THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW ON ALCOHOL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 687, 30 April 1879, Page 2

THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW ON ALCOHOL.

The discussion on alcohol, started by the managers of the Contemporary, has been tedious to read when published in snippets through three consecutive months ; but when read as a whole, the papers are not lengthy, and they contain some valuable information. The leading idea has not been to consider the question of alcohol as a whole, but to obtain the opinion of experts on the subject of drinking, as ordinarily practised by average Englishmen, and especially its effect on health. Great experts, like Sir James Paget, Sir William Gull, Dr. Radcliffe, Dr. Garrod, Dr. Risdon, Bennet, and six or seven others, have been induced to record their opinions ; and the result, when the papers are carefully studied, is a kind of consensus very valuable to the uninstructed public. The great body of professional opinion here recorded is distinctly on the side of the value of alcohol aa a medicine, and as a luxury, or even as a food, when taken in very strict moderation. Even Sir William Gull, who is apparently doubtful of the use of wine or beer for any buc the old — holding that good food, particularly if taken in the form of Liebig's extract, willsupply all needful support — thinks that the friends of total abstinence go too far, and does not believe that in recommending abstinence "you can start witlt the idea that there is no use in alcohol and no good in wine ;" while Sir James Paget puts, with great force and clearness, the argument from experience, which shows that as between the drinking and the abstaining races there is, "as to work-ing-power, both bodily and mental, no question that the advantage is on the side of those who use alcoholic drinks." He might have added moral power, it being undoubted that the Turks, Afghans, and other teetotal races of Asia, are distinctly more addicted to crime than Asiatic races like the Burmese, Jews, aud Armenians, all of which indulge in alcohol. ' ' We find a similar result m a comparison of the races of Europe, among whom different proportions of alcoholic drinks are habitually consumer!. Comparing North and South, we certainly compare those who drink more with those who drink less ; and the advantage is with those who drink more, especially when we compare them in respect of general activity and force of mind and body, in readiness and fitness for work, in enterprise, invention production, and all the signs of the best mental activity and strength." Dr.- Garrod sums up his opinion in the sentence that " the majority of adults can take a moderate quantity of alchol, not only with impunity, but often with advantage." Dr. J. Risdbn-Bennett says : — " The

Majority of those who have to go through the-labours of a Parliamentary session, or of afiy similar continuous mental striajn, jjMll, I am convinced, Admit that the& Bdo their work better and with~miifr§ comfort to themselves if they take three or four glasses of sherry or claret as a part of their daily food." Dr. R. Brudenell Carter goes to length of asserting, with evidence from his own experience, that " there are some to whom alchol is a necessity, if they*£i«e*tbi ag&errtMf ullTHMSHnnßr*'" their powers ;",/while? Dr. .Radoliffe positively denounces the total abstainers, and though -refusing... to spirits even when well diluted, on the ground of the moral- danger of tneir Use, owing to the temptation to increase the dose, maintains the cause k)lihfef lighter wines and light beer with wvaoite^aod^, conviction. We may, iwVtfttti^iß»w# broadly that all these ex^tW-^one of** whom, it should be remembered (Dt\ Garrod), is a specialist in pjbitt, the disease attributed to alchol —hold that* except toafewconstitutions, the mcKJdrare use of wine or beer is umnjuriou's} "or even beneficial. They do not ustlally define these constitutions, and' afo curiously silent as to any degree* *ot" lH differenence which may exist in the effect of alcohol on the differing- Con*' stitutions of men and women } but they draw on a broad and uacfuipinV.' The young want no drink, and are probably injured by it. During the perioll'ofgrowth the waste which alcohol helps to repair is less, and is far ttioro easily replaced by good food, and esoecially by milk, while the taste,, especially for sweet or luscious wine, is very easily developed. The young should / be' total abstainers, even from the beer which many parents and schoolmasters think so essential to health, its place beigg^ most beneficially supplied by milk or good meat food. /'■'■ I