Dipsomania
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Dipsomania is a historical term describing a medical condition involving an uncontrollable craving for alcohol. It was used in the 19th century to describe a variety of alcohol-related problems, most of which are most commonly conceptualized today as alcoholism, but it is occasionally still used to describe a particular condition of periodic, compulsive bouts of alcohol intake. The idea of dipsomania is important for its historical role in promoting a disease theory of chronic drunkenness. The word comes from Greek δίψα thirst and μανία mania. It is still mentioned in the WHO ICD10 as an alternative description for alcohol dependence syndrome, episodic use F10.26
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Famous dipsomaniacs
- In 1921, John W. Robertson theorized that dipsomania could have been the cause of the mysterious death of writer Edgar Allan Poe.
- Max Reger, German composer
- Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer
- Jonathan Ames, New York writer; self-described "dipsomaniac"
- Ernest Hemingway, American author
- Meena Kumari, Indian actress
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Examples in fiction
- Sebastian Flyte, a character from the novel Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, memorably and sarcastically describes himself as a dipsomaniac: "If they treat me like a dipsomaniac, they can bloody well have a dipsomaniac." He is later called the same by his brother, and a "dipso" by one of the minor characters
- Captain Archibald Haddock, a good friend of Tintin
- Ramakant Malhotra, a stock character in Surender Mohan Pathak's novels
- James O. Incandenza, a character in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, described in the novel as having "crippling dipsomania".
- Dwight Carson, a talented writer in The Fountainhead, is turned into a dipsomaniac on the whim of Gail Wynand.
- Uncle John, a character in The Grapes of Wrath, exhibits the periodic, compulsive bouts of alcohol intake typical of dipsomania.
- Eliot, a character in "The Magicians," by Lev Grossman, at one point refers to himself as a dipsomaniac.
- Charlotte Merriam (actress who plays Mrs.Ritchey in the 1931 movie "Night Nurse") exclaims that she is a dipsomaniac several times when confronted by Barbra Stanwyck's character (Lora Hart) with the fact that Ritchey's daughter is dying from malnutrition. This is the Ritchey's defense as to why she hasn't done anything to help her young daughter.
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See also
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Dipsomania" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
