Description |
1 online resource (viii, 268 pages) : illustrations |
Physical Medium |
polychrome |
Description |
text file |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-258) and index. |
Summary |
Edgar Allan Poe vividly recalls standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate and dismember the body of his mother. That memory, however graphic and horrifying, was not real. It was a hallucination, one of many suffered by the writer, caused by his addiction to alcohol. In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn reveals how and why pathological drinking became a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in the early American republic. At the heart of that story is the disease that Poe suffered: delirium tremens and the "fantastic terrors" that characterize it. |
Contents |
Ardent spirits and republican medicine -- Discovering delirium tremens -- Hard drinking and want -- The benevolent empire of medicine -- The pathology of intemperance -- The drunkard's demons -- Epilogue: alcoholics and pink elephants. |
Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
Subject |
Delirium tremens -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Delirium tremens. |
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United States. |
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History. |
Chronological Term |
19th century |
Subject |
Delirium tremens -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 19th century.
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Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia. |
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Delirium tremens -- United States -- Psychological aspects -- History -- 19th century.
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Psychological aspects. |
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Delirium tremens -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Social aspects. |
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Temperance -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Temperance. |
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United States. |
Chronological Term |
1800-1899 |
Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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History.
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Other Form: |
Print version: Osborn, Matthew Warner. Rum Maniacs : Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ©2014 9780226099897 (DLC) 2013025544 (OCoLC)851285681 |
ISBN |
9780226099927 (electronic book) |
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022609992X (electronic book) |
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9780226099897 (cloth ; alkaline paper) |
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022609989X (cloth ; alkaline paper) |
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