TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 89

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

THE VERDICT OF EXPERTS

By T. D. Crothers, M.D., Hartford, Conn.

Persons who wish to become teachers or state authoritative facts on the alcoholic problem appeal for help on the supposition that a specialist in this department has the .facts so thoroughly at his command as to put them down with great accuracy at once. In this they are mistaken. The facts are so numerous and so widespread that the student himself must turn to authority and data before he can state off-hand the exact truths. Both the teacher and preacher must buy books and study the conclusions and appeal to leaders for special definite facts and not expect them to give them a whole volume at one sitting. In answer to many inquiries I wish to repeat three distinct facts and the data on which they are based, which are so authoritative and have been confirmed in so many ways that they can be stated as established beyond question. The action of alcohol on protoplasm of germinating seeds can be determined in every home by selecting any ordinary house plants that are thrifty and growing in the same conditions. Take a geranium plant as an example. Use one part of alcohol to 100 parts of water to plants that are thrifty and growing in the pots under similar conditions with pure water. Continue the conditions, the same, and after a time note the difference between the two.

The proportion is two and one-half drops of alcohol to four ounces of water. The difference in the growth which this small amount will make after a time is very evident. Suppose the amount of alcohol is doubled, the difference will be more marked, and this can be carried on in many ways, showing how destructive a small quantity of pure alcohol is to plant growth. The fact is well known that alcohol given to puppies in their food stops their growth and eventually changes the breed of the dogs. An ordinary dog may become a toy dog by using alcohol in the food through several generations. The growth is stopped and the animal remains in puppy proportions. Very interesting experiments can be made on kittens, giving three or four drops of alcohol in sweetened water or milk daily and observing the retarded growths and changed conditions.

The second great truth grew out of a study of 20,000 policies issued by the United Kingdom General Temperance Providence Insurance Company of England. These policies were divided into two sections —one whose members drank alcohol in moderation or at intervals, but never to so-called excess. The other in which the members were total abstainers drinking no spirits of any kind. It was understood that any member in either division who should drink spirits to excess would forfeit his claims to the company. Mathematically based on the returns of life insurance in general, the company would have been called on to pay the claims of between 6000 and 7000 per 10,000 of these policies. The remainder would have dropped out, forfeiting their policies, for various reasons. Up to 1909 the mortality lists per 10,000 in the moderate-drinking section was 9416, in the temperance section 7117. In reality the company paid the claims for 2299 more policies in the drinking section than in the temperance section, and this explains the mortality difference between the two.

In the English army in India an attempt was made to determine the difference between the sickness and mortality rates of the abstainers and non-abstainers, and the results of 20 years showed that of the total abstainers 45 per cent., received hospital treatment during this period and 100 per cent, of the moderate drinkers were cared for in the hospitals. Of the non-abstainers three to 100 were invalided from the service. Of the total abstainers one to 180 went back as invalids. Of the mortality among the moderate drinkers there were 27 per 1000. Amonc the total abstainers only nine and a-half per 1000. These facts are unmistakable evidence of the increased disease and mortality under conditions similar. A third statement of truth was made by a study of the prison population in Liverpool by Dr Sullivan, the medical officer.

He ascertained that of 600 children born of 120 drunken mothers 55 per cent, died at infancy, 10 per cent, were epileptic and 20 per cent, were mentally defective. In comparison with 600 children from mothers who were abstinent it was found that 20 per cent, died at infancy and only 8 per cent, were mentally defective or imperfect. He observed in the families of 100 degenerates, mostly from alcohol in both parents, there was a mortality of 70 per cent, of the children, and of the 30

r- ■• cent, more than half suffered from convulsions, epilepsy, and other serious degc leracies. These families were dying out, and of the children who came to maturity only a few lived to middle life. Jno race was practically extinct in the third generation. These three studies are unique in many respects, and may serve as a guide to observations which can be made in any section of the country. If enthusiastic temperance men want to examine the facts of the action of alcohol on plant life it can be done in their own homes with great certainty, and there is hardly a community in the country in which the experience of life insurance companies cannot be confirmed in a great variety of ways.