TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 89

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

SUBSTITUTES FOR ALCOHOL. EXTRACTS FROM "SAFE REMEDIES IN ILLNESS." Alcoholic Craving.—Free t&e of ripe fruit. Hot water when the craving comes on. Abstinence from meat and highly seasoned food. A dose of one-half drachm of ipecacuanha to produce full vomiting will clear the stomach of moTbid secretions. Chills.—Hoi food and hand bath, with mustard in the water, one-quarter pound to a gallon, and then a warm bed, with fresh air in the room, will probably be sufficient. Drink freely of hot lemonade. Debility.—The debility of convalescence requires fresh air, easily digested food, the avoidance of over-exertion, with a gradually increasing amount of exercise. Such debility is only aggravated by alcohol, though* it may for a time be partially masked thereby. Milk, eggs, fresh fruit, and farinaceous articles are the best foods. General debility without obvious cause may be treated by cold or tepid bathing. Salt added to the bath is helpful. . Change of air is a good tonic. Port wine and other alcoholics, while giving a false sensation of increased vigour, really reduce the tone of the pulse, and therefore tend to enfeeble the system. Alcohol is a relaxant, not a tonic. " In abandoning the use of alcohol it should be clearly understood that we abandon an injurious influence, and escape from a source of disease, as we do when we get into a purer atmosphere. There is not the slightest occasion to do anything, or to take anything to make up the loss of a strengthening or supporting agent. No loss has been incurred save the loss of a cause of disease and death." —Dr J. J. Ridge, of London Temperance Hospital. CHARLES DARWIN ON DRINK. Through the long experience of my father and my grandfather, extending over a period of more than one hundred years, I have reached the conviction that no other cause has brought about so much suffering, so much disease and misery, as the use of intoxicating beverages.—Charles Darwin. It is inconceivaDle to me that any man who loves his country, and especially any Christian man, can do other at this time than support with all the force of his being any measure which will help to deliver us from the almost immeasurable evil of the drink traffic.—Rev. Dr Campbell Morgan. HOW TO BE YOUNG AT 85. Two notable men—Sir Hiram S. Maxim, chemist, mathematician, and inventor, and Dr Frederick J. Furnivall, lexicographer and philologist—celebrated their birthdays recently. Sir Hiram Maxim is seventy years old; Dr Furnivall is fifteen years older. The one passed the day in his domestic circle; the other sculled over thirteen miles of Thames water. Both are in excellent health, and received sheaves of congratulations from relatives, friends, and admirers.

A press representative interviewed them both, and asked their recipes for long life and the success which each has attained in his own special sphere of work. These are their recommendations : Sir Hiram Maxim : Avoid tobacco. Avoid alcohol. Never waste a moment. Always be anxious to find something useful to do. Be accurate and persevering. Rise early and retire to bed before midnight. The man who watches the clock is timing disaster. Every road leads somewhere—find where it ends before you tread it. Don't be a mere copyist. Do something no one has done before. Dr Furnivall : Never drink. Never smoke. Have a hobby. Read and think. Reading without thought is useless. Inventor's Day. Sir Hiram Maxim spent his Birthday as follows : 6.30 (about) : Rose from bed. 6.30 to 8.30 : Work. 8.30 : Breakfast (oatmeal porridge, eggs and bacon ana" coffee). 8.30 to 1.30 : Work. 1.30 : Light lunch. 2.0 : Motored to Brixton, with Lady Maxim and a grandson to a cinematograph entertainment. 7.0 : Dinner. 8.0 to 10.0 : Recreation. Sir Hiram bears his threescore and ten years lightly. " I don't feel my age," he said, " and some people say that I don't look it." Sir Hiram is devoting his attention now almost entirely to flying machines. He has invented a new engine, and has designed a new body. But no fewer than eight different patents have to be taken for the whole, so that the developments are necessarily a slow process. " Noj I am not inventing any fresh explosive," he said. "My attention has most recently been riveted on this." He took up a cardboard box, which held some glass tubing and longj narrow bottles. " I have suffered from bronchitis," he said, " and have been in the habit of running over to the Continental pine woods. But it struck me that I should be able to bring the fragrant odours of the pinewood to my • own home. From a chemist I secured an extract. Then I found the pure pine extract was not satisfactory, so I introduced another element. That is my latest experiment." Sir Hiram showed the interviewer many drawings that he has done recently, and several sketches in water-colours that he did at places he has visited. " Lady Maxim," he said, " always insists that I should take a sketch of places we go to." Dr Furnivall spent his birthday in a row on the river 13g miles. "I am not tired," he said on his return to Hammersmith, " but that is a mere nothing. It is excellent exercise." DRINK AMONG WOMEN IN ENGLAND. A meeting in support of the Duxhurst Farm Colony for Women and Children was held in London in February. The Bishop of London presided, and among those present were Lady Ellesmere, Lady Henry Somerset (founder and superintendent of the institution), Lord , Peel, and Sir Colin Scott-MoncTieff. The chairman said they were met in support of a work the need of which, instead of becoming less as the years went on, became greater. He wished that he could think that drinking among women was lessening, but it was not. The work at Duxhurst had been tested for 15 years, and Lady Henry Somerset and the committee were able to report that 66 per cent, of the cases had been successful. Lady Henry Somerset remarked that there had been no sensible diminution in drunkenness among women during the past twenty-five years;' on the contrary, she had seen an increase in drinking and drug-taking. It was not true that women could not be cured of drunkenness. It was not only the easy cases, but the apparently hopeless ones, that were curable, if treated properly. She appealed for funds to enable the committee to build a wing for the children of the women who were sent to the institution to serve long sentences.