DRINK NOT THE CAUSE OF WEAK INTELLECTS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 947, 30 April 1908, Page 22

DRINK NOT THE CAUSE OF WEAK INTELLECTS.

At the North of England Education Conference in Sheffie’d recently, the subject of the mentally defective was dealt with by Miss Denby, hon. secretary of the Lancashire and Cheshire Society for the Permanent Cure of the Feeble-minded. Speaking of the question of drink, she remarked: —“For generations good people have been trying to kill this evil habit of excess. Every bad feature of our lives has been put down to it. And now, when a great deal more attention is being paid to disease of the mind, or, perhaps, I should rather say, to the lack of mind in

our children, there is a jealous desire on the part of the'total abstainers to make out that this also is the result of the use of intoxicants. There cou’d not be a greater mistake. It is a very serious rhigtake, for we shall not cure people of a trouble they have not. Drink is a result and not a cause of weakness of intellect. .: . ’.. There is no reason, so far as I can obtain the information, why the children of drunkards should be more likely to be mentally defective than the children of sober people.”