania” and “morphine dipsomania”) (Figures 4 and 5). With respect to the other narcotic substances, among the few articles found, most concepts related to intoxication or poisoning (“opium poisoning,” “nicotine/tobacco intoxication,” and “heroin poisoning”) and just one related to addiction (“nicotinism”).

Figure 4. Frequency of morphine-related terms

Figure 5. Frequency of cocaine-related terms

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The meanings of addiction(s)The content analysis shows that alcohol-related terms, and specifically “alco-holism,” were the terms most used by scientists and that scholarly interest in morphine and cocaine related terms was shared between “poisoning” and “ad-diction.” However, only through a qualitative analysis of the articles is it pos-sible to understand what these concepts meant and if they changed throughout the seventy years. First of all we examine the issue of alcoholism since it dominated the scientific debate of the time, then we deepen our analysis of the emerging issue of drug addiction.

The origin of the alcohol(ism) issue in Italy The first publications that dealt with the damage caused by alcoholic bever-ages were mainly about drunkenness, both as an acute and a habitual behav-iour. In the Italian language there was not a word for the English term “inebri-ety” that was in common use during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in the English scientific literature with the meaning of habitual drunkenness as a disease.29 Nevertheless, at the beginning of the study time span, habitual drunkenness was part of alcohol discourses in Italy but not illustrated in depth: acute drunkenness was more accurately defined.

In his forensic science manual Puccinotti provided the first description of acute drunkenness as “an exaltation of the imagination, joined with a greater or lesser astonishment of the feeling.”30 Furthermore, the author provided a classification of degrees of drunkenness fairly common in those years: the first step was the joyous inebriation wherein the drinker’s mood was carefree and his actions were playful and affectionate; the angry or maniac drunkenness, as the proverb states: “in the second glasses there is the Tiger blood” so the drunkard no longer had control over himself and his actions became violent; finally the last stage was the lethargic drunkenness, when a man was unable to act since “there is the pig’s blood in the last cups.”31

The term “alcoholism,” with a clear meaning of alcohol dependence, started to become socially relevant at the end of the nineteenth century, when the issue began to draw the attention of doctors, lawyers and statesmen because of the increase in the consumption of wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages. According to Gina Lombroso, per capita consumption doubled from 0.49 litres in 1978-80 to more than one litre in 1900-05.32 However, it is important to note that not all scholars agreed with this data, according to Pistolese (who was against positivist and conservative interpretations), per capita consumption decreased from 1.37 to 0.61 litres in the 1885-1903.33

For the majority of scholars, the rise in alcohol consumption led to an alarming increase in deaths due to alcohol-related pathologies, while the percentage of various forms of alcohol-related crimes was generally low.34 A book by Zerboglio, published in 1892, demonstrates scholars’ concern for these new diseases, indeed he pointed out the curious fact that “if the alcoholism as a tendency to abuse of alcoholic beverage is decreasing, the


alcoholism as a disease is growing.”35 The same author anticipated by many years the issue of the globalization

of habits, warning his fellow citizens about the “universalization of alcoholic passion.”36 His contemporaries did not share Zerboglio’s concern, as the majority of scholars still differentiated between the daily alcoholism of the Central and Northern European workers from that of the Italians, which was characterized by Sunday drunkenness only in the family or tavern.37 Furthermore, within Italy itself there were detectable differences and habits were not uniform, as consumption data, alcohol-related mortality, and the number of alcoholics revealed strong differences between the north and the south, mainly because the latter had lower consumption and was less industrialized.38

Although Zerboglio’s book exhibits concerns about alcohol problems of that time well, going so far to anticipate apprehension expressed only in more recent times, it was Lombroso who made the alcohol issue a topic of the Italian scientific agenda in those days.39 Hereinafter it will be shown how scholars’ interest about alcoholism arose, its development and the distinctive outlook involved.

The alcoholism definitionsAmong the material collected the first mention of the word “alcolismo” (alco-holism) appeared in 1866 in a book by Zeliotto,40 that contains a transcription of his speech at the Hospital of Venice wherein the medical doctor dealt es-sentially with the issue of drunkenness.41 Zeliotto described alcoholism as the extreme stage of habitual drunkenness, comparable to dementia because of its hallucinations, the inability to maintain constant contact with reality and the behavioural irrationality. This is a typical example of the use of the alcohol-ism concept among Italian scientists in the early period: they employed this term to refer generally to alcohol-related problems without providing a more precise definition. The approximate definition of alcoholism was probably due to a lack of interest of these authors in the pathological forms of drinking: as we see above they were more concerned about ordinary drunkenness and its repercussions for social order more than the health-related issues.

The situation did not take long to change, and in 1878 Lazzaretti provided the first definition of alcoholism as an addictive behaviour toward alcohol: the necessity of drinking alcoholic beverages rose from the propensity of the of use spirits. Lazzaretti added two important elements missed in the previous outline of alcoholism: craving, defined as the overwhelming, urgent need to drink alcohol beverages, and spirits as the main etiological agent of alcoholism.42 In the work of this author the Italian debate appears similar to the Anglophone one, as its definition resembles that of the Benjamin Rush. This is because it presumes both the idea of alcoholism as a “disease of the will,” also known as the addict’s “loss of control,” and how the drinker becomes an addict through a gradual and progressive process due to the continued use of


spirituous liquors.43 Hence in Lazzaretti’s conceptualization, alcohol was an inherently addicting substance, as it was for the Temperance movement.44

Lazzaretti’s correlation between alcohol problems and spirits was not unusual, even Fazio described alcoholism as a form of slow drunkenness, the result of “use or rather continued and prolonged abuse of alcohol” due to some special substances in spirits.45 Indeed, the author explained that this was the reason why alcoholism was more prevalent in countries such as Sweden, Norway, North America, Russia, and Germany, and less in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and the south of France where vineyards flourished. However, not all scientists agreed on this correlation between spirits and alcoholism, there were those who took an opposite position linking alcoholism and wine: “in short, the parallel between wine consumption and alcoholism appears with such regularity and with such versatility counterproofs which is impossible to deny this significance connection.”46 Amaldi came up with the term “vinismo” to indicate “wine alcoholism.” This was due both to certain features of wine, and also to the peculiar characteristics of the Italian population that historically were exposed to habitual wine consumption.47

Although Lazzaretti had the ability to anticipate the alcoholism issue debate in Italy, we cannot overestimate his importance in this context. Only when Lombroso and his Positivist School began to deal with this issue a few years later did the scientific community start to define more carefully the meaning of alcoholism. Moreover, as mentioned above in the late nineteenth century the Italian anti-alcohol movement was not strong and for this reason scholars could deal with the addiction issue more deeply, while in the United States, under the influence of the temperance movement, the theme of prohibition became more relevant, at the expense of the issue of the treatment of addicts.48

According to Lombroso a person committed a crime because he or she had certain biological characteristics that led him or her to do so; likewise the alcoholic drank because of his or her biological predisposition.49 In addition, heredity acquired more and more credibility as an etiological agent for alcoholism. Such a positivist standpoint can be considered as innovative inside alcohol studies, because it anticipated by several years one of the major assumptions of post-prohibition thought: the source of addiction shifted from the beverage to the patient’s body.50 However, it must be pointed out that this step taken by positivists was partial because alongside the body-pathogenic factors the addicting power of alcoholic beverages was still important.

Acute and Chronic AlcoholismThe distinction between acute and chronic alcoholism played a major role throughout the period studied. Cesare Lombroso’s article “Acute and Chronic Alcoholism” published in 1880 was responsible for promoting this specifica-tion, but despite the title the famous forensic scientist did not express clearly the difference between acute and chronic alcoholism in the article.51 In con-trast, in 1892, Zerboglio provided a clear and neat formulation of these two


conditions; indeed his conceptualization did not undergone substantial chang-es during the whole researched period.52 For example, thirty years afterwards, in 1921, Perrando conveyed this distinction without significant alterations.53

Zerboglio, a lawyer and senator, begins his treatise by covering the topic of drunkenness. Later on, he addresses the issue of acute alcoholism so that he represents alcoholism as a gradual process composed by distinct degrees, each one characterized by specific symptoms. If at the beginning the person feels a general wellbeing, by carrying on alcohol use the drinker loses control of reality until he reaches the extreme point of alcohol intoxication, namely acute alcoholism.

It brings the abolition of every activity and sensitivity. The mind is veiled, the body is inert, the face purple, the eyes unstressed, the breath is paining, problems in the sphincter’s control occur, the temperature drops, the pulse rates are weak and often it is possible to die for apoplexy.54

Many scholars agreed in Zerboglio’s interpretation of acute alcoholism as be-ing like alcoholic poisoning and as an abolition of consciousness, but although it is true that acute alcoholism can lead to the death, Scabia considered this state as temporary because it disappears once the body gets rid of the sub-stance.55

Taking the work of Krafft Ebing and Huss as his reference point, Zerboglio defined chronic alcoholism as being composed of all the physical and psychological degenerative phenomena resulting from continued alcohol abuse, with a clear meaning of dependence. This habit first damaged the body and corrupted its functions, later it affected the alcoholic’s intelligence and moral conduct.56 Specifically, the intellectual degeneration was depicted by Colajanni as “a strange apathy, indifference and lack of concern of his own state.”57

Although this disease was thought to affect people in different ways, there was a common symptomatology: stomach and digestive problems, difficulties sleeping, heart palpitations, the sensation of prickling all over the body and hallucinations.58 Some authors also added to these symptoms the inability of the alcoholic to control his drinking.59 On this point Lombroso reported the experience of Magnan who knew a woman who mixed faeces and wine hoping to instil enough disgust of it to abstain, but she was unsuccessful.60

Questioned meanings in alcohol field: Positivist School vs. Legal SocialismThe majority of Italian scholars accepted the conceptualization of alcoholism that had arisen from the Positivist School. Nevertheless, some disapproval and criticisms were expressed, especially by authors without a medical back-ground. If the majority of experts had positions closer to the positivist school founded by Lombroso, a later group referred to socialist positions that viewed alcoholism as a social disease rather than from a pathological perspective.

The text nearest to the positivist position, but one that better developed the causes of alcoholism, is that written by Zerboglio.61 He distinguished between


anthropological (race, gender, age and intelligence), physical (climate and seasons) and social factors (social and economic order, population density, urban or rural life, political structure, poverty, level of civilization etc.), and, after having statistically analyzed the effect of each of them, the scholar concluded that climate, race and poverty were the factors with a major role in alcoholism aetiology. The majority of positivist scientists considered alcoholism as being due to the person’s physical and brain characteristics because, as Albertoni summarizes, alcoholism was a disease due to a faulty brain organization and for this reason Lombroso often included in his writings detailed phrenological descriptions.62

With respect to the consequences of alcoholism, Lombroso and the positivistic scholars deemed it to be “the lethal generator of most of human pain.”63 Firstly, alcohol was the main cause of criminality because it turned honest men into idle and violent criminals, “giving a demonstration... of the axiom that crime is a result of a special morbid condition inside our body.”64 According to Lombroso, one of the “most obvious and fatal effects of alcohol” was pauperism.65 This correlation was thought to be so obvious that Zerboglio states that “alcoholism breeds poverty is a fact so well known and daily observed, that it does not need to be explained.”66 Lombroso (1880) briefly presents this process saying that if the alcoholic comes from a wealthy family he becomes poor, while if he is already poor he loses his opportunity to find a job. The last and most frequently quoted negative consequence of alcoholism was its effect on heredity. For instance, Lombroso reported the Max Jucke case: “from a single progenitor, the drunken Max Jucke, descended, in 75 years, 200 robbers and murderers, 280 poor people suffering from blindness, idiocy, phthisis, 90 prostitutes and 300 children died early.”67 This transition from generation to generation was “a sad heritage of moral vices and physical disfigurement” which led to a degeneration of the species, namely “the involution/worsening of the human race.”68

Shifting our attention to the second faction of scientists, they thought that the positivists underestimated the negative influence of socio-economic context, namely capitalism, and overestimated the negative action of alcohol on individuals’ lives. Indeed, according to Colajanni “alcoholism as a pathological state is the product of the misery generated by the present social organization.”69 These scholars blamed capitalism for the generation of poverty both directly, in terms of getting possession of produced wealth, and indirectly, by encouraging alcoholism through ignorance and idleness.70 Pistolese conceptualized alcoholism as “a social disease,”71 so the main way to fight this was through a long process of social environmental change, which was possible to achieve only through education and a more egalitarian economy.72

According to these scholars, then, it was poverty that was the main cause of alcoholism, not the reverse. Moreover, they rejected the idea that climate and race would affect alcohol consumption and thus the population and


crime.73 Pistolese criticized positivist authors who were unable to demonstrate statistically a causal relationship between alcohol and crime, asserting instead that there was a relationship of coexistence between them since they were caused by common causes; the misery faced by the people.74 Although Colajanni recognized the risk that alcoholics’ offspring would have more mental/criminal problems as a result of heredity and degeneration he refused Lombroso’s interpretation because he judged it to be a generalization that did not take into account other factors that were more important like family education and social environment.75

Beyond alcoholism: other alcohol related pathologiesIt is important to also mention how scholars represented other alcohol-related pathologies. Although, as we saw above, delirium tremens received little at-tention in the scientific journals with only one quotation in 1930, the situation appears different when the analysis is widened to include the text of the books. Indeed, this concept emerges early in the work of Zeliotto, who defined drink-ers’ delirium tremens as a periodic illness due to a continued abuse of spir-its.76 This was in contrast to other works of the same period, where delirium tremens is frequently defined as an acute form of chronic alcoholism.77 From the beginning of the twentieth century, the description of delirium tremens became more precise: it arose after an unrestrained ingestion of alcoholic bev-erages or after a sudden alcohol withdrawal and it took the form of a delirium that lasted from eight to fifteen days, accompanied by hallucinations and trem-ors in different body parts.78 Furthermore, Amaldi reported that a particular characteristic of Italian alcoholism was the rarity of delirium tremens cases due to the Italian drinking patterns.79

The first definition of dipsomania came from Zeliotto in 1866, who described it as an uncontrollable desire to drink spirits due to a brain illness.80 Zeliotto’s interpretation was common among scholars, indeed Zerboglio provided a very similar definition: dipsomania was “a manic tendency to drink,” and the dipsomaniac was a fool or a neurotic whose madness was caused by the urgency of drinking such that he does not stop drinking until he has satisfied his passion.81 Fiamberti further clarifies this disease in an article entirely devoted to it. Dipsomania was a “sudden impulse, violent, incoercible, periodical,… that takes place in consciousness more or less severely numbed and is usually preceded by a period of bad mood and followed by more or less evident amnesia,… for his characters, which are common and typical of epilepsy attacks, must be regarded as an epileptic equivalent.”82

The Shape of Problems to Come: morphine and cocainePreviously, we have seen the alcoholism-related debate as proactive and com-plex, whereas the situation about drug addiction was quite different. Drug consumption was not yet considered a social problem: it involved a smaller number of people who were not from the working class and thus presented


fewer consequences for the public order. Studies were still at a preliminary stage, wherein a descriptive perspective of the problem prevailed and scholars provided just general explanations of the issue. As a result, we did not find a detailed explanation of the pathogenic mechanisms in the work analysed and, at least for morphine, poisoning remained the main problem.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the most widely consumed drugs were opium, morphine, cocaine and heroin, but Coronedi considered morphine to be the most used.83 If alcohol-related problems were more spread among the working class, doctors and pharmacists were the most common morphine users, as Puca explained “the largest contribution to morphinism is given by the classes of doctors, medical students, pharmacists and everyone in general, that for the exercise of arts and professions, have opportunities to find easily drugs and medicine.”84 The other category of morphine users was the patients treated with this substance to alleviate their pain. Once they had experienced “morphine euphoria” their morphine use became an urgent need in order to limit the negative consequences (such as nausea, insomnia and anxiety) resulting from suspending morphine use.85

The first study we found dealing with this substance was about morphine poisoning, namely the use of an amount of the substance above that which the human body could tolerate.86 This was the issue discussed more by researchers in those years, because it was both recent and scholars still had to investigate its possible applications and effects. Unlike drunkenness, morphine poisoning remained an object of study for the whole span covered by our research, even after the introduction of the morphinism concept.

The concept of morphinism was used to describe both the status of the person who used morphine as a painkiller and became unable to interrupt their use, and the disease that was due to substance abuse.87 The scientists looked very carefully at the physical consequences of habitual morphine use: the morphinists were described as in “a cachectic state, with bright eyes and bulging out the sockets, constipation, progressive weakening of memory and desire, apathy, insomnia, impotence, generalized body aches, muscle tremors, hallucinations and dizziness.”88 Besides the physical effects due to morphine abuse, psychological effects were also reported. Morphinism led to a “disastrous perversion of the character” with a tendency to selfish lies, thefts and perjury.89 Moreover, in 1922 Cevidalli gave an accurate description of the symptoms, a topic that had been poorly detailed previously, as a “terrible crisis” wherein the patient was capable of doing anything to get the alkaloid.90

The history of cocaine in Italy appears to be different to that of morphine. Indeed, if at the beginning (as was the case for morphine) most of the scholars were interested in poisoning because the therapeutic use of cocaine was spreading, the situation changed after the First World War when the “fashion of cocaine” spread. Cocaine lost its therapeutic value, and its narcotic power, and the consequent addiction, became more important.91 Coronedi explains how each intake of the poison caused a sense of well-being, what he described


as the “cocaine inebriation,” which soon disappeared and was followed by a new obsession to take the poison.92 For this reason, those addicted to cocaine were described as capable of doing anything (such as scams) to get it, and the scholars concluded that cocainism lead to a moral decay.

In conclusion, as we have already shown in the content analysis, other drugs such as opium, heroin and tobacco received little attention from the scientists. As with morphine and cocaine, for tobacco there was a distinction between poisoning and addictions, while the researchers’ attention toward opium was only focused on poisoning. The extent to which tobacco addiction was a new field still under development can be demonstrated by the way in which two authors with different perspectives had two opposite positions: Albertoni, a toxicologist, described it as an individual vice and indeed “the young men who abuse tobacco show a tendency to vice in general”; whereas for the psychiatrist Scabia tobaccoism was a mental disease with a toxic nature caused by tobacco abuse.93

conclusIon

This study, through its analysis of historical material, describes and provides some understanding of the first definitions of alcohol and drug addiction in Italy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also shows the vitality and interest of the Italian scientific community in this theme at this time. The scholars’ strong involvement is detectable at several levels. In the entire study time span we found an evolution in the definition of addiction-related concepts and a heated debate among scholars. Both books and articles showed the involvement of experts with various backgrounds such as juris-prudence, forensic science, criminal anthropology, sociology and different medical specialties. Lastly, the attention of scholars to the wider international debate about substance use was noticeable, even if they were able to use its knowledge without becoming subjected to it. Indeed, they developed theories that were able to also include features of Italian drinking culture.

The topic of alcohol was definitely the most active area, with several different conceptualizations that developed over time, sometimes from strongly opposed positions. This field of research moved from a rough definition of alcoholism as a consequence of drunkenness, to one that was much more precise and included both body-pathogenic factors as well as the addicting power of the alcoholic beverage. In contrast, the debate on drugs started in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and researchers’ attention was divided between both the meaning of poisoning and addiction. Therefore, we do not find a complete treatise which gives explanations about drug addiction, but the results mostly show descriptions of the physical and psychological consequences of drug use and different interpretations of causal links. Scientific debate on addiction seemed to be contingent on the substances used and the increase of abuse. This can be seen in the fact that scientific discussion about alcohol problems and diseases followed an increase in consumption from 1880-90; equally,


scholars’ concern about morphine and cocaine came after a rise in their use at the beginning of the twentieth century.

As shown both in quantitative and qualitative analysis the pathology that mainly concerned Italian scholars was alcoholism, especially when compared to cocaine or morphine addiction. The reason for this preference is primarily quantitative, alcohol unlike morphine and cocaine was a widely available substance and easy to obtain. Furthermore, drugs like cocaine were consumed by the upper classes (physicians or artists) and therefore there were no fears for public order, while alcohol was depicted as directly related to the proletariat’s criminal activity.

Even if the Italian term “dipendenza,” namely addiction, was not used at all in the time span 1860-1930, the different terms utilised had this meaning as they included the inability of the alcoholic or the addict to control his drinking or his drug consumption, even if this had a different causal interpretation. It was mainly at the end of the nineteenth century that the concept of addition appeared in the scientific discourses, with different names such as: habitual/pathological drunkenness; (chronic) alcoholism; alcohol psychosis; dipsomania; delirium tremens related to alcohol; morphinism; morphinomania; morphine dipsomania; nicotinism; and cocainism related to drugs.

Acute consequences of alcohol and drug abuse that did not necessarily induce dependence on the substance were defined as drunkenness; alcohol poisoning; alcohol intoxications; morphine poisoning; cocaine poisoning; cocaine intoxication; opium poisoning; nicotine/tobacco intoxication; and heroin poisoning. The borders between poisoning/intoxication and dependence were not always clear, and it was quite easy to cross them.

Additionally, some research limitations have to be underlined. The historical material used cannot be considered entirely representative, as we were unable to access all publications about alcohol and drugs for all years because of the lack of complete collections of articles and of digital archives. The manual search through indices allowed the capture of only those articles that showed the topic of our interest in their title. However, we believe that because of the amount of data collected (more than 40 books and 112 journal issues consulted) it could be considered both adequate and appropriate to outline the nature of the scientific debate on this topic. In addition, even if we have attempted as much as possible to cover the different scientific knowledge involved, by doing so we tried both to have a complete representation of the debate and to not overestimate a perspective at the expense of others, we are conscious that the contribution of general medicine could have been under-represented.

Furthermore, in order to have a complete image of the conceptualization of addiction several aspects deserve to be explored: how the bourgeois culture dealt with these issues outside the scientific field (newspapers, books and arts); the consequences of industrialization on the life conditions of the urban and rural population and its effects on alcohol and drug habits; an accurate


study of the ideology and power of the Italian Anti-Alcohol Federation; and the evolution of the Italian legislation on alcohol in those years which takes into account the conflicting influences of anti-alcohol movements and wine producers. It would also be important, although complex, to reconstruct the relationship between individuals and alcohol/drugs at the population level, namely the patterns of alcohol and drug use among both popular and wealthy classes, integrating statistical data with diaries and stories of everyday practices. It is, therefore, important to understand the various meanings and functions covered by alcohol and drugs for their consumers and not just how they were judged by other spheres of society. Further research should also study how earlier works have been influenced by evolutions and changes within the scientific debate throughout the twentieth century.

Turin, Italybeccaria@ eclectica.it

endnotesThe research leading to these results or outcomes has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement no 266813 – Addictions and Lifestyle in Contemporary Europe – Reframing Addictions Project (ALICE RAP – www.alicerap.eu). Participant organisations in ALICE RAP can be seen at http://www.alicerap.eu/about-alice-rap/partner-institutions.html. The views expressed here reflect only the author’s and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

The authors would like to thank professor Paolo Tappero and Elena Gay, who through their work and passion were a blessing for improving our research as they facilitated the access to the Foren-sic Science Library in Torino.

1. Guido Blumir, Con la scusa della droga (Rimini: Guaraldi, 1973); Pierluigi Cornacchia, Droga: nascita di un fenomeno (Milano: Unicopli, 1986); Amedeo Cottino, L’ingannevole spon-da (Roma: Carrocci Editore, 1991); Luigi Caramiello, La droga della modernità: sociologia e storia di un fenomeno fra devianza e cultura (Torino: UTET, 2003); Giancarlo Arnao, Cocaina: storia, effetti, cultura, esperienze (Milano: Feltrinelli Economica, 1980); Armando Savignano, “L’alcolismo nella legislazione italiana,” Alcologia 1 (1989): 93-100; Giorgio Samorini, L’erba di Carlo Erba. Per una storia della canapa indiana in Italia (1845-1948) (Torino: Nautilus, 1996).

2. Jeffrey Verhey, “Sources for the Social History of Alcohol,” in Drinking: Behavior & Belief in Modern History, ed. Susanna Barrows and Robin Room (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990): 425-39.

3. Patricia Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization and the Attack on the Italian Drinking Culture,” Contemporary Drug Problems 15 (1988): 607-26; Paul A. Garfinkel, “In Vino Veritas: The Construction of Alcoholic Disease in Liberal Italy, 1880-1914,” in Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History ed. Mack Holt, 61-76 (Oxford: Berg, 2006).

4. Franco Prina, “Ricerche e politiche in tema di alcol in Italia. L’esigenza di un programma di ‘alcologia critica,’” Marginalità e Società, 23 (1993): 27-55; Robin Room, “Responses to Alcohol-related Problems in an International Perspective: Characterizing and explaining cultural wetness and dryness,” presented at “La ricerca Italiana sulle bevande alcoliche nel confronto internazionale Santo Stefano Belbo, Italy, 22-23 September, 1989. Available at http://www.rob-inroom.net/response.htm (last accessed 7 November 2014)


5. Aurelio Lepre and Claudia Petraccone, Storia d’Italia dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna: Il Muli-no, 2008).

6. Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization,” 614.7. Cottino, L’ingannevole sponda, 128-32. 8. Garfinkel, “In Vino Veritas,” 63.9. Cesare Lombroso, L’uomo delinquente (Milano: Hoepli, 1876).10. Garfinkel, “In Vino Veritas,” 63-64.11. Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization,” 610; Cottino, L’ingannevole sponda, 41-42.12. Amedeo Cottino, La questione sociale dell’alcol da Lombroso a Ferri, in L’alcol nella

società – Scienza, cultura e controllo sociale eds. AA.VV. (Torino: Celid, 1985): 11-32; Cottino, L’ingannevole sponda; Napoleone Colajanni, L’alcoolismo, sue conseguenze morali, sue cause (Catania: Filippo Tropea Editore, 1887); Amedeo Pistolese, Alcolismo e delinquenza (Torino: UTET, 1907). To examine in depth the position of legal socialism see Guido Alpa, La cultura delle regole: storia del diritto civile italiano (Bari: Laterza, 2009).

13. Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization,” 613.14. Garfinkel, “In Vino Veritas,” 67.15. Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization,” 607-26.16. In Italy cannabis use spread only from 1966. A remarkable delay compared to the other

western countries. For further information see Guido Blumir, Marihuana: uno scandalo interna-zionale (Torino: Einaudi, 2002).

17. Caramiello, La droga della modernità, 128.18. Giorgio Samorini, “Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910): pioniere italiano degli studi sulle

droghe,” Eleusis. Bollettino d’Informazione SISSC 2 (1995): 14-20.19. Samorini, L’erba di Carlo Erba.20. Cesco Ciapanna, Marijuana e altre storie (Roma: Ciapanna, 1979); Valentina Dall’Igna,

La marijuana e gli altri cannabinoidi, in Droghe – Tossicofilie e tossicodipendenza, eds. A. Sal-vini, I. Testoni and A. Zamperini (Torino: UTET, 2002), 196.

21. Caramiello, La droga della modernità, 135.22. Cornacchia, Droga: nascita di un fenomeno, 32.23. Luigi Cancrini, Schiavo delle mie brame (Milano: Frassinelli, 2003), 202.24. Virginia Berridge, “The origins of the English drug “scene” 1890-1930,” Medical History,

32 (1988): 52; Cornacchia, Droga: nascita di un fenomeno, 69-72. Arnao, Cocaina, 106-7.25. Caramiello, La droga della modernità, 134.26. Arnao, Cocaina, 107-8; Cornacchia, Droga: nascita di un fenomeno, 57-65.27. Cornacchia, Droga: nascita di un fenomeno, 48.28. To further understand the semantic differences between the Italian term “dipendenza” and

the English word “addiction” see Henri Margaron, Il labirinto della dipendenza (Roma: Il Pensi-ero Scientifico Editore, 1997) and Cesare Guerreschi, New addictions (Alba: Edizioni San Paolo, 2005).

29. Norman S. Kerr, Inebriety, Its Etiology, Pathology, Treatment and Jurisprudence (Philadel-phia: P. Blakison, 1888); Kerr, Inebriety: or Narcomania (London: Lewis, 1894).

30. Francesco Puccinotti, Lezioni di Medicina Legale (Milano: Borroni e Scotti, 1856), 254.31. Ibid.; Pietro Zeliotto, L’ubriachezza: discorso tenuto agli uditori di medicina legale nello

spedale civile generale di Venezia (Venezia: Tipi Locatelli, 1866).32. Paolo Amaldi, “Il vino causa principalissima dell’alcolismo in Italia,”Rivista sperimentale

di Freniatria e Medicina Legale delle alienazioni mentali 56 (1921): 86-124; Gina Lombroso, “L’alcoolismo in Italia,” Archivio di Psichiatria, Scienze Penali e Antropologia Criminale 36 (1916): 449-63.

33. Pistolese, Alcolismo e delinquenza, 123.34. Raffaele Calabrese, “L’alcoolismo nell’arte e nella bettola,” Zacchia - Archivio di Me-

dicina Legale, Sociale e Criminologia 1 (1921): 111-12.35. Adolfo Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico (Torino: Fratelli Bocca Edi-

tori, 1892), 194.36. Margaretha Järvinen and Robin Room, eds., Youth Drinking Cultures: European Experi-

ences (Ashgate: Chippenham, 2007); Franca Beccaria, “Stili del bere delle giovani generazioni:


vent’anni di ricerche qualitative,” in I giovani e l’alcool: consumi, abusi, politiche. Una rassegna critica multidisciplinare, ed. Franco Prina and Enrico Tempesta (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2010): 62-82; quotation in Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 241.

37. Lombroso, “L’alcoolismo in Italia,” 449; Calabrese, “L’alcoolismo nell’arte e nella bet-tola,” 112; Amaldi, “Il vino causa principalissima,” 120.

38. Lombroso, “L’alcoolismo in Italia,” 458-59; Amaldi, “Il vino causa principalissima,” 95.39. Lombroso, L’uomo delinquente; Cesare Lombroso, “Alcolismo acuto e alcolismo croni-

co,” Archivio di Psichiatria, Scienze Penali e Antropologia Criminale 1 (1880): 286-312.40. Zeliotto, L’ubriachezza, 8-11.41. It is not the purpose of this article explore in depth the issue of drunkenness, in addition to

the texts mentioned above we recommend for a discussion of legal terms in this matter Agostino Berenini, Dell’ubriachezza, considerata sotto il triplice aspetto di contravvenzione, causa di-minuente e causa dirimente la responsabilità penale (Padova: Casa Editrice Luigi Battei, 1888).

42. Giuseppe Lazzaretti, “Corso teorico-pratico di medicina legale” (Padova: Self-published, 1878), 199-200.

43. Benjamin Rush, “An Inquiry Into the Effect of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind: With an Account of the Means of Preventing, and of the Remedies for Curing Them,” in A New Deal in Liquor; A Plea for Dilution, ed. Yandell Henderson (New York: Doubleday, 1934), 185-221; Robin Room and Barbara C. Leigh, “Self-Control Concerns and Drinking Loss of Control in General and Clinical Populations,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 53 (1992): 590-93.

44. Harry G.Levine, “The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunk-enness in America,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 15 (1978): 493-506.

45. Eugenio Fazio, L’ubbriachezza e sue forme (Napoli: Stabilimento Tip. A Trani, 1875), 246.46. Calabrese, “L’alcoolismo nell’arte e nella bettola,” 112.47. Amaldi, “Il vino causa principalissima,” 119.48. Morgan, “Industrialization, Urbanization”; Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status

Politics and The American Temperance Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966).49. Lombroso, L’uomo delinquente.50. E. Morton Jellinek, “Phases in the Drinking History of Alcoholics: Analysis of a Survey

Conducted by the Official Organ of Alcoholics Anonymous,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 7 (1946): 1-88; Levine, “Discovery of Addiction.”

51. Lombroso, “Alcolismo acuto e alcolismo cronico,” 286-312.52. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 5-7.53. Giacomo G. Perrando, Manuale di medicina legale (Napoli: Vittorio Idelson, 1921), 141-

45.54. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 4-5.55. Dioscordie Vitali, Manuale di chimica tossicologica (Milano: Riformatorio Patronato,

1893), 189; Raffaele Gatta, Compendio di medicina legale compilato secondo l’insegnamento universitario (Milano: Società Editrice Libera, 1906), 191; Luigi Scabia,Trattato di terapia delle malattie mentali (Torino: Unione Tipografico Editrice, 1900), 369.

56. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 5-7.57. Napoleone Colajanni, “Prefazione,” in Alcolismo e delinquenza, Amedeo Pistolese, 1-6

(Torino: UTET, 1907).58. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 5-7.59. Luigi Luciato, I disturbi mentali. Patologia speciale delle anomali dello spirito (Milano:

Hoelpi, 1922), 85.60. Lombroso, “Alcolismo acuto e alcolismo cronico,” 309.61. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 192-262.62. Pietro Albertoni, Avvelenamenti (Milano: Francesco Vallardi, 1895).63. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 92.64. Lombroso, L’uomo delinquente, 106-7.65. Ibid.66. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 228.67. Lombroso, “Alcolismo acuto e alcolismo cronico,” 307.


68. Albertoni, Avvelenamenti, 117.69. Colajanni, L’alcoolismo, sue conseguenze morali, 165.70. Pistolese, Alcolismo e delinquenza, 121-36.71. Ibid., 2.72. E. Scabia, Trattato di terapia delle malattie mentali (Torino: Unione Tipografico Editrice,

1900).73. Colajanni, L’alcoolismo, sue conseguenze morali, 137-84.74. Pistolese, Alcolismo e delinquenza, 7-112.75. Colajanni, L’alcoolismo, sue conseguenze morali, 125-33.76. Zeliotto, L’ubriachezza, 8-10.77. Lazzaretti, Corso teorico-pratico di medicina legale, 200; Fazio, L’ubbriachezza e sue

forme, 255.78. Giuseppe Ziino, Compendio di medicina legale e giurisprudenza medica (Milano: Società

Editrice Libera, 1906), 209; Attilio Cevidalli, Compendio di medicina legale (Milano: Società Editrice Libera, 1922), 490.

79. Amaldi, “Il vino causa principalissima,” 89-90.80. Zeliotto, L’ubriachezza, 8-10.81. Zerboglio, L’alcoolismo. Studio sociologico-giuridico, 12.82. Mario A. Fiamberti, “La syndrome dipsomania,” Archivio di Antropologia Criminale, Psi-

chiatria, Medicina Legale e Scienze affini 43 (1923): 227.83. Giusto Coronedi, Diagnosi e terapia clinica degli avvelenamenti (Firenze: G. Barbèra,

1926): 231-36.84. Annibale Puca, “Morfinismo Cronico. Produzione di agglutinine in animale da esperimen-

to,” Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria e Medicina Legale delle Alienazioni Mentali 56 (1921), 571.

85. Coronedi, Diagnosi e terapia clinica, 232; E. Audenino, Article review, Archivio di Psi-chiatria, Scienze Penali e Antropologia Criminale 24 (1903), 291; Gatta, Compendio di medicina legale, 232; Perrando, Manuale di medicina legale, 145.

86. Puccinotti, Lezioni di Medicina Legale, 220.87. Albertoni, Avvelenamenti, 168-69.88. Gatta, Compendio di medicina legale, 188.89. Perrando, Manuale di medicina legale, 179.90. Cevidalli, Compendio di medicina legale, 491.91. Albertoni, Avvelenamenti, 173-78; Ibid; Cevidalli, Compendio di medicina legale, 203-4;

quotation in R. Romanese, “Osservazione medico legali sopra un avvelenamento acuto da co-caina,” Rivista di Medicina Legale e di Giurisprudenza Medica 10 (1920), 39.

92. Coronedi, Diagnosi e terapia clinica, 237.93. Albertoni, Avvelenamenti, 182; Scabia, Trattato di terapia delle malattie mentali, 374.

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