ALCOHOLOGY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 20, 18 July 1911, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY

DO THYSELF NO HARM! (Published by Arrangement). This is a wise maxim, and it would seem unnecessary: If men and women would think and then aet on their bettor judgment there would be no need for such an exhortation. This is especially true when it is applied to the question of drink. Do yourself no harm in your drinking when converted into practice means total abstinence from alcoholic drinks. There are a few who question this conclusion; they say—everybody says—that heavy drinking of strong spirits is harmful, but "they" say that moderate drinking is innocent. If it were always confined to strict moderation—that indefinable quantity—it is harmful, because, in the first place, it is unnecessary, and not beneficial; in the second place it is dangerous, or, as Sir Thos. Barlow, M.D., says, "it is fraught with untold dangers." The very moderate quantity produces a sort of •exhilaration which when it is passed leaves a sense of humiliation, as the drinker thinks how foolish he hns been. But when, however, the drinker becomes callous to such a sense of humiliation the next stage, degradation, has commenced. Whilst no one has yet shown what is a harmless daily quantity of alcohol ior any one to consume, so no one has yet shown the benefit (gain without loss) to be derived from its use. There are a few things we do know about those who abstain from alcohol, and that is that they have less sickness, and if overtaken by accident or disease they recover more readily, and that they live longer. There is one bit of evidence: Dr. Wishart made a two years' study of 40 families (200 persons); 20 were abstainers, and 20 were not abstainers, in other respects alike both in occupation and conditions of living. In every respect the abstainers were superior to the drinkers—fathers, mothers and children. The former had a total of 695 days' sickness annually (for 100 persons), and the latter had a total of 1575 days' sickness. If we turn to the life insurance returns we find that teetotallers live longer than drinkers—even than moderate drinkers, for insurance companies will not take the risk of insuring drunkards. The Sceptre Life Association, the United .Kingdom Temperance Life Association, and many other companies, all keep separate accounts for abstainers and for drinkers, and these separate accounts all show that drink is a life shortener, that atj any age the abstainer has better prospects oE long life, and that to a considerable extent.

DO THYSELF NO HARM is, however, not merely a duty one owes to himself: it is a duty everyene owes to society, to the community. Everyone ought to be as efficient for service as he can be, but drink is a bar to efficiency. The man with only moderate drinking is not as well fitted for duty as he would be if he were a total abstainer. The tests that modern research has applied to this question show that neither physically nor mentally are men as efficient when using alcoholic drinks as they are without them. In the light of all this the State—the people—has a perfect right to say to everyone: YOU SHALL NOT DO YOURSELF HARM by drinking alcoholics. You render yourself more liable to disease and accident by so doing; you waste your money and so render yourself more likely to be a cost to the country for charitable aid and old-age pensions; even as a moderate drinker now you are on the road—the only road—that leads to drunkenness, which is also a heavy expense to the community." This is a plain man's justification of what some regard as an interference with individual liberty, when he declares in favor of prohibition of the importation, manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages.