THE VALUE OF ALCOHOL.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 872, 22 November 1906, Page 21

THE VALUE OF ALCOHOL.

The value of alcohol as a drug and a food has been thoroughly discussed at the meeting of the British Medical Association held at Toronto. There has, of course, been widely dissentient opinions on the question, but there was evidently a preponderance of opinion for its utility in both respects. “Medicus” contributed a valuable article on the subject to the “Argus,” which is well worth reading; and Dr. Emil Reich made some admirable comments in reply to Sir Victor Horsley in an interview with a representative of the London “Daily Mail.”

The primary objection we take to the remarks of “doctors” on both sides is that they will not give sufficient consideration to the individuality of persons, but bunch all men in*o one big class. Just

as the expression, “Quot homines, tot sententioe,” is admittedly true psychologically, so we maintain that the physical nature of one man differs in some for many respects from that of all his fellows. “What is one man’s food is another man’s poison,” although a vulgar summary, has in it far more truth than is admitted by the medical empirics, who are always generalising from imperfect premises. We have accounts of centenarians who for years have never gone sober to bed, and we read of men whom a couple of nobbiers per day has driven to an early grave. Teetotalism, as Dr. Reich expresses it, is nothing but a “browbeating of Nature,” and Nature takes her revenge by driving teetotal nations to the wall; but she encourages those that drink moderately by giving them a foremost place amongst the races of mankind.

History has proved this fact so definitely that the wonder is that its lesson is not universally accepted. All the greatest nations —the Greeks, the Romans, the French, the Teutons, and the AngloSaxons—have all been moderate drinkers ; whereas, as Dr. Reich points out, the Mohammedans, the Spaniards, the Hindoos —in fact, all the decadent races—have been abstainers, and have fallen to the rear.

Although Nature very often preserves the type at the expense of the individual, she makes an exception in this case. It must be remembered we are speaking of men who drink moderately, and not of

those who misuse her. The men who drink moderately are far superior mentally and physically to the rampant teetotaller. Anyone who has rubbed shoulders with the big ones of the earth will recognise this as an unchallengeable fact. Dr. Moorhouse, whose big personality impressed itself strongly on two strong peoples —Victorians and Lancastrians was a moderate drinker, and was not ashamed to acknowledge that to deprive him would be to rob him of one-half of his intellectual vitality and activity. Both physically and mentally Bishop Moorhouse was, when in his prime, a “big man,” and he has by his side in this matter many other big men oi his class. But as Dr. Reich points out, “the puritanical itch to suppress something natural” is always interfering with men’s pleasures in life. In England it robbed whole generations of the glorious creations and the divine wisdom of Shakespeare’s works. It inspired Prynne and Ireton, and the unco’ guid of Scotland, to proclaim everything a sin which was not expressly permitted in the Old Testament. If they had their way, our Puritans would deprive us not only of the cup that cheers, but of the theatre, of music’s charms, of the dance, and of the physical culture which makes the Anglo-Saxon the most beautiful man-animal of the world, as was the Greek in the infancy of civilisation. Of course the “shivers,” as Dr. Reich calls them, of Prynne, of Fox, of Wesley, and of Whitfield, not to forget those of the noble army of the Scotch worthies, passed off and mostly changed to pitiable reaction, and this teetotal shiver will pass off in turn. The world is progressing daily, and is gradually approaching a just realisation of its true limitations. Men are now far more sober than were their grandfathers, because the sum total of public opinion, for merely utilitarian reasons, is turned against drunkenness.

The value of alcohol is, therefore, to some men—not necessarily to all—entirely incalculable. When there is born to the world one who will embody in himself all the attributes and idiosyncrasies of the whole race of mankind, the physician will then be able to give a reliable opinion, and not till then.—“ Australian Brewers’ Journal.”