ALCOHOL’S PLACE IN MEDICINE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 721, 31 December 1903, Page 24

ALCOHOL’S PLACE IN MEDICINE.

VIEWS OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY.

Aj the annual Conference of the British Medical Association, held at Bristol, England, last week, several papers were read on the question of alcohol in relation to its effects on the human system. In the Psychology Section, presided ovei by Dr. Robert Jones (Liverpool;, Dr. Theo. R. Hyslop (London) introduced a discussion on alcohol in its relation to mental disease; He said that in the unhealthy body its use might be compared to a loan at heavy interest to cope with immediate necessity, and to enable the bodily processes to recuperate. He did not desire to underrate the importance of alcohol as an adjunct ■in the processes of progressive paralysis, but he did not believe alcohol alone was ever responsible for the disease termed general paralysis. Dr. Archdale Reid (Southsea) read a paper on human evolution with special reference to alcohol. He laid down a series of propositions, one of which was that parental disease did not affect in any way offspring subsequently produced. If, he affirmed, that parental intemperance affected offspring, they had in this an exception to an apparently uniform biological law. If offspring had been affected, then races which had lonp used alcohol should be degenerate and tending to extinction.. Jews, Greeks, Italians, South Frenchmen, Spaniards and Portuguese—the races which had for the longest time had the biggest supply of alcohol, were to-day the most temperate people on earth ? whereas savages, who had most recently experienced the effects of afcohol, were the most intemperate. As for legislation, repressive acts were useless among civilized nations.

The chairman expressed his agreement with the statement that disease which was resisted strengthened a nation, and that the English race had become the better for its use of afcohol. Dr. Mercier (London) said they must not forget the good qualities! of alcohol as a narcotic. In many cases it was the best narcotic which they possessed. Dr. A. T. Schofield (London) said that Dr. Reid had revived a theory which, led to horrible fatalism when he said that the whole race would become extinct if parents transmitted disease to their children. He believed, on the contrary, that a tendency to weakness or disease successfully resisted - through three. generations was absolutely stamped out in the fourth.

All the subsequent speakers refuted Dr. Reid’s contention.

The annual address on surgery was delivered by Dr. A. W. Mayo Robson, professor of surgery and pathology at the Royal College of Surgeons, in course of which he said : “Nor can I see why we should frighten the working-man out af taking his glqss of beier or* cider, is the latest craze, for I feel sure that it will be a bad thing for England if spirits should replace the national beverages. The statement that cancer is more frequent in Germany and England and other beer-drinking countries is no more proof of beer being the cause than was the statement of some years ago that tomatoes produce malignant disease.”— “London Wine and Spirit Gazette.”

A. well-known clergyman in South Melbourne tells this- of a man living in a small street at the back of his house. The clergyman had noticed that this toiler and moiler carried, a great deal more beer about him than was necessary, and determined to snatch a brand from the burning booze if he could. With this idea in mind, he spoke to the man next time he saw him staggering under his load. “My poor fellow,” he said, “ why don’t you give up the cursed drink? It’s* doing you a terrible mischief. If you go on like this you’ll certainly fill a drunkard’s grave.” “That’s true,” said the man, lugubriously. “If I go on I’ll fill a dozen drunkards' graves, sir. I’m a gravedigger: ”

Sir Thomas Dewar, the well-known Scotch whisky distiller and popular member of St. George’s, Tower Hamlets, Loudon, and one-time Sheriff of the City of London, is well known as a great traveller and a good ad-round sportsman. He knows every part of the British Empire, is well acquainted with the European Continent, has visited the United States and Japan, and, as a result, embodied his experiences in an interesting book, er-titled “ A Ramble Round the Globe.” Though he has a fine stud of horses in training at Newmarket, and is a keen follower of racing, Sir Thomas never bets. He was one of the pioneers; of motoring in Great Britain, and usually travels to those meetings held within easy distance of London in one of his cars. Sir Thomas owns two Panhards and a Do Dion. The Panhard is his favourite car, and he has driven it more than 20,000 miles.

“ Punch ” has been 'having a “ dig ” at the “ Mealers,” as the members of the No-Drink-Between-Meals Society are nicknamed. A recent issue contains a pictare showing a very stout man seated on a couch in a physician’s consulting room. The physician is seated opposite, while

the stout man’s wife —herself thin —stands behind the couch, and is evidently explaining her husband's symptoms and answering inquiries for him. The following words are printed below the picture : —Wife ; “You ask, ' How did he get into this obese state ?’ Mell, doctor, I’ll tell you. He’s signed a pledge only to drink at meals, and, I’m afraid, he’s overeaten himself.”

The number of analytes and examinations of beer made in the Excise branch of the British Government Laboratory during the year amounted to 83,370, or 2949 more than in the preceding year. The increase is principally in the samples examined for revenue purposes, but is also largely due to the numerous instances in which it is now deemed necessary to ascertain that materials used in the brewing of beer are not seriously contaminated with arsenic. Eleven hundred and seventy-three samples of beer, wort, and brewing materials were tested for the presence of arsenic, the great majority of which were either quite free from that impurity or contained only traces ; but in forty-four instances the amount was so notable that the brewers were informed in (he case of materials that they should not be used, and in the case of wort or beer, that it should not be sent into consumption.

A recent public oration, wherein the speaker took occasion to dwell upon what he said were the two peculiarities about Scottish Highlanders—their great devotion to the national drink and their power of absorbing whisky without apparently getting the worse of it —recalls to an English writer the old story of how the laird of Garscadden took his last draught. A considerable number of lairds had congregated for the ostensible purpose of talking over some parish business. They talked well and drank still better, and one of them, about the dawn of the morning, fixing his eye on Garsr cadden, remarked that he was “ looking unco gash ” (very ghastly). Upon which the laird of Kilmardinny cooly replied, “ Nae wonder, since he has been wi’ his Maker these twa hours ! I saw him step awa’, but I dinna like to disturb guid company !”

There has recently been a good deal of goody-goody agitation for the abolition of barmaids, especially in .Glasgow (writes the London correspondent of the “ Australian Brewers’ Journal ”). The chief ground why they should be abolished has been that they attract certain foolish young men to their bars, who

drink more than is good for them, in order to remain in the ladies’ company, there is the subsidiary ground that the barmaids for their part cannot resist the wiles of these admirers, and thus are led to lead dishonest lives. Thin is the view taken by certain old women in this country. But there is a barmaid question in Sweden, too. A telegram from Stockholm says it has reached the critical stage, the liquor traders wishing to abolish them on the ground that the personal charms of the ladies interfere with the consumption of drinks, and cause a consequent falling-off in the receipts. The traders being employers, one would have though there was no serious difficulty to overcome. But it seems that the customers prefer the ladies to minister to their wants, and have presented a petition in favour of their retention to a high quarter, and are prepared to hold fast by their determination to stand by the girls. Surely human nature is the same whether in Sweden or in Scotland 1 But it cannot possibly be the fact that the presence of the barmaids both tends to increase consumption and to decrease profits. Probably the truth lies between the two extrmes, and, on the whole, the customer drinks just as much whether served by a man or woman in the bar. But this is only another case, as far as the teetotal agitation in this country i» concerned, of that absence of charity to which I have already referred. The teetotal policy always is to throw as much mud as possible ; some of it sticks, and, at any rate, causes annoyance and the trouble of cleansing off, which are sufficient recompense, I suppose, for our opponents’ labour. *

Bottled beer was first made in a St. Louis (U.S.A.} brewery, and although this was barely two decades ago, to-day the breweries of the city ship out over 120,000,000 bottles annually.

The saloon business of Chicago (U.S.A.) is growing. The city has now 6557 drinking places.