Religion and Lust

Chateaubriand, writer, chorea.

Alexander the Great, soldier, alcoholism.

Molière, dramatist, epilepsy, phthisis pulmonalis.

Lamb, writer, alcoholism, melancholia, acute mania.

Mozart, musician, epilepsy, hallucinations.

Heine, writer, melancholia, spinal disease.

Dr. Johnson, writer, chorea, folie du doute.

Malibran, epilepsy.

Newton, philosopher, amnesia.

Cavour, statesman, philosopher, suicidal impulse.

Ampère, mathematician, amnesia.

Thomas Campbell, writer, chorea.

Blake, painter, hallucinations.

Chopin, musician, melancholia.

Coleridge, writer, alcoholism, morphinism.

Donizetti, musician, moral anaesthesia.

Lenau, writer, melancholia.

Mahomet, theologian, epilepsy.

Manzoni, statesman, folie du doute.

Haller, writer, hallucinations.

Dupuytren, surgeon, suicidal impulse.

Paganini, musician, epilepsy.

Handel, musician, epilepsy.

Schiller, writer, epilepsy.

Richelieu, statesman, epilepsy.

Praga, writer, alcoholism, sexual perversion.

Tasso, writer, alcoholism, melancholia.

Savonarola, theologian, hallucinations.

Luther, theologian, hallucinations.

Schopenhauer, philosopher, melancholia, omniphobia.

Gogol, writer, melancholia, tabes dorsalis.

Lazaretti, theologian, hallucinations.

Mallarmé, writer, suicidal impulse.

Dostoieffsky, writer, epilepsy.

Napoleon, soldier, statesman, folie du doute, epilepsy.

Comte, philosopher, hallucinations.

Pascal, philosopher, epilepsy.

Poushkin, writer, megalomania.

Renan, philosopher, folie du doute.

Swift, writer, paresis.

Socrates, philosopher, chorea.

Schumann, musician, paresis.

Shelley, writer, hallucinations.

Bunyan, writer, hallucinations.

Swedenborg, theologian, hallucinations.

Loyola, theologian, hallucinations.

J. S. Mill, writer, suicidal impulse.

Linnæus, botanist, paresis.

The reader will observe that I have made use of the comprehensive word, writer, to designate all kinds of literary work except theology and philosophy. The above list is by no means complete, and only contains the names of those geniuses with whom the world is well acquainted.

When we come to the geniuses of the New World, we find that, though few in number, they, nevertheless, show erraticism and degeneration. Poe was undoubtedly a man of great genius, and his degeneration was indicated by his excessive use of alcohol. Aaron Burr was the victim of moral anæsthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic. Randolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was, morally, anæsthetic. Daniel Webster was addicted to an over-indulgence in alcohol, likewise Thomas Marshall and the elder Booth. Booth also had attacks of acute mania. His son Edwin had paresis; so also had John McCullough, John T. Raymond, and Bartley Campbell. A distinguished statesman and politician, and a man who stands high in the councils of the nation, has, for a number of years, given evidence of mental obliquity by his uncontrollable desire for alcohol. No power, outside of bodily restraint, can control him and keep him from indulging his appetite for alcohol when this desire seizes him. One of the most noted poets of to-day, whose verses stir the heart with their pathos and bring smiles to the gravest countenances with their humor, was, for a number of years (and still is, so I have been told), an inordinate user of alcohol.