Norman Shanks Kerr

Norman Shanks Kerr

Norman Shanks Kerr (17 May 1834 – 30 May 1899) was a physician who is remembered for his work in the British temperance movement. He originated the Total Abstinence Society and was founder and first president of the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety which was founded in 1884.^[1][2][3]

In his writings he insisted on regarding inebriety as a disease and not a vice: "a disease of the nervous system allied to insanity", an "abnormal condition, in which morbid cravings and impulses to intoxication are apt to be developed in such force as to overpower the moral resistance and control."

"I have not attempted to dogmatize on disputed points as to whether inebriety is a sin, a vice, a crime, or a disease. In my humble judgment, it is sometimes all four, but oftener a disease than anything else, and even when anything else, generally a disease as well." (Inaugural address, 1884).

In 1890 in a conference held in Christiania he coined the term "narcomania" for this illness.^[4]

Early life and education

He was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 17 May 1834, the eldest son of Alexander Kerr and Helen Shanks. He worked as a journalist on the Glasgow Mail before entering University and graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1861 as M.D. and C.M.^[5][6] Even from these student days he was interested in the study of alcoholism; he was a member of the temperance Coffee Tavern Company of Glasgow and organised the first Total Abstinence Society for students in 1857.^[7]

Career

After graduation he was employed as a surgeon on the Allan Canadian mail steamers. From 1874 was employed as the medical officer of St. Marylebone. He promoted the temperance movement as a speaker and through his writings. He was a member of the Society for Promoting Legislation for the Control and Cure of Habitual Drunkards. In 1884, in response to the inadequacy of the Habitual Drunkards Act of 1879, he founded the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety and was the first president.^[8]

"We confidently believe that we will succeed in acquiring a more exact acquaintance with the phenomena, causation, and conditions of cure of inebriety, by engaging in the study of this intractable disease with the same strictly scientific method with which we enter upon the study of other forms of disease." (Inaugural address, 1884).

He was chair of the British Medical Association's Inebriates Legislation Committee, which drafted the Habitual Drunkards Act Amendment Bill (1888), and corresponding secretary of the American Association for the cure of Inebriates. He was the Honorary Consulting Physician at the Dalrymple House for Inebriates, Rickmansworth,^[9] which had been founded in 1884 under the Inebriates Acts of 1879-99 for the clinical study and treatment of inebriety.^[10] The Inebriate Act of 1898, which empowered local authorities to set up State Certified Reformatories to treat habitual drunkards, was the culmination of his work.^[11] He was also a member of the Obstetrical, the Medical, the Harveian and Linnean Societies of London.

Memorial mosaic to Norman Shanks Kerr

Publications

• The Action of Alcoholic Liquors in Health. London, [1876]
• Intemperance and its remedy. London, W. Tweedie & Co. [1877]
• Mortality from Intemperance. London, National Temperance Publication Depot [1879]
• Female intemperance. London, National Temperance Publication Depot [1880]
• The heredity of alcohol : Read at the International Congress for the study of alcoholism, held at Brussels, August, 1880. London : National Temperance Publication Depot [1880]
• Inaugural address. Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety. London, H.K. Lewis [1884]
• Wines : scriptural and ecclesiastical. London, National Temperance Publication Depot [1885]
• Inebriety; its Etiology, Pathology, Treatment and Jurisprudence. London, H.K.Lewis [1888, 1889]
• Does inebriety conduce to longevity? London, H.K. Lewis [1889]
• How to deal with inebriates, in: Report of the III. International Congresses against the Abuse of Spiritual Beverages in Christiania 3-5. Sept. 1890. (Bericht des III. Internationalen Congresses gegen den Missbrauch Geistiger Getränke in Christiania 3-5. Sept. 1890. Hrsg. vom Organisationscomite. Published: Christiania, Mallinske Boktrykkeri, 1891.)
• Inebriety or Narcomania : Its Etiology, Pathology, Treatment, and Jurisprudence. London, H.K. Lewis [1894]
• Alcoholism and Drug Habits. in Twentieth Century Practice; An International Encyclopedia of Modern Medical Science. Vol III. New York, William Wood & Co [1895]

Norman Shanks Kerr. Paddington old cemetery (1C 8873)

Personal life

By 1871 he was living in Bedford, England and married Eleanor Georgina Gibson in Kensington; they had a son Arthur (born 1872), and daughters Charlotte Hester (born 1873), Edith (born 1875), Helen (born 1877) and Norah (born 1882). From 1874 he lived in Grove Road, (now Lisson Grove) St.John's Wood, London and was employed as the medical officer of St. Marylebone. After the death of his wife in 1892 he married for a second time in 1894 to Edith Jane Henderson and from 1897 lived at Hamilton Terrace, London NW8. He died at Wellington Square, Hastings, England on 30 May 1899 and is buried in the Paddington old cemetery.

Legacy

There is a mosaic memorial to him of the Good Samaritan in St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London NW8. The Norman Kerr Memorial Lectures were started in 1905 to commemorate his life and work.^[12] The Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety continues today as The Society for the Study of Addiction.

References