7 Types of Drunkards, According to the 1834 Book The Anatomy of Drunkenness

Chapter IV of Glaswegian surgeon Robert Macnish’s 1834 The Anatomy of Drunkenness concerns itself with the seven different types of drunkards—or how intoxication is "modified by the physical and moral frame of the drinker." These are the strains he identifies.

1. Sanguineous Drunkard

Persons of this stamp have usually a ruddy complexion, thick neck, small head, and strong muscular fibre. Their intellect is in general mediocre, for great bodily strength and corresponding mental powers are rarely united together...They are prone to combativeness and sensuality, and are either very good-natured or extremely quarrelsome.

I'm picturing Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Despite the dig at Sanguineous' intelligence, Macnish paints them as the life of the party, the "heroes of all drunken companies." He's the guy you call when you're looking to blow off steam with a drunken night on the town. Just be prepared for some 2am confessions: "Such men cannot conceal their feelings. In drunkenness the veil is removed from them."

2. Melancholy Drunkard

These are not people who get weepy when they drink, but melancholy people by nature who drink to pep up.

Men of this tone of mind seem to enjoy the bottle more exquisitely than even the sanguineous class. The joyousness which iT excites breaks in upon their gloom like sunshine upon darkness. Above all, the sensations, at the moment when mirth begins with its magic to charm away care, are inexpressible.

If drinking is the sunshine that breaks the darkness that is your sober life, please see a professional.

3. Surly Drunkard

This is the person who becomes a worse version of themselves after a few drinks.

A great propensity to take offence is a characteristic among persons of this temperament. They are suspicious, and very often mischievous. If at some former period they have had a difference with any of the company, they are sure to revive it, although, probably, it has been long ago cemented on both sides, and even forgotten by the other party.

More than 150 years after this book was written, this passage rings true as the way certain people get when they're inebriated. If you don't know anyone who rehashes long-forgotten fights after a few too many, you probably are that person.

4. Phlegmatic Drunkard

They are altogether a negative sort of beings, with passions too inert to lead them to anything very good or very bad. They are a species of animated clods, but not thoroughly animated—for the vital fire of feeling has got cooled in penetrating their frozen frames. A new Prometheus would require to breathe into their nostrils, to give them ordinary glow and warmth of humanity.

Ouch. This is truly the harshest, most eloquent way to call someone boring.

5. Nervous Drunkard

This is a very harmless and very tiresome personage. Generally of a weak mind and irritable constitution, he does not become boisterous with mirth, and rarely shows the least glimmering of wit or mental energy. He is talkative and fond of long-winded stories, which he tells in a driveling, silly manner.

I think, perhaps, dedicating himself to studying people at their drunkest was not great for Mr. Macnish's view of humanity. This is what years of being the only sober guy at the party will do to you.

6. Choleric Drunkard

A class of people grouped together because they didn't fit in anywhere else:

They seem to possess few of the qualities of the other races, and are chiefly distinguished by an uncommon testiness of disposition. They are quick, irritable, and impatient, but withal good at heart, and, when in humor, very pleasant and generous.

He does go on to say that, "this disposition is very prevalent among Welshman and Highland lairds."

7. Periodical Drunkard

Nothing to make fun of here. "The persons, from a state of complete sobriety, felt the most intense desire for drink; and no power, short of absolute force or confinement could restrain them from the indulgence." They sound like just plain alcoholics.