TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20328, 9 November 1929, Page 27

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

ghibHshed by Arrangement with ibo nited Temperance 'Reform Council.)

Inflexible science says; “Moderate User,- keep off! For at least four hours after a apse of' alcohol‘formerly considered permissible. you, as a motor; vehicle operator/ may well be considered a menace to Society.” General William Crawford Gorgas, M.D. : “ If I had the power: I would not only • blot out all alcoholic liquors from the pharmacopeia, but also from «se anywhere else.” • , ' J a Surgeon John Ireland, _ or the U.o. Army: “My own .opimon is that Whisky and brandy are not essential in the treatment of the sick.” Dr Howard A. Kelly, of John Hopkins University: “Liquor m all its forms and uses whatsoever I believe to be an unmitigated evil. It can be abolished with profit.”

SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

ALCOHOL AND TUBERCULOSIS

o&v Dr T. N. Kelynack, M.A., Hon. Secretary, Society for Study of Inebriety.)

In a communication to the British Congress on Tuberculosis held in London in-1901, at which Robert Koch, the discoverer of the tubercle bacillus, was present, 1 said: “Alcoholism and tuberculosis stand foremost amongst conditions hampering human progress and limiting man’s happiness.’ These, words still stand true, although conspicuous progress has been- made in diminishing the extent of the evil wrought by these preventable diseases. During the past quarter of a century much new light nas been thrown on the nature and causation of both alcoholism and tuberculosis, and we are still gathering fresh knowledge as to ■jvays and means whereby the disorders and diseases wrought by alcohol and by the tubercle bacillus can best be prevented and arrested. But alcoholism and tuberculosis are likely to continue as medico-sociological problems pf great complexity. We need further (researches carried out in a scientific ipirit and in accordance with modern methods. Then are great fields for exploration by the. yoi’ng, trained worker of to-day-. Both alcoholism and tuberculosis are ills which have to bo studied;,not only as medical problems, but’also as social and economic questions.' Students of all kinds may well participate in exploring means for the elimination of these menaces to human health and happiness. Alcoholism and tuberculosis are not. infrequently associated. Alcohol ofttimos renders the human soil peculiarly suitable for the development of the tuberculosis seed. And undoubtedly, the public house is influential in spreading tuberculosis. ■Moreover, alcohol, by leading to ..the ...establishment .... of. hqhhygienic habits and the maintenance of -a poverty-stricken, insanitary home, exercises a far-reaching influence, which lowers resistance of jbe individual to tuberculosis infection, and predisposes him to consntttptioif and other forms of tuberculosis. In the treatment of tuberculosis alcohol is particularly to be avoided. In the best sanatoria in this country alcohol is almost invariably withheld. No child or adolescent suffering from, or threatened by tuberculosis should be given alcohol. All,industrial workers and others engaged in indoor, occupations,*and all those .who age. likely, to be placed in a tuberculosis environment or exposed to risks of tuberculosis infection, will be well advised", to consider abstinence from alcoholic drinks a part of their anti-tuberculosis programme. / PLEA FOR CONSISTENCY. We pride on being members of a profession whose chief purpose is the relief of suffering and the hare and prevention of disease. And in these latter days we are all in a sense sanitarians, and as such are prone to push the good work of disease prevention. But in this most commendable effort are wo at all times and in all things consistent? If so, .why do we quarantine scarlet fever ■ anti seek to check the spread of typhoid diseases that ’ claim their victims in .this country only in thousands, while alcoholism, that meantinie slays its hundreds of thousands, is left Comparatively- free and untrammelled to work its ruin and havoc ? , , . . Why do we make fmeeasing war on tuberculosis, that harms only the .body, while drink, is left free to not only prey on. man’s body, but likewise on, his home, his family, his property, his mind, his-character, his all—Charles B. ‘ Johnston/ M.D., in the ‘ Illinois Issue.’ ; DRINK’S TOLL. What a lovely place- is Addison’s Walk in Oxford, and yet Addison’s powerful brain reeled under the influence of alcohol. Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, was its slave. Hartley Coleridge—son of the distinguished metaphysician and poet, nephew of Southey, .and friend and favourite of (Wordsworth —was reduced to miserable despair by intemperance. The celebrated Edmund Kean brought about fhe wreck of his giant memory through its influence. Richard Brinsley Sheridan—orator, dramatist, statesman, and wit. with gifts and faculties apparently superhuman—died, where ? In a garret, a broken-down, pitiful wreck, and drink was the cause. Charles Lamb was another of the bottle’s victims. Edgar Allan Poe passed away in a state of intoxication. William Pitt, the younger, lost his health and strength in alcoholic dissipation. Byron, the splendid poet, had his manhood degraded, and came to his grave at the early age of thirty-seven by Reason of intemperance., Alexander the Great conquered all of the then known .world by the time he was thirty years* of age, and sighed for another world to conquer. Three years later he passed away, conquered by drink.—• Rev. F. 0. Aked. DRINKING CUSTOMS IMPROVING. Bro. James Brown, M.P., was tho principal speaker at a garden fete, in Queen street Gardens, Edinburgh, on May 28, under the auspices of. the Church of Scotland Women’s Association for Temperance. Speaking of tho object of the fete, which was to formthe nucleus of a fund for the purpose of starting a club' or coffee house in some poor-class district as a counter-attrac-tion to the public house, Bro. Brown said of all the sins that beset their great cities—and it was not confined their cities —intemperance was the worst. He was glad, however, that the drinking customs of the country were very greatly on the mend, and. he hoped the temperance movement would ■go on and prosper, and that it would ultimately wipe out the disgracethat lay upon them as a people. , NO LIQUOR ADVERTISEMENTS. .The following from the ‘New Campaigner,’- published in Great Britain,

records yet one more journal declining to publish liquor advertisements. We are glad to place it on record that still further publications have decided to ban liquor advertisements; one of these is- the - distinguished periodical ‘ The Countryman.’ The following announcement appeared in a recent issue “In view of the harm unquestionably done to rural well-being in many districts by the . undue facilities provided for the sale of drink, and in view of the continued failure of Parlaiment to provide the means by which localities, minded to do so, might get rid of the liquor traffic within their areas ( as many owners of estates are able to do), we do not feel that we shall be conslstenl/if we do not make such protest as we can by refusing drink advertisements. . . . For our

last issue we refused advertising to the value, of £so.!'

It is also recorded that the ‘ Sphinx,’ a student , publication in connection with Liverpool University, has resolved not .to admit liquor advertisements to its pages or those of. the ‘ Students' Handbook.’. f . • .■ ; These are- encouraging signs.; ,