TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 9

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) ALCOHOL AND PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. ADDRESS BY DR WALTER ASTEN, BOURNEMOUTH. I once heard Sir James Crichton Browne say these words; “Few people enter this world, live in it, and leave it, _ without the aid of a medical man.” This- statemnt being essentially true, it follows th,*t the medical profession becomes at once not only an all-im-portant ana indispensable factor in the life of the community, but also a g r eat national asset, which increases in direct proportion to its own advance in knowledge and efficiency ■ Now, we are indebted to researches upon alcohol to many eminent pathologists and pharmacologists in this country, such as Sir Victor Horsley, Sir Fredrick Mott, Sir G. Sims Woodhead, Drs Sullivan, Vernon, Dale, and Mellanby, in addition to a host of Continental and American scientists. And it is only just .to say that these workers have made invaluable contributions to our knowledge, from purely clinical and experimental observation, and unbiased by any preformed prejudices. And, however much our views as doctors may differ concerning the value or otherwise of alcohol in medicine and therapeutics,' it is true to say that alcohol is not essential to normal health,!, and that its use has been a gradually diminishing quantity in abnormal states in the past fifty years. So that now in all the principal hospitals of our land the milk,bill has almost driven out that for alcohol. I am one of those who believe that a great responsibility rests upon Hie medical profession ir. educating the State and the people concerning the serious menace cf alcoholism to the national health. I know there is an impression abroad that the medical profession does not assert itself as powerfully as it might. But listen to this:—At a meeting of the council of the British Medical Association it was resolved to support a memorial sinned by a nhmber of eminent members of the profession in England in the following terms:—“ln view of the great advantage to the efficiency and wellbeing of the ration, and to nublic health and order which have followed the restrictions placed on the sale of intoxicating liquor during the war. the undersigned earnestly request His Majesty’s Government to maintain reasonable restrictions until a permanent measure of reform has been enacted by Parliament ” That measure we are still waiting for, but it seems pretty clear that the Minister who introduced the recent Drink Bill into the House of Commons did not receive the approval either of the medical profession or the Ministry of Health.

There_ is no period in history when the nation lias realised as it dees today (1) that the national health is a vital asset, and (2) that the prevention of disease is better than the cure. What, then, is the relation of alcohol to the public health? I venture to assert that alcohol is the greatest clog in Hie wheel of progress in preventive niedicire—the medical officer of health is continually up against ; jt in almost every avenue of his work. The school medic'll officer is constantly faced with delicate, deformed, and weakly children—the victims of hereditary conditions with which he is almost power {ess do deal. Just note this'—According to official figures iu 1916 and 1917 a million children in this country were so physically cr mentally deficient that they were unable to receive benefit from the ordinary elementary education provided lev them.

And mark you! The health of the child is tho very foundation of the national ha Ith. Tho serious effect of alcoholism in the mother on the tissues of the future child has now been established beyond all doubt. Dr Sullivan has observed that of 600 children born to alcoholic mothers 58 per cent, were still-born or died in infancy. Dr Mary Scharlieb has declared that alcoholism and syphilis combined are responsible for tbo existence of epilepsy in about 15 per cent, of the children of alcoholic parents. Sbo says not only docs it affect the;r original structure and health through ante-natal and postnatal injury, not only does it handicap them heavily in their fight against tuberculosis and other microbic diseases, but it deprives them of their mother’s milk, and thus reduces by 5 per cent, their hopes of healthy life. In 1913 .1,276 infants weresnffocated by overlaying. of whom 27 per cent, were done to death_ on Saturday nights. The Royal Commission on Venereal Disease asserts that alcohol plays into tho hands of those horrible diseases at every point. It lessens self-control, it increases the chance of infection, aggravates the symptoms, and interferes with the treatment. Tho Department Committee on Tuberculosis tells us that alcohol and the public house are prolific factors in the causation. Sir George Newman, the chief medical olficer to tho Ministry of Health, in his brilliant and informative reports, never fails to draw attention to the part which alcohol plays in preventive medicine. He says: “If wo permit ourselves to favour and provide for the unguided propagation of a population of poor physique, or of persons marked from birth witli the stigma of alcohol, venereal disease, or mental deficiency, we shall sooner oi later discover that we are building on false foundations.” The Board of Control recently found that m 12,000 cases of first attack of insanity in men the cause was alcohol in 25 per cent. Now, it does seem to me, ns an ordinary citizen and not as a politician, that it is of very little avail so trine up Royal Commissions and departmental committees on venereal disease, tuberculosis, mental defic’ency, child mortality, and tho l : ke, and also publ : shing medical officers’ reports, unless you are bold enough to act in

accordance with their findings. But 1 am bound to say the attitude of the State so far as alcohol is concerned can only' be described as irrational,_ illogical, and inconsistent. I know it is hard to kick against the pricks, and where your treasure is there will your heart bo also, but if wo «re really determined, if wo are really in earnest and determined to produce tin A 1 population, believe me it can never bo done ,by allowing alcohol to “ contract out ” among tlm causative factors in disease. Remember that the mortality from alcoholism still exceeds that of all the m'ect'ous diseases nut together. Now, suppose Bournemouth were visited with a severe epidenre, say of typhoid fever, duo to a polluted water simply. Wlmt would you think of our able and effie'ent medical officer of health if ho sot to work to import a >nrgo number of doctors into tho town in order to deal with the increasimr sickness, instead of arresting the cause by removing the source of pollution? And if vmi want to stop t.hn creation of drunkards, and prevent the premature mortality from cirrhosis of the liver, diseased kidneys, degenerated arteries, and degenerated nervous systems, von must deal with the source. “Stop tho tap.” Tin's is precisely what wo no°d to do—stop the tap. And yet the policy of the Pt.cte, lufiring from the recent Brink Bill, would appear to he that of turning on the tap a. little more, and th n n > providing accommodation for the finished products accord'ng to the results, Tnoreased facilities for alcohol mean: Budding more inebriate homes, cnlffrging the asylums, opening np more venereal disease chines, establishing more school and other clinics to deal with a poisoned heredity, filling the gaols and packing tho workhouses, and providing dolgs for poverty, d’seasc, and premature death. We have hea i- d mimh of late concerning the scandal of drink amongst women and adolescent girls. Tins is surely an awful peril which carries a verv ominous outlook for tho future., A drink-sodden maternity can only spell utimately national decay and national ruin. The drunken mother poisons her child before its birth. What a handicap it is to establish maternity centres, and child welfare schemes, and medical inspection of school children, unless you can exert a larger control over the drinking habits of the parents! Yon are stultified at once in your efforts to deal with tho degenerate offspring. You are operating at the wrong end and when it is too late. Tn conclusion, permit me to remind you that a'cohni is alcohol still, cud as such it is still capable of its devastating and destructive work, y bother it be in the form of “bee wine” or anv other fermented liquor, and I h< pe tho dav is not far distant when w« shall witness a greater pnhl’c conscience arou'od in this country against the curse of drink, and when wo shall see alcohol brought fullv into line with all the other factors in tho prevention of disease. EDUCATIONAL. A famous general once said that what we wished to incorporate into the life of a nation we must put into the schools. Tho proof of the statement lies in the fact that scientific temperance instruction in the schools of our land lias laid the foundation for *the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and tho continued strengthening of its hold in the custom and Bw of the American peopl-v—‘ Union. Signal.’