TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 6

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter under thia heading Is publish 'in at the request ot, and is supplied by. the United Temperance Hetorin Council In pursuance of the desire to inculcate the principles of temperance.] ALCOHOL AND THE UNBORN CHILD. By Dr Madeline Archibald, Glasgow, in tbe Scottish Women's Temperance News. MATERNAL INSTINCT. There is an old Celtic legend, tinged with that mysticism that gives infinite sadness and sweetness to so many Celtic songs and stories, which tells of the unborn Children of the Mist waiting beyond mountain, peak, and cloud for the plaintive call of women aching and praying for motherhood. As they waited an old harpist played end sang to them, telling them stories of the ancient glories of the clans, the romance of Highland glens, and brave deeds done on cruel mountain sides. He told of the Children of the Mist without flock or shieling, hearth or altar, hunted like the deer and driven like the wolf to seek refuge in remote fastnesses, without protection unless when tbe mist rolled down to blind their enemies and hide their poor couch of heather on some storm-stricken hill. The legend tells how little unborn Children of the Mist stole up to the harper pleading that they might remain secure from cruel earth, which seemed to hold for them nothing but sorrow and terror, fire and sword, and tears as plentiful as the falling rain. Then the plaintive, tender cries of the Women of tbe Mist came shivering through, like leaves carried by a gentle wind, and the faces of the children brightened for the promise of mother love suddenly became the greatest of all things against which terror, tears, ami the pain of death were as nothing. And before the harpist had time to answer or dissuade, the Children of the Mist had gone to claim their heritage. . Nobody will decry mother love, or deny its beauty or supremacy. In its presence even the sheer savagery of many instincts is transmuted. But mother lov e must niake use of every advance in knowledge it it is to remain a blind instinct The honess will die in her lair to protect her helpless cubs; the mothers of savage ami benighted tribes will sacrifice themselves to save their infants; and the same instinct is planted in the civilised mother, b . ut . w’” l a R the resources of science and civilisation to give it force and cogency, indeed, it one were seeking a standard to measure the development of civilisat’on m any community, infant welfare, which is ultimately the expression of the maternal instinct, would provide a ready and reliable criterion. It is true that infant we fare is more than a domestic concern; the hearth is but a small unit in btate or community; and the mother’s efforts, however bravely willed, intellig?nt A motived, or prayerfully guided, arc at the best foreshortened and circumscubed. But domestic economy touches at many points the greater circle of national economy; and the legislation which governs the harmony of the poorest hearth is part parent at least of that great complex of statute and law whiclt seeks to of e nn^ ,nlg Ti V natlon into "owe semblance of unity, lhe eras which sought to repress women are gone. The bitterest anti-J-ea 'on ■ l SUbl T tting / t ,ast reason to 1 cason, has been forced to recognise woman’s, right to share in shaping her environment. The mother obev ng the J bent o„ U ’ ge °- f hGI ; instinct bent on securing the full measure of

CHILDHOOD’S MAGNA CHARTA. Charta CIUI Tn°° d St ‘ H - a - vaits its Magna jait? In communities ringing with hos e pkM C and hl r V b m 7 tS ’ tLe statist >es of the tears o d f llFi l? ar ° ’ stained with uie tears of little children. One lon*q for the biting irony of Swift to depict the situation; scientific workers, keen and masterly intellects, are obtainin'* each day more and more control over diseasetl>e \ detailed papers read like the tactics and strateev of n commander whose ditionn? = ar ° f °, lclng t! J e cnom y t 0 uncontheir Daren ; anc * y. et » the slums and non parent causes remain m leering whM d fi° f * ,OS - e < ; l ® inent ary rules of hygiene which figure m kmdergarden primers let stinf^Uill 1 ‘ at i a ” enli " htene(J maternal inof childhioT S SeC,U ’ e the Ma « na Cha, ta

ANTENATAL CARE. Medical science whose weapons hive nla?t/r - t outnumbered the bottle and the i S concc its attention on nw.f Care ',rA lc chlld cannot select its own mother. The maternal instinct unR'l.ulcd cannot secure a healthy child The heMth "bl / 0 a full herita ? e of life > health beauty, sweetness, light, i s un l deniable. It is too late to seek to arrange bhih nV n Onment x from ? h ? moment of its bnth. One must go further back, search out constitutional, hereditary defects in its ancestry, and root them out. Such a search may be impossible, and the application of remedies hopeless and vain. But the potential mother, provided that she is not a mental defective, will be eager to bear a healthy child, and her own good sense wish and will can be abundantly aided. Ante-natal care is not a new thing Many old essays, medical and lay and wise saws and sayings, by the score, refer to the period of pregnancy. Was theapregnant woman not advised to keep her mind sweet to look on fair and beautiful things to cherish pure and noble thoughts, "to treasure in her heart the sunshine of a summer s day ? Sh 0 was warned to avoid evil and misshapen things. Science has taught us that the deformities of unfortunate infants have nothing to do with maternal impressions. But the pregnant woman forms an environment for ther unborn child. It is her blood which nourishes it, her nervous system has it to some extent under her control; and plainly, her. dejeds or misdeeds will lie in some ’ way reflected in the growing child within. ALCOHOL AND ANTE-NATAL CARE. . What is the truth about alcohol? Is it a stimulant or narcotic ? Stimulants are not necessarily bad in themselves, neither ar© narcotics; but the matter is a relajlve, on °» and must be considered in the double aspect of the drug and the condition of the person taking it. It has been proved beyond doubt arid cavil that alcohol

is a narcotic, a drug which depresses physical. and psychical activity,, producing conditions conducive to unconsciousness. The sleep which a narcotic drug produces is not a natural sleep. , There are times when a narcotic may oc necessary, as when an anaesthetic is given during some surgical operation, or opium administered to relieve unbearable p al ?’i. a . narcotic is not. required in health, and in pregnancy, which is a physiological condition of healthy growth, a narcotic is unnecessary; if may be, inn’i.e i a i s 9 urce °f danger and disaster, the body is ultimately composed of cells; cell activity and division are the ultimate expressions of growth. Pregnancy, as it has been pointed out, is a period of abundant growth; there is a press of cell activity, a multiplicity of cell division, new blood vessels are opened up to cope with the rush and pressure of an expanding blood stream, and tissue is bein'* abundantly and ceaselessly added to tissue” The effect of a narcotic is to damp down ceil activity, to call a halt to those minute multifarious parts which the cell contents play in the drama of growth and creation. Natures efforts are backed, stifled, and annulled. J?liat is the effect of alvoliol in pregnancy; and if a healthy child springs from alcoholic parents it has done so by virtue of Nature’s great resiliency. But health is not easily defined, and disease may escape the most skilled and detailed detection. The interference with cell activity, if continued through pregnancy, must assuredly issue in constitutional defect There is no physiological call for alcohol during pregnancy. Alcohol is a drug, dangerous to healthy growing tissue It strikes at mother and child alike. Growth is equally active in both; tissue and cell are engaged in creative construction.

The seductive cocktail, however, subtly flavoured, is even more potent to harm than, the tumbler of crude and throatbaking ruin, lhe cocktail habit is growing, and girls who would hesitate to gulp raw whisky or imbibe a tankard of beer appear to be fascinated by the cocktail, lhe colour, the bouquet, the manner in which it is served mav satisfy some crude feeling of artistry in ill-trained minds. But eventuality the narcotic takes sway, and the habit becomes just as vulgar, degrading, and disastrous as swilling rum or gin. If they carry the habit over into their married Jives its dangers wiil become manifest in pregnancy; it will destroy the fine mental balance maintained by untainted blood and healthy nerve and, above all, it will disorder the process of growth and creation which makes for a healthy child.