TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20432, 12 June 1928, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

(Published by arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) WHAT IS THE DRINK EVIL? A lecture by Arthur Evans. M.S., F.R.C.S.. Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery, Westminster Hospital. I. By the drink evil is meant the evil wrought by drink, that is to say, the manitold evil which follows the use ot alcoholic beverages. There was a time when the attention of social and religious workers was concentrated upon one phase of this subject, namely, “ drunkenness,” and a great army of devoted men and women strenuously fought to 1 rescue the drunkard. They rightly pointed out the loss to the community, the disaster to the home, the peril to the individual, resulting from drunkenness. The need for their efforts was great, they dare not relax their efforts, for the need still is great. But our main concern here is not with “ drunkenness,” it is with the much larger subject-—the evil wrought by drink. Drunkenness is merely one phase in the senes of changes effected in an individual as a result of drinking alcohol. Long before a man becomes “ drunk ” changes have taken place in him of such grave importance that we cannot afford to overlook them. To concentrate our attention on “drunkenness” would be unscientmc; and to imagine that the whole extent of the evil is known when we have investigated the evil associated with t.ie condition termed “ drunkenness is utterly misleading. I say, to concentrate our attention on “ drunkenness ”is unscientific. It is impossible to define accurately when drunkenness begins. It is a loose term, a popular term, signifying the obviously deranged mental and muscular condition ot a man at some stage in a drinking bout. To say that the evil ot alcoholism is confined to this ill-defined period of so-called drunkenness, that during this period alcohol is exerting a baneful effect, different in quality from that which exerts before these grossly manifest changes are obvious, is untrue. . ■The changes produced on mind and body by alcohol, which result in what we call I drunkenness, are consequent upon the narcotic effect of alcohol upon the brain; but this effect was being produced upon the brain long before it resulted in disorders of conduct so gross that a casual passer-by could diagnose the case as one of drunkenness. - We now know that those narcotic effects upon the brain are .produced by ' quite small doses of alcohol taken in the I form of alcoholic beverages, and can be 1 accurately demonstrated to have taken effect a few minutes after the drug has been taken. . The evil wrought by alcohol, taken, in large doses or taken in small doses, i whether evidenced by changes in conduct so blatant that no one e„n misinterpret them, or accompanied by departures from the normal so minute that careful observ £ tion is needed to reveal them—the evil is one and the same. Alcohol is a narcotic pioison. As Sir Alfred Pearce Gould has said, “ There is no scientific justification for picking out one ill-defined degree of its narcotising influence, labelling that with a special name (drunkenness), and speaking of it as the particular form of alcoholic action that must be prevented. It would be as absurd to limit the term ‘ fever ’ to illness with a temperature between 102 deg F. and 104 deg F., and to concentrate study and efforts of prevention and cute upon it, while wo neglected to study or to care for cases of raised temperatures below 102 dog F, and over 104 deg F. . . . The study of drunkenness is only important as enabling us to see at a glance the real influence of alcohol upon the nervous system when it taken in smaller quantity, and because for every drunkard obviously poisoned with alcohol there are scores or hundreds, nerhaps thousands, of “ moderate ’ drinkers suffering from similar though less obvious narcotic effects. . . . We only get rid of the evil wrought by alochol when we free ourselves from all the inefficiency it causes —its slight narcotic effects as well as its graver.” ' I cannot in the space at my disposal speak in detail of the action of alcohol upon the i-arious structures in the body, nor is there need that I should do_ tins, for there is abundance of reliable information available. 1 shall limit myself to elaborating the following statement: When alcohol is taken in such small quantities that “ drunkenness ” does not result, the drug is still exerting its narcotic power, and causes diminished efficiency of mind and body and enl'ceblement of moral control. 1. ALCOHOL AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. “BRAIN CENTRES” AND THEIR WORK. All the activities of the body—those of which we are conscious and those of which wo are unconscious-—are under the control of the nervous system—that is the brain, medulla, spinal cord, and nerves. Heart-beating, breathing, glandular secretion, emotional activities, seeing, hearing, the movement of arms and legs, and every other voluntary act, talking, rhinking, judging, and criticising—these are all controlled by the brain ami the rest of the central nervous system. The precise region in the brain or medulla which controls any given movement or activity—e.g., the movements of the right knee joint or the act of breathing—is called the “ centre ” for that activity. The centre which controls heart-beating is fully developed and vigorously acting before the birth of the child; the centre which regulates the movements of the chest-walls that constitute the act of breathing is fully developed at birth, and ready at once to take up its duties. Without these centres efficiently acting, life could not continue; they are fundament.'! they are all-important; therefore reactions must be unceasing, independent u-. waking or sleeping. Hence they are the centres first to be developed in the brain, and the last to be affected by any hurtful influence. Very early in the development of the brain, and so of the mind, there appear the emotional dispositions or capacities, and these have their seat in the lowest levels of the brain, just above the centres for breathing and heart-beating. When, in the developing child, hand and I foot are slowly learning to carry out the wishes of the child, and things seen and heard, touched and tasted, are being noted, at the same time the centres in the brain for these movements and sense-perceptions are developing. The centres for these functions are said to reside in the intermediate levels of the brain. But the brain has not reached its highest development when it has become capable of receiving sense impressions, however varied they may be, and of initiating movements, however skilled they may become. Last to be developed are the intellectual processes of judgment, self-control, and self-criticism, the latest developed and the highest of which is selfcriticism. These faculties are said to reside in the highest levels of the brain. ALCOHOL ATTACKS THE HIGHEST “ BRAIN CENTRES ” FIRST. It is well known that when the brain is subjected to any harmful influence the first functions to he affected are those latest acquired. “Alcohol successively weakens and suspends the hierarchy of I functions of the brain, and therefore of the mind, in the order from above down- \ wards,” so that self-criticism, the highest i and latest developed intellectual function, is the first to be affected. This first effect of alcohol upon the mind is very important, for the blunting of self-criticism occurs after the taking j of such small doses of alcohol that there I may exist none of the familiar signs of ! intoxication. “Without signs of intoxi- ; cation in the full ordinary or in the legal ! sense of the term, the bearing and indiI vidual attitude of mind suffer temporary change as an effect of the drug; and those in contact with the person so affected for the time being to deal with an altered I individual, whose mind lacks temporarily I its normal factor of judgment and conI spicuous elements of its self-control. (To bo continued.)