TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20688, 10 January 1931, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

[Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.] ECONOMICS AND DRINK. “ We have discovered that liquor in this country is a greater handicap to our trade, our commerce, and onr industry than all the tariffs in the world put together.”—The Right Hon. Eloyd George. / HOSPITALS AND ALCOHOL. Dealing with the declining use of alcohol in public hospitals, Dr Courtenay Weeks, in a recent speech, demonstrated the carefully evolved scientific attitude by comparing Newcastle Hospital fifty years ago and today. Then. £2 6s per patient was expended on alcohol—equivalent at today’s values to £ll. To-day only 5Jd per patient was expended. At the London Hospital, where lie himself was trained, it was only 3RI per patient, and in Edinburgh the figure was 34d, whilst in Aberdeen they managed fo cure their patients with only 2.]d worth of alcohol. Then bo quoted. Dr Newman’s report on physical deterioration, and alcohol was tlie first evil which ho recommended to be* rooted out. Alcohol lowers the resistance of the body to disease, that is to say, a person who habitually drinks alcoholic beverages is more likely to contract illness than one who does not. . . . Wounds, sores, and cuts heal less readily in a person who takes beer and spirit than in one who does not, and such a person is more likely to suffer from blood poisoning.—Government Syllabus on ‘ Hygiene of Food and Drink.’

' NEW TEXT BOOKS. With the object of promoting the teaching of the ‘ Hygiene of Food and Drink ’ in schools, the committee of the Temperance Collegiate Association have decided to issue a new series of (three) graded text books during the coming autumn. The author is a university graduate, and head teacher in an elementary school, with many years’ practical experience in instructing the young. Tliese books are well adapted for teaching and examination purposes, each chapter having (|uostions added. Attractive illustrations, raided to a directness of style and simplicity of language, also make them "ininently . suitable as reading books. Messrs Gill, the well-known educulonal publishers, have undertaken the issue of these now bojoks on behalf of flic association.

DIUNKING AFFECTS CHILDREN. “ In the case of 250 mentally defective childran in special schools of Birmingham, England, nearly half (11.6 per cent.) wore found to have had one or both parents alcoholic. One hundred normal children from similar homes in the same district were studied, and only 17 per cent, came from alcoholic parents.”—Dr W. A. Potts, Birmingham, for Royal Commission on Caro and Control of Feeble-minded.

SPREAD OF DRUNKENNESS. In 1818 the spread of drunkenness was so great that men in different parts of the country were being forced to deal with the serious situation which had arisen. John Dunlop, whose memory they celebrated to-day, entered the list of the drink fight as a man of ripe experience. He was a trained lawyer and a business man with an inheritance of great intellectual gifts, with a noble tradition of high culture, great courage, and tho heart of a true philanthropist. This was tho man with whom was associated William Collins, the Glasgow publisher and great-grandfather of our present member of Parliament, Sir Godfrey, whom we aro delighted to have with ns to-day. To those two men we owe the start of the Temperance Society in Greenock in 1821). It had been pointed out that 100 years ago there were 1,110 licensed premises in Greenock. In many parts of the town every third or fourth door was a public house, and down till forty years ago this state of affairs existed, especially in East and West Breast. Vcnnel, and Dalrymple and Shaw streets, to-day there aro only 103 licensed promises.

DUINK DETERIORATES EFFICIENCY. “To the man who is actively engaged in responsible work, who must have at his command the best that is in him, at its best; to him I would with all the emphasis that I possess, advise and urge to leave drink alone, absolutely. He who drinks is deliberately disqualifying himself for advancement. Ido not drink.” Chief Justice William Howard Taft. A TEETOTAL CHOIR. The fa mens Glasgow Orpheus Choir gave a command performance before the .King and Queen at Balmoral Castle on September 16, which was greatly enjoyed by their Majesties. A SERIOUS EVIL. Sir Arthur Ncwshuimc, ex-president, Society of .Medical Health Officers, states that though there has been in Great Britain a reduction of about one-third the amount of whisky and

brandy, and oiie-lia!f the quantity of beer, drunk since 1891, drink remains a serious evil, and 90 per cent, of the rases of child neglect are caused by it. TEMPERANCE IN ICELAND. The temperance movement in Iceland has acquired an extraordinary development. The number of Good Templars is 11,374 for a total population of 101,784 inhabitants, a proportion of 11.2 per cent. In the towns the proportion of (food Templars is 91.5, and at Rcyjavik, the capital, 19.9 pcr_ cent. The locality of Vestmannaey.iar. with a population of .‘Ui.'U inhabitants, possesses Oil Good Templars, 23.2 per cent.

ALCOHOL A POISON. “ I. believe that in the scientific light of the present, alcohol should he classed among the aim'sthetics and poisons, and that the human family would bo benefited by its entire exclusion from the field of remedial agents.”—.Dr J. S. Cain, dean of faculty, medical department. Universitv of the South, Sewanec. Tenn., U.S.A.