TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20428, 8 March 1930, Page 4

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.)

[By Rev. L. M'Master, 8.D., Christchurcli.]

WHAT ABOUT MODERATE DRINKING?

[By Courtenay C. Weeks, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., London.]

The medical profession has fully recognised that, in the strict sense of the term, alcoholic beverages arc never necessary for any healthy human life, and not nearly so necessary as was formerly thought in the treatment of disease.

Fifty years ago, when the London Temperance Hospital was opened, a medical journal could say: “God help the, patients!” The prospect of treating patients mainly without alcohol seemed preposterous; yet, since then, nearly 50,000 patients have been treated in that hospital, and only 180 cases have been given any alcoholic beverage as part of treatment. In 1875 the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-on-Tyne, spent, no less than £2 9s (on the average) upon wines and spirits for each patient under care. In 1925, notwithstanding that alcohol was four and a-half times as expensive, the, cost per patient was, on the average, 5,1 d. Forty years ago in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, every patient, on the average, was given 104 teaspoonfuls of wine or spirits; last year the average per patient was three. I have, just received from the University Professor of Medicine at Stockholm these figures: In 1900 3,934 patients in Stockholm Hospital were given 48,000 ounces of wine or spirits;iu 1926 5,334 patients were given 3,500 ounces—i.c., a reduction from ninety-six teaspoonfuls per patient to a fraction over four. EFFECTS NOW UNDERSTOOD.

Why has _ this remarkable change in the medical . world come about? Simply because the profession has realised, as a result of experience and experimental work, that alcohol is unable to build or repair or nourish the body;. t.:at whilst it may, to a very limited extent, act as a foodstuff in certain forms of extreme illness, its action as a narcotic, and its inhibitory action on all vital processes, more than outweigh any advantages it may have in other directions. As Sir Humphrey Rolleston. president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Its action is more likely to be harmful beneficial,”

The old idea that alcohol was a stimulant to heart and brain and vital activities has been “abandoned ,by rational medicine,” although it still lingers in popular belief. Alcohol is essentially a narcotic, and as such is now recognised in all text books, although the_ word “stimulant,” by force of habit and common usage, still creeps into popular language. As a narcotic alcohol tends from first to last to numb, disorder, ' and paralyse the higher levels and centres of the brain —those levels which arc the last to be developed, and through which the mind is able to express its power of intelligent judgment and self-critical discrimination and control.

A FREQUENT CAUSE OF DISEASE. Public health officials arc unanimous that alcohol indulgence in the national life, as a whole, is one of the most potent co-operating factors in the production of all sorts of damaged and deficient life. The more extreme forms of disease caused by Jong-continuod abuse are obvious, but there is an increasing recognition that, far short (if anything like so-called excess, alcoholic indulgence may bo r. powerful factor in precipitating serious disease. Thus the late Sir F. W Mott said; “The amount of alcohol consumed by the •ullars of society is sufficient to" turn ■ertain potential epileptics and feebleminded persons into criminal and certifiable lunatics.” That is to say, if there is a latent inborn tendency or possibility, then alcoholic indulgence, far short of so-called excess, canMm’ng out,_ accelerate and intensify that pos sibility. ■ In bis recent lecture on cancer, Sir Berkeley Moynihan (‘ British Medical Journal,’ January 29, 1927). speaking of the way cancer attacks diseased organs, says: “The majority of people, it may bo said, commit suicide. If we consider the effect of alcohol, syphilis, |mbcrclo; of the conditions which arc set going bv the rush for wealth . ■. ". the ‘ statement. though’ shocking, appears to bo true.’ ’ Here i you fiGOj tiiia pert places alcohol in the cry foreground of his picture of the causes which predispose towards the 50,000 deaths from cancer every year, THE WISDOM OF ABSTINENCE The church experimental science., practical’medicine, and the experience of public health officials, all concur in emphasising m one way or another the privilege and value ot total abstinence. The consequence is that a steadily-increasing number of the leaders of industrial, scientific, and .economic thought ami action are realising that alcoholic indulgence is a ■ menace, rather than an aid. to industrial and social efficiency; and that, in the realms of art and science and imaginative work, achievements have been wrought in spite of alcohol, and not because of its use.

This very definite verdict enables ns to understand why the British Medical Association’s Committee on ‘ Tests For Drunkenness’ could say: “Fine shades of self-control might be lost without any apparent signs of alcoholic intoxication. The first effect of alcohol is on the higher centres, and is subjective, and even if no objective symptoms occur the subjective effect of alcohol may be sufficient to make it unsafe for - an individual to he in a responsible position—for example, in ehamo of a mechanically-propelled vehicle.” ,

They define a “drunk” person as one “ so much under the influence of alcohol as to have lost control of his faculties to such an extent as to render him unable to execute safely the occupation on which he was engaged at. tlio material time.” The ‘ Daily Express’ (February 18, 1927), commenting upon the report of the committee, closed its remarks with a moral: “Never drink before taking out a motor car. It is better to be cold inside than to bo fined next day.”

Yet wo still find our nation spend-, ing vast sums of money on alcohol. Wc have a highly-organised “ Trade,” meeting and provoking this demand, and making the question ot alcohol the centre of its politica l action. Many people, who have* only soon tho more or less moderate use of alcohol in social life, are inclined to think that total ■ abstinence 's an unnecessary curtailment of fpll life. Indeed, some go so far as to claim that, since alcohol may increase the “pleasure of life.” nr(l f, T )| v justified in its <se. Let ns face for a moment this Fact con "emin" the pleasure of alcoholic in diligence. Those who embark on the sea of Kiieh indulgence find, if they like, alcohol, that they derive a sensuous'pleasure from it. Alcohol docs produce for those who like it a feeling of “euphoria”—a careless sense ot well-being which constitutes the charm

of alcoholic indulgence. The advocates of such indulgence claim that this constitutes its value; that it lifts men out of the groove in which modern life tends to confine them; that it enables them to drop the _ grey-col-oured glasses through which they otherwise look at life; that alcohol is a “ social cement ” and an aid to social life. Whilst this may be so for those who are in the alcoholic tradition, surely all must realise that alcohol is a social solvent as well as a cement. The cement of the club may bo only too often the solvent of the home! It is, indeed, in view of the awful havoc wrought by the prevailing effect of alcoholic indulgence; in view of its insidious power to grip the individual ; .in. view of the homes and reputations that have,been wrecked—that many of us feel the constraint of conscience -and feel we ought, for the sake of others, to abstain. A modern poet says:— Could nail be drunk forever with

liquor, love, or fights, Lief would I rouse at morning and lief lie down at nights; But men at whiles are sober, and think by fits and starts, And when they think, they fasten their hands upon their' hearts, ft is because men think that the great change we have referred to has come about, THE PRICE OF PLEASURE. What is the price that has to be paid for this sensuous pleasure? The answer of science is plain, direct, and unequivocal. “Alcohol,” says Noel Raton, “ may and docs increase the pleasure of life by paralysing the critical faculty.” , Professor Starling, describing the nleasuro to be derived from a glass of leer (mark the scientific exactness- “ from a glass of beer”), says: “All these results may be ascribed to n paralysing action of the alcohol upon the higher centres of the brain—-the first stage of the action of alcohol as a narcotic—the first tiling to go being the crown of educational achievement.” PROGRESSIVE ALCOHOLISM. Paralysing the critical (acuity; paralysing the higher centres—what does this mean? Consider the case of a young man brought up, we will say, in a teetotal home. He takes, somewhere. his “ first ” glhss, possibly, probably, bo will not like it; but overcoming the initial dislike, be becomes one of the regular army of moderate drinkers. He finds that the indulgence produces its characteristic effect: gives him a transient feeling of well-being, and brings him into rapport with his fellow-drinkers; and, not realising that the alcohol has _ had its first essential and characteristic action in weakening, blurring, or disordering bis power of self-critical judgment, ho “thinks” alcohol to be a good thing, and is convinced that parents and teachers who eschewed alcohol did not know what they were doing. The essential action of alcohol upon the higher brain centres prevents him from forming a clear and undistorted judgment on the question. From the very first his judgment is alcoholically prejudiced. As Lauder Bruuton said years ago: “ The effect of alcohol is to paralyse the judgment, and that paralysis begins with the first glass.” From that moment he may remain a strictly occasional drinker and throw bis weight and influence into the national tradition and custom. He may go further and become a regular moderate drinker. Ho may pass, from almost imperceptible stages, into the ranks of the heavy drinkers. He may ultimately become one of the shipwrecks, a piece of flotsam and jetsam so often afloat on the sea of alcoholic indulgence. From first to last it will have been just one long, sad story of gradual dissolution and loss of morale. [Dr Courtenay C. Weeks, London, England, president of the World Student Fodorntion Against Alcoholism, was a surgeon in the British Army during the World War. Since that time ho has been lecturing constantly on alcohol and related subjects, first in the British Army and later in the colleges, universities, and other educational institutions of Great Britain. He is in constant demand among the students of that country.]