ALCOHOLIC DEGENERACY.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 249, 18 March 1916, Page 2

ALCOHOLIC DEGENERACY.

One of our greatest scientists has said: —“A great wave of degeneracy is sweeping the land a degeneracy so appalling in magnitude that it staggers the mind. What is the cause of this degeneracy? A hundred different intermediate agencies may contribute to the undoing of the race, but ha< k of them all stands alcohol tinch ief degenerative factor, numbering more victims than have* been slain in all the* wars and in all the epidemics of acute disease th.it have swept the* country within two hundred years. The application of modern scientific methods has reduced the* mortality from acute diseases, such as typhoid, yellow fever, and the plague. The source* and the carriers of these infections have been discovered. By abolishing the sources and exterminating the Hy, the mosquito, and the rat, the average length of life has been increased. With what marked contrast do we deal with alcohol, that most potent source and carrier of chronic disease. Boards of Health, armed with the police power of the Statt, eradicate the carriers of typhoid and quarantine the* victims, but alcohol a thousand times more destructive to public health than typhoid fever continues to destroy. Alcoholic degeneracy the most important sanitary question before the country, and yet the health authorities do not take action, as alcohol is entrenched in politics. We are face to face with the greatest crisis in our country’s history. The alcohol question must be settled within the next ten years, or some more virile race will write the epitaph of this country.”