TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20202, 13 September 1927, Page 2

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter under this heading is published at the request of, and is supplied bj. the United Temperance Reform Council In pursuance of the desire to inculcate the principles of temperance.] INTOXICATION” BY ALCOHOL. ALCOHOLISM. [An original report by Dr G. Allevi, Milan, revised by the Correspondence Committee on Industrial Hygiene, of the international Labour Office.] 111. OCCUPATIONAL ALCOHOLISM. The numerous causes of occupational alcoholism can be reduced to two chief ones; need of stimulants and exercise ol an occupation exposing to drinking habits. Occupational alcoholism lias certainly found, just as has general alcoholism, a suitable soil in the conditions under which modern industry has developed. In the country, it is limited in tlie main to people in easy circumstances who seek to while away the time in inns. Certain circumstances, however, favour alcoholism, and seasonal alcoholism can he spoken of as due to overwork and abuse of drink at the principal agricultural times (harvests, vintage, gatherin'- of beet), Allevi gives some Italian statistics (Aninldi I showing a high percentage of alcoholic psychoses among country folk. Without being able to quote exact statistics for other countries, alcoholism is well known to be widespread in the agricultural districts of Prance, Ireland, and Poland.

Urbanisation is ccr‘ inly a factor of the first importance in the spread of alcoholism. in towns, among the middle class, temperance and abstinence are constantly on the upgrade. If this class furnishes a smaller number addicted to alcoholism than the proletariat, it is especially because they rarely arc engaged in professions which make them lake to drink. Nevertheless, chronic alcoholism is widespread in certain professions where it is customary to negotiate business in cafes (commercial travellers, wholesale merchants, etc.) or to spend time for pleasure there (officers, students). As Montegazza has written, enumeration and classification of the drinkers of a country suffices to reveal the powerful influence that culture has over the taste for alcohol.

Among the labouring class, the taste for alcoholism may be partially attributed to the need to the worker of some distraction after his day’s work. The effects ot this need are increased sometimes by environment in the clubs and recreation halls where the workers meet and indulge in alcohol. The narcotic effect of alcohol diminishes the sensation of distress brought on by work carried on under depressing condi tions, and badly organised industries are especially those in which the largest number of workers take to alcoholic drinks. Long hours, Sunday work, speed of machinery, overtime, the monotony of modern work—all these have been frequently adduced as causes. An inquiry carried out in France (see Bulletin of the Ministry of Labour, January to March, 1923) show the benefit derived from moving tho population into the suburbs, from tho development of workmen’s gardens, tho creation of populai* libraries and educational courses, increase in leisure, introduction of summer time, but, above all, the eighthour day, which has done most to suppress the need for artificial stimulants during or after work. Occupational alcoholism is met with particularly in certain industries or professions which may bo said to predispose to the consumption of alcohol.

Though vinedressers do not show a high proportion of acute cases of intoxication (in the preparation of wine), they are sometimes exposed to poisoning by carbon dioxide (in the fermenting halls). On the other hand, almost all those whose livelihood depends on the sale of alcoholic beverages—and especially of spirituous liquors—are fatally addicted to intoxication—e.g., wine merchants, travellers in wine, butlers, wine tasters, distillers, Intoxication in such cases ig the more dangerous because of its insidiousness, and from tho fact that frequent alcohol taken in small quantities often brings on chronic alcoholism without any appearance at all ol intoxication.

Of 44 men examined at the Laonnec Hospital, Paris, Grandmaison found 23 wine merchants and potmen, and all wore alcoholic.

Sometimes a genuine occupational alcoholism can be shown to result from the inhalation of alcoholic vapour. An individual who is sober, but is obliged, owing to his occupation, to live in an atmosphere impregnated with alcoholic vapour can present all the toxic phenomena of ■ iyl poisoning from drunkenness (workers in distilleries, wine depots, customs house employees. etc.), especially when certain operations are carried On in a restricted, badly ventilated place, with long hours of work. (Carozzi, in Italy, noted before the war that in certain liqueur factories uie hours wore 14 per day. with one and a-hulf hours’ interval for rest. Obviously under thoso conditions even abstainers would finish by getting drunk). Further, workmen in industries using alcohol may bo cited in this connection —such as those -inployed in the making of felt hats, grinpowder works, manufacture of artificial silk, etc. In the smokeless powder and artificial silk industries, for example mixtures of alcohol and ether are used, creating an intoxicating atmosphere. In mose cases, the dangers of alcoholism can assume quite grave proportions. Alcohol excesses are more frequent in some trades and professions than in others, a a recognised customs play an important role in the spread of habits of intemper anee. Each trade has, in some district or other, a traditional form in which alcoholism shows itself.

Individual habit varies infinitely, especially in relation to the life which circumstances impose. The occupational environ ment (to some extent modified by educational influences), the social atmosphere and its customs, are tyrannical. Tipping, for instance, plays a definite part in the story of alcoholism, and similarly the manner of drinking, as—o.g., gratuitous supply of drink (e.g., in breweries). All jobs at high or low temperatures, and above all dusty work (mines and quarries notably) predispose to alcoholism, more especially when the employer has taken no measures for providing Iresh water, and most of all when the measures for the prevention and elimination of dust are inapplicable or inadequate.

In dusty industries the paralysing action exerted by alcohol on the vibratile cilia of the respiratory passages attenuates or suppresses their defensive action, thus favouring the entry of dust into the deepest recesses of the respiratory tract. Pneumonoconiosis thus prepares the ground for phthsis. Even apart from dust, the relation between alcoholism and tuberculosis is a very intimate one. Bertillon has shown by occupational statistics that the trades with the highest consumption of alcohol =how (he highest mortality foi phthsis. According to Imhcrt’s well-known statistics alcohol subjects arc met with most frequently in the following trades (proceed ing from highest to lowest) ; vendors of alcoholic beverages, hotel keepers, pedlars, coopers, day labourers, transport workers carriers, cabmen, labourers, bakers, cooks, butchers, pork-butchers, waiters locksmiths, chauffeurs mechanics, domestic servants, packers, printers, painters, shop men. shoemakers, ostlers, policemen, accountants, tailors, postal servants. Among women the trades in which alcoholism is most prevalent are; Hotel ser vants, hawkers waitresses, domestic “or vant=, cooks, hairdressers. concierges, liousemaids. charwomen women s-. i tfront ;;U occupation.' tailores'es. seamstresses, mil; liners, artistes in cafe-concert.-, artists' models hospital nurses. More recent statistics prepared by Ucilig show that in Germany day-workers eon Statute 54 per cent, ol the alcoholics, pr-.cants 15 per- cent, employees, members ot the liberal professions and business people 24 per rent., bote] keepers and waiter* 19 per cent. Occupations which begin at an early hour predispose to the matutinal ■‘schnapps”; intemperance -during work is also frequent amongst those who have to make great muscular effort and are not kept under strict discipline (dockers, carters quarriers, builders, labourers, sailors’. •Mcnhofism is vcy widespread among zinc smelters, either from the madmen that alcoholic linooi-s are an antidote to tinzinc and other metallic toxic suh-tances, nr jo eonr.tene-t die action of bent. dust. Fume- and fatigue; aviators inn accident has often followed on the morrow of exno.ivr- c-op-nrnpl i nn °i alcohol); miners Muring t'n-ir rest time etc. In America, among -nMier- die rate lin- fallen from Vi ..r, rn-rp lPf7 lo f.r-7 pc;- iflOO in t poo