THE DRINK HABIT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1874, 21 October 1887, Page 32

THE DRINK HABIT.

Four Forms of Chronic Alcoholism - How the Taste for Liquor is Gratified in the Colonies There are four classes of the community who injure themselves by the excessive use of stimulants. In the first place, there are the men who pass their lives in the bush, away from all society, leading lonely and terribly monotonous lives, and eating the same food day after day, and week after week — salt meat and damper, or mutton and damper, • no vegetables, and only drinking water or tea with each meal. These men come down into town, and almost always go on the spree for days or weeks at a time, and most probably are very ill indeed before they stop their carouse. If they have fair play in the quality of the drink they partake of, and do not break their necks exhibiting to admiring unlookers their horsemanship, they give little trouble and less fees to either medical man or undertaker, and seriously, I have often thought this wild outburst of excess may relieve them to some exten; from the consequences of thsir monotonous lives — anyhow they go back content to resume the dreary routine, looking forward with hope to a glorious future. Belonging to another class is the man who drinks frequently, and at all times in the day, not getting drunk, perhaps conducting his business to his own satisfaction and benefit, but whose clients prefer to see him on important business in the early morning if possible. This man is not a nuisance by any means, somcfcimes the reverse, an agreeable, kind-hearted, good fellow, but undoubtedly laying up trouble for himself in the future, in the shape of liver, kidney, heart, or brain lesions', a dangerous life for insurance companies, but often at first, suffering only from gastric catarrh or hemorrhoids. There is a third class, comprised of young men who drink more from moral weakness. They drink because others drink and ask them , to drink with them— they are too indolent or careless about it to refuse. They are always dropping into an hotel with a j friend, and unfit themselves, by excess, for for serious work, and undoubtedly injure their consiitutions. They could, however, control their libations easily if they would, and the inlury being to themselves alone, so also is the remedy in their own power. There remains, however, another class to which I wish to draw your particular attention. It is where a man, without any previous warning, having, perhaps, rather disliked stimulants, very often being a rigid teetotaller, breaks out suddenly into a furious drinking boufc, which he will continue until he is either restrained, or the intense desire for drink has exhausted itself. He will then resume his former regular, sober life ; generally, so far from wishing for stimulants, perfectly loathing the sight of them, and without the slightest danger of breaking out again until the peculiar brain-condition returns, when he is just as bad as ever, and becomes the despair of temperance societies, as he was before the most edifying example of their power. As the outbreaks become lengthened, the intervals become shortened, until morally, socially, and financially he is a wreck. These cases are by no means uncommon, and when the disease occurs in a woman, the results are, if possible, more disastrous, especially if she is the mother of a family, and, as too frequently happens, she belongs to the better class of society. These arc "not criminals, but people suffering from a disease well - termed dipsomania, probably caused by some hereditary taint. They are not morally responsible for their outbieaks, for although in other respects, and at other times, conforming to all the accepted rules of society, when the attack begins, neither strong religious feeling, social connections, business responsibilities, nor family claims have the slightest power to restrain them from making beasts of themselves. Anything more striking than the difference between their appearance when suffering from the attack, and that presented by them before and after, can only be imagined by those familiar with attacks of acute mania. At the beginning there is often little difficulty in treating these cases, from the fact that you can control their supply of drink either by strong moral suasion, or by their friends persistently refusing to allow them any induldence. Unfortunately, as attack follows attack, they will not be controlled, and the cunning and determination exhibited by them in getting their craving satisfied is marvellous. The State should give someone authority to control these people, and prevent them from not only ruining themselves, but draging down others who may be dependent on them into destitution and misery. That such power is necessary, from my own individual experience, I feel certain, and if I considered it advisable, could detail numerous cases from my own practice, in which a fatal termination took place, which might easily have been prevented, had such authority existed. I would suggest that on an information beinc( laid before a magistrate by an intimate friend or relative, and supported by; the certificate of two medical men, such a man or woman should be confined in an Inebriate Refuge, and detained there for such time as is deemed necessary for his or her permanent cure. The State Refuge should be made almost if not entirely self supporting, by the enforced labour of the inmates, which should be of such a nature as l-o fit them for earning a livelihood after leaving the institution, while promoting their return to a healthier condition. The good results that would ensue from judicious treatment in such institutions would well compensate for the slight expenditmejnecessary.in the number of ,

valuable live sspared to the State, and that for one life saved by actual treatment in the institution, I think I am not over estimating it when I say that 20 would be stopped at the outset by the knowledge that power to place them under such salutary restraint existed, and would undoubtedly be exercised by their friends.— From a paper read by Dr J. H. Little, before the Queensland Medical Society.