TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20636, 8 November 1930, Page 4

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) MOTORISTS AND .DRINK. It is a widespread error that small quantities of alcohol have no deleterious effect. On the contrary, they cause at first an increase of self-con-, fidence. followed by premature, failure, and thus weaken the capacity for swift discrimination and reaction in the presence of danger. Driving while under the influence of alcohol: is strictly forbidden, and every driver who does not totally abstain from the, use of alcohol is not only- a danger to himself and his fellows, but brings misfortune on his family.—Dr Alfred Sutter, M.P hearth. The care of the public health is the first duty of a statesman.—Disraeli. Our health ideals must not stop at the avoidance of invalidism, but should aim at exuberant and exultant health. Our aim should bo to' see not how much strain our strength can stand, but how great wo can make that, strength. Health ideals should rise from the mere wish to keep out of a sick bed to an eagerness to become a well spring of energy. Only then can we realise the intricate wholesomcness and beauty of human life. The fundamental fact which lies at the foundation of preventive medicine is the healthy individual. Environment, infection, the accidents of life, and disease undoubtedly exert direct or indirect effects upon him, but it is his own body, with its growth and development, its resistent soil! its natural powers of defence, which forms the basis of health and, of scientific prevention. To start a man fairly on life’s journey ho requires a sound foundation of physique. We have to think in terms of race, and thus it conies about that the idea of parentage and ancestry cannot be ignored. If we are to grow a sound and healthy race of men wo .must begin, where all breeding begins, at the source. If we permit ourselves to favour and provide for the unguided propagation of a population, of poor physique or of persons marked from birth with the stigma of alcohol, venereal disease, or mental deficiency, we shall sooner or later discolor that we are ■ building on false foundations, gnd without taking sufficiently into our reckoning the laws of heredityj or transmission, and of ante-natal infection.—Sir George Newman K.C.8., M.Di, F.R.C.P.. Chief Medical Officer, Ministry -of Health England and Wales.

ALCOHOL AND HEALTH. The verdict of the profession most qualified to pass judgment on the matter, the medical profession. _is no longer in doubt “ Tim excessive consumption of alcohol in one form or another has exerted its baneful effects upon the human race for many centuries and in many lauds. Its modes of action arc various, ft may affect the race by affecting vast numbers of individuals with greater or loss degree ol physical or mental degeneration, accident, or disease. (This was especially demonstrated during the first half' of the eighteenth century, whan the nation was indulging in_ an orgy of spirit drinking—l72o-1750. During that period the number of deaths greatly exceeded the births. Tho evil, >yas becoming so widespread that, but 'for the intervention of Parlia-’ ment; gin would indeed have proved the real grand destroyer of the race.) ft may render a man liable to venereal infection; it may, by devitalising the tissues of the body, reduce its powers of resistance to infection, as in tuberculosis or syphilis; it may shorten the expectation of life by as much as fifteen years; it may lead to neglect and malnutrition of tho child of the dissolute parent, or it may possibly impair the reproductive cells of the parent and thus affect injuriously the offspring.”—Sir George Newman, K.C.U., M.D., F.R.C.P., Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Health, England and Wales. At a meeting of tho American Medical Association held on June 6, 1927, Dr Charles H. Mayo, the noted surgeon, in his presidential address, stated that the only legitimate use for alcohol was in the arts and sciences, and that its use in medicine had become greatly restricted, because other less menacing drugs and remedial measures could bo used instead. These expressions brought (enthusiastic response from the assembled physicians, which left no doubt as to tbeir sentiments. PROTECTION BY LAW AGAINST ALCOHOL. Dr Arthur Dean Bevan, before the American Medical Association in June, 1918, said I want to plead for the united action of the organised medical profession of this country to secure protection by law against the injury that drink is doing to our people, not as a political measure, but as tho most important public health; measure that could bo secured. “ There can be no doubt of the injurious effects of alcoholic drinks on both the physical and' mental wellbeing of our population. There can be no doubt that the greatest single factor we can control in the interests of the public health of tho nation would bo tho elimination of alcoholic drink. “ Each member of the medical profession, each county medical society, each State medical society should take an active part in the propaganda against drink and secure a larger measure of total abstinence.” ALCOHOL IS A BRAIN POISON. Drinking and thinking never go together. Tho first tiling alcohol does when taken into tho body is to paralyse the higher brain ceils. Everybody who wishes to have a healthy body and a clear brain should adopt total abstinence as tbo rule of their life. “Alcohol and iodoform chemically' destroy tho brain cells.”— ‘ Origin and Nature of the Emotions ’ (Dr G-. -W. Crilc).