ALCOHOL A STIMULANT?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21389, 17 July 1931, Page 16

ALCOHOL A STIMULANT?

ro nil' minim /Sir. —It is 24 years since “Alcohol and the Human Body ” was first published. It is now running its sixth edition, and has become a world-wide accepted authority. The amazing thing is that the physiological fact that “ alcohol is not a stimulant,” established in 1907, is so little understood or realised by many people to-day. The evidence supporting this statement of medical research is so overwhelming, convincing, and irrefutable that your valuable space must be craved for a short resume of the case. In the year 1916 the British Government appointed a Medical Research Committee, with Lord D’Abernon, as chairman, and eight of the leading medical scientists of Britain, to report on the physiological action of alcohol. In the report entitled “ Alcohol, its Action on the Human Organism,” the committee stated:— (1) A review of the many laborious attempts made in recent years to determine by the methods of the laboratory the effects of alcohol on the mind and nervous system shows that such observations harmonise with these general conclusions, that the direct effect of alcohol upon tire nervous system is, in all stages, and upon all parts of the system, to depress or suspend its functions; —that it is, in short, from first to last a narcotic drug. (2) If we have stated the principle according to which alcoho,' attacks the functions of the human brain and of the nervous system generally, it will be seen that mental changes are among tho first of all the symptoms of derangement to appear. . < . . With small doses of alcohol they may be the only symptoms which are noticeable; with larger, they aiP the earliest of the whole symptomatic train of changes. (3) Disturbance of higher mental functions in conditions falling short of drunkenness. But a point of great practical importance is that, without signs of intoxication in the full ordinary or legal sense of the term, the bearing and individual attitude of mind suffer temporary change as an effect of the drug, and those in contact with the person so affected have i'or the time being to deal with an altered individual, whose mind lacks temporarily its normal factor of judgment and conspicuous element of self-control. C 4) In the light of our knowledge of how alcohol acts on the body, there can be no question that its habitual use by the worker as a substitute for food or in the belief that it gives a fillip to

energy is physiologically unsound. Could there bo a more measured, dignified, and complete statement concerning the nature and effect of small quantities of alcohol than the above? These conclusions of the Research Committee agree with the statements of Horsley and Sturge in their book and completely refute the views expressed by Mr R. J. Terry and other correspondents. The unkindest cut of all, howeyer, to all alcoholists, comes from the British Government’s Royal Commission at present taking evidence on liquor and the liquor traffic. Last year the Medical Research Committee’s report on “ Alcohol and its Action on the Human Organism,” was submitted to the commission as evidence. The commission is representative of all sections of public thought in Britain, including the brewers and licensed liquor traffic, The report was adopted by “ all parties on the commission as an, ‘impartial scientific statement.’ ” The report included the above extracts. Mere statements of verbal epithets cannot alter scientific conclusions such as the above, which must be accepted as the final analysis to date by scientific medical research as to the true effects of alcohol on the human body.—l am, etc., New Zealander,