ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ‘wages of sin’ and the threats posed by dissipated behaviour to mental and physical health. It discusses Morningside’s inmates who were labelled as ‘sinners’ in a statistical analysis between 1874 and 1894. The chapter analyses the diverse diagnoses, prognoses, and outcome as psychiatrists pondered the effects of alcoholism and promiscuous sexuality and the complex interrelationships among psychiatrists, asylums, inmates, and local cultural milieux. Contemporary medical opinion was divided as to whether alcoholism was a disease, in which case the victim needed sympathetic attention, care and treatment, or a sign of depravity. The social consequences of alcoholism would in an ideal future become ‘practical wisdom’ for doctors and alcoholism would be an important part of medical study. The 1895 commission concluded that in spite of repeated government investigations, legislation on alcoholism was a ‘dead letter’ in Scotland and underlined the depth of a painful problem.
