TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20190, 30 August 1927, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter amler this beading la jrabUshed at the request of, and is supplied by, the United Temperance Heiorm Council in pursuance ot the desire to inculcate the principles ol temperance.] “ It ia certain that for evoryraan in whom excessive fft'inkpng causes, absolute insanity there are 20 in whom it injures the brain, blunts the moral sense, and lessens the capacity for work in lesser degrees. It is most discouraging that this preventable cause of the most terrible of all human diseases should thus continue to increase.” “For 12 years I have watched and chronicled the development of the greatest curse which afflicts the country. From 35 to 40 per cent, is a fairly apnroximate estimate of the ratio of insanity directly or indirectly due- to alcoholic drinks.”—Dr Sheppard, superintendent of Colney Hatch Asylum, London, professor of psychological medicine, King s College. INTOXICATION BY ACOHOL (ALCOHOLISM). (According to an original report by Dr G. Allevi, Milan, revised by the Correspondence Committee on Industrial Hygiene of the International Labour Office). Magnus Hubs, a Swedish medical man, was the first liu 1852) to employ the term “alcoholism” to describe the effects produced by intoxicating drinks which depend on multiple agents —some chemical (the kind of drink), other biological (constitution of the individual), and others again social (environment). The drinks producing these effects are obtained by fermentation (beer, wine) from sugary vegetable substances and have been known from time immemorial; others obtained by distillation (brandy, whisky) are much more dangerous and of more recent introduction. .Although men have been addicted to alcoholic drinks from remote times, alcoholism only commenced to spread after Arnoldo ot Viilanova, in the thirteenth century, discovered the formula for making aqua vitae or brandy. ... Alcoholism, making steadily, increasing progress for several generations, is a racial malady which may be considered to-ijay to have reached its culmination. Toxic Action. Alcoholic drinks act (1) by their content in ethyl alcohol, which varies according to the products absorbed: (2) by the impurities and essences they contain (higher alcohol—propyl, butyl, amyl: ethers —aldehydes), the effects of which vary—some inebriating, epileptitorm, others convulsive, tetanic, and anaesthetic. The distinction which it has been attempted to make between wine-drinking and alcoholism is open to criticism, because betwen ethyl and the higher alcohols there is only a slight difference in the degree of toxicity. Alcohol acts after absorption by digestion and inhalation. Without recapitulating the long series of researches made, there is no doubt that alcohol ingested has no physiological properties. Only in the most restricted sense can it be held to be a food, and its energy-producing value ia very rapidly counterbalanced by the toxic properties which manifest themselves on absorption of only a small quantity. Empiricism and subsequent experience have shown that alcohol is equally toxic / on inhalation. Orfila, indeed, intoxicated dogs and Strauss rabbits by way of the lungs. Sand found that inhalation ot a mixture of alcohol and ether, administered drop by drop to dogs, set up, alter a period free from symptoms, excitement, convulsions, etc. Hilled five months after inhalation of the mixture, the dogs showed specific lesions —hemorrhage and stasis in all the organs, especially marked in the liver, kidneys, and nervous system. Physio-Pathology. Pathology will only be dealt with in its relation to occupation. An acute and n. chronic intoxication may be distinguished. As has been already stated, these two intoxications are a double function of the kind of poison, of the quantity ingested, and of the soil into which it is received. Its evolution can take place within changes scarcely visible, or, on the other hand, in a very rapid and complicated . manner, with subacute signs or acute paroxysms. There are a number' of factors which are able to retard, counteract or precipitate the appearance of acute phenomena or to hasten the evolution of the malady. Without entering into details as ,tq th pathology of acute or chronic alcoholism, it will suffice to recall that alcohol does not spare any organ, that it exercises a sclerotic and’ degenerative action on the tissues, and that it brings about the most varied morbid symptoms. i The nervous system is affected from the start, alcohol acting on the higher tunotions of the central nervous system as a narcotic. , , . Sensory effects are early, _ and can bo most readily observed in course of the discharge of the victim s daily . occupations. The poison exercisss its pernicious action on the centres of perception —a fact which may have the most and formic!ablp consequences. Many, industrial accidents are due to the incompetence of drinkers whose senses have been dulled. Among visual trouble, dischromatopaia central and paracentral scotomas, and diminution of visual acuity are noted. Bailway companies provide for the withdrawal of alcoholic mechanics in whom a certain degree ol daltonism prevents clear distinction of coloured signals. Among defects of hearing abnormal, perceptions are to bo noted; external sounds become exaggerated or discordant. The other’s sensfcs are dulled and a sort of multisensory daltonism is All the organs are affected —stomach, heart, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, testicles, ovaries, etc.—and of their most serious lesions may be recalled atheroma ar^. er , 1 ° 8 ‘ clerosis, and hepatic cirrhosis. The slightly morbid condition of gastritis is found in drinkers of wine and beer. It is unnecessary to refer to the great social importance of the degeneration brought on by alcohol os the inducer of crime, suicide, prostitution and laziness. The pernicious influence it exerts on the progeny is one of the causes of racial decadence. Chronic mania, epilepsy, and dementia praecox may be the manifestations of hereditary alcoholism. ALCOHOL AND PHYSICAL LABOUR. Physical exertion is impeded by consumption of alcohol, which excites and then depresses the nervous muscular system. Power to work after its absorption 13 only increased temporarily. The fact that for » time it stimulates muscular energy and causes fatigue to be forgotten accounts for the fact that certain individuals are willing to allow it to take the place of the material and moral satisfaction yielded by good living, instruction and education. In assuaging, however, the feeling of fatigue, it favours the onset of acute overstrain (from a state of febrile exhaustion to death bv acute intoxication, or of chrome overstrain (physical wreckage favouring the development of morbid, nervous or pulmonary diseases). Experience shows that many athletes who have imbibed alcohol to excess have died of phthisis; others have become insane. The assertion that intense muscular work can bo done with greater impunity by resort to large closes of alcohol is false (Grehant). A groat number of experiments by Decrees Gilbaut, Chauveau, Galeotti, Herxheimer, etc., have shown how disastrous is the effect of the consumption of alcohol on muscular work. In chronic alcoholism, the very slight, email, fibrillary temor, sensible on.y to the eye when the hand is stretched out and the fingers hold apart, suffices to destroy the manual dexterity of the worker. Though tradition and popular prejudice incline to the belief that alcohol increases strength, it is none the less true that empirical observation has brought to light important facts which confirm scientific observations. In the ports of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, the lurks, who are abstainers by religion, are engaged in carrying heavy loads, more especially coal, ami this under a tropical sky. While they can stand the strain without difficulty for 12 hours., the Rumanians, Bulgarians and Wallachians have readied the limit of their strength after two or three hours and have to seek recuperation of their energy by resting. . The same proof has been given in the colonial services (c.g., the Hindu army). The "reatesi explorers excluded alcohol from 'their daily diet (Livingstone, Nansen the Duke of Abruzzi, etc.), and muscular force has been obtained from sugar rather than alcohol (experiments of Pram ter, Stovas«er, Mosso, etc.). In sport, it is notorious how alcohol has been given up both during exercise as well as in rest time Runners, swimmers, etc., the winners’ of great competitive trials try to remain abstainers. During the war all the Governments exerted themselves against alcohol in order to i eep up the energy of the masses. Alcohol and Intellectual Work. Alcohol diminishes intellectual work, a«d, under its anaesthetic influence, the mind becomes torpid, memory defective, faocy eaalted, the senses dulled, the power

of inhibition loses control, and human personality gradually disappears. The belief that alcohol is useful and leaves the higher functions unimpaired is wrong. Certain celebrated anthers and artists may have been great drinkers, but it would be easy to cite others who have been temperate or abstainers. For some people alcohol may act as a stimulant, but nothing proves that to this is due the value of their work. Before the stage of noisy manifestations of excitement is reached consequences of the gravest importance from an occupational point of view may ensue. The new habits as shown in the altered mentality of the drunkard, the weakened sensibility and moral dementia which appear rapidly, affect every aspect of mental activity (relations with himself, his people, and with outsiders), and modify his social and occupational duties, his activity for work, power_ of production, duties as a citizen. His mental deficiency shows itself early by modifying all that constitutes the normal acuity of mental activity, attention, powers of reasoning, adaptability to circumstances. In the exercise of a daily occupation, where comparison is easily possible, drinkers frequently appear to be the laziest, sleepiest, and dullest of the workers. They show less aptitude and skill in their actions, make mistakes, are forgetful, decide lightly, come to fantastic conclusions, etc. (At the terminal stage of the malady, it should be remarked, hallucinations are entertained, a constant characteristic of which is that the victim believes himself back at his employment, thinks he is in the workshop, is foreman over his fellows, is doing his work, etc.) . Alcohol and Industry. The role that alcoholism plays to-day among workpeople cannot, and ought not to, be misunderstood; but account must be taken of the fact that certain conditions of labour tend too often to drive the worker to indulgence in drink, and so aggravate the lesions which the environment or the toxic products handled can engender. 1 The problem of alcoholism in its relation .to industry should be Examined from the point of view of the reaction (a) ‘of alcoholism, as affecting the individual in the exercise of his occupation, and (b) of the occupation on alcoholism, the work serving to incite intoxication, which would then appear to be occupational. ■ Among chronic alcoholics distinction must be drawn between those who drink during working hours (during meals or in rest intervals) and those drinking only in their own time. In some trades where consumption of alcohol is forbidden during working hours the persons employed often indulge in it during their free time. There is no doubt that in these cases alcohol increases the harmful nature of certain occupational poisons. Thus, for example, the risk of work in high temperatures is notoriously increased by alcohol, favouring as it does the occurrence of heat stroke; it brings about earlier than would otherwise be the case a condition of fatigue, and has an unfavourable action on the heat-regulating mechanism of the body, thus leading to a relative insufficiency of all the functions. Drunkards rim an even greater risk in hot and humid atmospheres because in this case the evaporation of sweat and elimination of moisture from the lungs are interfered with by the high hygrometric condition of the air.. Alcohol is equally dangerous when working at low temperatures. Experienced alpine climbers know that alcoholic drinks induce i a state of congestion, because, though at first alcohol produces a feeling of warmth and well-being, as well as an increase of the peripheral temperature. it exercises rapidly thereafter, as a result of paralytic dilation of the cutaneous vfisssls, & hjrpothermal action lowering the peripheral and central temperature and the possibility of passive congestion frpm cold. As a matter of fact, a fall of the central temperature to 30deg and even 25deg C. has been, noted amongst drunkards. Alcohol is also dangerous m compressed air work (caisson workers and divers), for which work young men who are abstrainers are required. Experts and legislators agree in recognising that those addicted to alcohol or suffering from heart disease ought to be the first to be excluded from compressed air work, because of the risks to which they are exP °Ohronio poisonings become aggravated when associated with chronic alcoholism, as a mixed intoxication ,is thus produced. Everybody recognises the influence of excessive drinking on the outbreak of lead colic, of gout, hysteria, and saturnine epilepsy, as well as on the mortality ot workmen employed in lead industries. Absence of data prevents reference to the joint effect of alcohol with mercury, carbon bisulphide, 'or opium, although there is no doubt that these poisons exert a very much more pernicious action on alcoholic subjects. If liability to ocupational poisoning is increased, and such poisons are also rendered more injurious by alcohol, they in their turn lessen resistance to alcoholic intoxication. Biondi and Giglioli have shown that workpeople suffering from mercury poisoning become drunk after consumption of a small glass of; wine, and suffer frotn headache or giddiness after havinv smoked a cigar. _ Biondi has noted the same phenomena in a man employed in casting antimony. ' The same, facts hold in the case of acute intoxications. , The combined action of alcohol and aromatic compounds has frequently been described among T.N.T. workers in the explosives industry. According to Leymann, this is explained by the fast that the toxicity of all poisons soluble in alcohol (and little soluble in water) is increased by the consumption of alcohol, nitrophenol, nitrobenzol, anilin, and many other poisons). In the case of anilin notably, it has been observed thjt persons who have worked for many years with this substance without showing ill effects go under if they absorb large quantities of alcohol after their work is over. The probability is that anilin absorbed by the skin and lungs and set free in the stoinach is dissolved by the alcohol, and so enters the general circulation, or that the resistance to poisoning by anilin is diminished by the absorption of a small quantity of alcobol, or that the alcohol causes the latent poisoning to become manfest (Niggemeier and Chilian). Thus it is that m all these unhealthy industries consumption of alcohol is forbidden during working hours, and the workers are well tyarned to be abstemious. Somewhat similar observations have been made in the case of calcium cyanymide, which renders the workpeople more sensitive to erythematous eruptions (copper itch). , , , , In the same way alcohol favours occupational cramp, particularly writers cramp. . (To be continued.)