OIL AS AN "OPTION"

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 132, 1 December 1936, Page 8

OIL AS AN "OPTION"

It has often been stated that this is the age of oil, and certainly it is remarkable how many fresh applications are being developed for the world's varieties of oil, mineral and vegetable. Many of these uses are medicinal and in this sphere castor oil ranks supreme. As a purge of the body it has long been known, favourably enough to the doctor, but not so favourably to the patient, especially if he is young. It was this double quality that, perhaps, commended it first to the pioneers of Fascism in Italy as a purge of the mind also, a means of getting rid of "dangerous thoughts," matter noxious to the body politic in the genesis of the totalitarian State. Opponents were thus given what might be called the "dinkum oil" as an option to something possibly more drastic. The doses seem to have varied in quantity, according to circumstances or the stubbornness of the case in responding to treatment, but, in the main, oil seems to have been preferred to a drubbing with the rods that make up the symbol of Fascism. The tough mentality of the Teuton yielded less easily to the gentle persuasion of oil and its use was never so popular among the Nazis. Years passed and castor oil retired in the Old World to the seclusion of the pharmacopoeia, only to come to the top again now in the New World. Today a message from Spokane, in the Far West of the United States, reports that a local Judge (corresponding, no doubt, to our Stipendiary Magistrate), commenting on an increase in arrests for drunkenness, announced that "castor oil would be administered under the supervision of tf police surgeon for second offenders." Legal questions inevitably follow. Is there to be an option? What is the proper dose of oil? Apparently, according to the corporation counsel, "the law demands the choice of oil or gaol." The dose, on medical advice, is fixed at half a pint. This means that the prisoner's cup of sorrow will be filled to the brim—with oil. Frankly, on the face of it, it is doubtful whether this turning a purge into a punishment will either reform the offender or empty the prisons of Spokane.