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from Part III - Infected ecstasy: addiction and modernity in the work of Thomas De Quincey, Alfred Tennyson, Christina Rossetti and Bram Stoker
Amongst the circumstances that more immediately determine those forms of cerebral disorder which manifest themselves in insanity, is a vitiated state of the blood … when the blood has adventitious ingredients of several kinds mingled with it, the function of various organs becomes perverted, and especially those of the brain and nervous system … Alcohol, opium, cannabis, indica, and chloroform, amongst other ingredients, act upon the brain and nervous system.
The flâneur is someone abandoned in the crowd. In this he shares the situation of the commodity. He is not aware of this special situation, but this does not diminish its effect on him and it permeates him blissfully like a narcotic that can compensate him for many humiliations. The intoxication to which the flâneur surrenders is the intoxication of the commodity around which surges the stream of customers.
Addiction manifests itself in a variety of forms in social, cultural and medical conceptions of deviancy or antisocial behaviour during the nineteenth century: drug addiction, alcoholism, compulsive criminal behaviour, addictive sexual masturbation, even cannibalism, can all be cited as examples. According to William Black's assessment of the most frequent causes of admission to Bedlam the category ‘Drink and Intoxication’ constitutes the seventh (out of sixteen classifications) highest catalyst for insanity, represented by fifty-eight cases in the hospital. Intoxication is, obviously, a reference to the results of excessive indulgence in alcohol and drugs, suggesting in both cases overconsumption or addiction.
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