PROFESSOR YOUNG ON ALCOHOL.

Western Star, Issue 950, 23 May 1885, Page 3

PROFESSOR YOUNG ON ALCOHOL.

At the graduation ceremony at the close of the summer session of the medical classes of Glasgow University, Professor Young, in the course of the valedictory address, made the following important statement in regard to the increase in the number of abstaining students and to what was intemperance:—Proceeding to speak of certain diseases, the learned professor took occasion to remark that the hospital was imt the place in which they could learn much as to the dietetic use of alcohol under normal conditions. It rarely gave them the opportunity of seeing the class of cases in which the amount of the dose made all the difference between good and bad health. It was not, perhaps, too much to say that medicine was leaning steadily more and more to the side of total abstinence. At least it was certain that medical men were moving in that direction themselves. Thirty years ago a teetotal student was, if he existed, a person of some courage or of solitary habits. To-day there was a very large number of total abstainers in the classes, and their numerical increase of late years was to him very striking and significant. These men at any rate were not likely to bo lax in their advice as to alcohol, and commencing thus early, they were not open to the charge too often justly brought against the uncompromising apostles of total abstinence that they were thus atoning for former indiscretions. Understand him rightly on this point; it was not the quantity taken which made a man intemperate. A man might merit this reproach who took two glasses of sherry daily ; from the medical point of view he might •: be i more intemperate than he who took a larger quantity. Nor was intoxication the test, for many a man died of drinking who was never seen drunk. But if the quantity, however small, was in excess of what the liver »nd lungs could deal with, if the small quantity impaired appetite, disturbed sleep, and rendered work irritating and irksome, it was time to consider whether the small quantity should not be diminished, or, better, given up. Formerly a man would have been insulted by their interference with bis dinner or drink unless he happened to be seriously ill, when strong measures were thought justifiable. Now, diet was more important than drugs; but unfortunately it was far more difficult to deal with than the contents of the pharmacopeia.