BEER AND BEER DRINKERS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 946, 23 April 1908, Page 21

BEER AND BEER DRINKERS.

The following letter appeared over the signature of Mr E. A. Leeder, secretary Lquor Trades’ Defence Unon of S.A., in “The Advertiser,” Adelaide, on nth February, iqoB : — To the Editor —Sir, —I could hardly expect to make any letter upon the above subject either convincing or acceptable to anyone holding such wrong as Mr Delehanty does, but I hope I have been able from to time to show your readers that although much has been said and written in condemnation of the use of alcohol, there are many qualified authorities who strongly favour the use of stimulating beverages in moderation. I submit that the manifesto signed last year by sixteen eminent medical men in favour of alcoholic drinks is not “now discredited,” although, as anticipated, it has been vigorously assailed by the other side. English history shows how intimately the beer of the land has been connected with the physique of the men. From the time of Henry the Eighth to that of the strongest ruler England ever had —Oliver Cromwell, himself a brewer—one cannot rend without finding frequent references to the national beverage—beer. After being in practice for more than 5° years, an intense enemy of excess of any kind, Dr F. A. Monkton. of New Zealand, states that he has deliberately come to the conclusion that beer possesses a means of imparting a vigour which materially assists the system in resisting the attack of the consumption bacllus- Then we have it, on the authority of Dr Thomas Dutton that although an excess of alcohol does harm. so likewise, does an excess of meat, sugar, or even water, and it is irrational to claim that the use of the articles in question should on this account be abandoned. He further expressed the opinion that beer was the best drink for persons under 40 years of age. On another occasion the same authority said: “I will venture to assert that fully 80 per cent, of the medical profession do themselves partake of alcoholic stimulants in some form or other, and also order them for their patients.” A committee was appointed. by the British Medical Association to investigate the subjects of total abstinence, moderate drinking and the misuse of liquor, and their physiologicaleffects on the term of life. Its conclusions were drawn from 4234 deaths, and it was found that the average lives were as follows :— Total abstainers ... 51 years and 22 days. Habitually temperate drinkers ••• 63 years and 13 days. Careless drinkers ... 59 years and 67 days. Free drinkers ... 57 years and 5q days. Intemperate drink- ... ers 53 y ear s and 3 da ysThese figures speak for themselves. At a breakfast given by the National Temperance League to the British Medical Association in August last, the president, Mr Daw, while regretting the evils caused by excessive drinking, put in a plea for light beers, and stated that “teetotal advocates talked most .unscientific twaddle.” He used: port wine hmself. His great-unc’e Ived to be oo and up to the age of 80 he drank a bottle of port every day. Dr J. Haydon Brown, L.R.C.P, Edin., says: “Alcoholic stimulants save innumerable lives daily, and I defv all the scientists mere are to devise substitutes, which would be as effectual, as- palatable, and as altogether convenient.” Dr J. Mortimer Granville, writing to the “Times,” said: “I sincerely believe that incalculable harm has been done to the average human organism, with its functions, which we are wont to classify as mental and by the spread of teetotal views and practices. It will be noted that the foregoing are not the unsupported assertions of extremists, but are the opinions of medical authorities of great experience. It may be said with confidence that most , men, eminent for literary genius, for mental force or intellectual superiority—poets, historians, orators, statesmen, scientists—have belonged to the category of temperate drinkers; but. on the other hand,

genius of any kind has rarely been associated with total abstinence. If everyone in the world became a" teetotaller tomorrow, in the first place almost onethird of the revenues of several countres would vanish ; there would be a great deal less of perfectly innocent conviviality and comfort in the world ; other commodities would be taxed to make up the loss of revenue, and many millions of people would be ruined, until other employment could be found for them. Mil-

lions of others would take to drugs, and, instead of asking a friend to have it glassof beer or wine, one would probably offer him a morpha tabloid, which, of course, would do him considerable more harm. All nations ip the van of civilisation consume alcoholic beverages. The teetotal nations are nowhere. We find also that the greater number- of the -best men doing the best work that can be done in the world are habitual consumers of alcoholc beverages.