A good example of such a tendency is related in the April No. of the _Journal of Mental Science_, 1881.[11] It began on the male side, the father being "eccentric" or "peculiar," so much so as to attract the attention of the village children. The wife had no peculiarities of sufficient import to be marked. They had four children, three of whom were affected mentally, one female and two males. The female was "uncommon" and "slightly weak-minded." One of the males was said to have been "weak-minded"; the other was "strange-looking," and odd in general conduct. He married a woman in good health and free from any special tendency, either mental or physical. There were born eleven children: of these, five were imbecile; two were idiots, and the remaining four were sane. Of these four, two had one child each, one of whom died of phthisis, and the other is at present an imbecile. A consumptive parent may have children who are free from this particular form of diathesis, and yet at some period of life may be affected with insanity; or parents with an insane diathesis may have offspring who are tainted with scrofula, or phthisis. Perhaps there are no habits or acquired tendencies which are more surely transmitted than that of dipsomania or alcoholism; nor are there any which are more difficult to eradicate when inherited, or acquired in early life. This diathesis, however, is not always repeated in form, but frequently passes into other abnormal conditions. Sometimes it manifests itself in some of the forms of insanity; and again in uncontrollable passions, or cruelty, or in idiocy, or again in a failure of moral character, or in epilepsy. One of the most marked cases which have come under my own observation, occurred in a family resident in K----. The grandfather and father both died prematurely from the effects of alcohol, and one of the children, a lad of seven years, had such a passion for liquor, that he would swallow at once half a tumbler of wine or whiskey unmixed with water, and could never be near alcohol in any of its forms without begging for it. This child, at that age, could not enunciate clearly enough to be understood by those not familiar with him, and had been unable to learn letters, though much care had been expended to effect it. Gall refers to a similar case, in which both the father and grandfather had prematurely died as drunkards, and a little grandson, exhibited strong tendencies for alcohol when aged only five years.[12] "Charles X----, son of an eccentric and intemperate father, manifested instincts of great cruelty from infancy. He was sent at an early age to various schools, but was expelled from them all. Being forced to enlist in the army, he sold his uniform for drink, and only escaped a sentence of death on the testimony of physicians, who declared that he was the victim of an irresistible appetite. He was placed under restraint, and died of general paralysis.