MEDICAL TEMPERANCE.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 270, 18 December 1917, Page 4

MEDICAL TEMPERANCE.

Dear Feliow-Workers, At the piesent time, when public feeling is in favour of restricting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors because their use lowers our national efficiency, ought we not to make special efforts to educate the public on the medical side of the question? Ln the new evidence against alcohol it is shown to be a depiessant, never a stimulant. “Impairment seems to be the keynote expressed by the depression,” says the Journal of the American Medical Association in an editorial review upon some of the latest scientific experiments of the

effects of alcohol upon the nervous system. The editorial quotes approvingly what Quensel said: “Work and alcohol do not belong together, especially when work demands wideawakeness, attention, exactness, and endurance.” Professor Conn, in his review of these experiments, says: “Two very important general com lusions concerning the physiological action of alcohol seem to be reached from this new series of tests. Alcohol is the one universal narcotising drug. Various other drugs have a narcotic effect upon certain actions, and are somewhat selective as to the functions they will depress. But alcohol seems to depress all vital functions, and it ap]R*ars to be the only one of the narcotics that has this universal action.. “Alcohol in small quantities has the same effect that it has in large quantities, although less in amount. The apparent stimulating action which is sometimes seen in small doses of alcohol, when traced analytically to its cause, proves to be due to the fact that the alcohoi has paralysed certain mental functions, allowing others to run riot, as it were, unchecked by the normal controlling functions of the undrugged human brain.” Dr. Sims Woodhead, professor of pathology at Cambridge University, England, said some years ago, in speaking of alcohol as a medicine: “In 90 per cent, of cases where alcohol was given it was found that instead of getting a better condition, the and blood vessels attained a condition more dangerous to the patient.” I)r. Woodhead was asked for a substitute for brandy in cases of collapse tor home use. He recommended hot water and hot milk. These could be carried in a thermos bottle as easily as brandy is carried in a flask. He was asked also if port wine is bloodmaking, and replied that it is no good whatever in that respect. Madame Von Wolfing, of Paris, the well-known bacteriologist, reports that her observations show that alcohol produces the sam. reactions in the blood as are produced by the poisons of bacteria. Sir A. Pearce Gould, recognised nil over the world as an authority on cancer, in a recent lecture stated that the experience of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident

Institution (insurance company) was that death from cancer was more than twice as frequent among the nonabstaining section of their policyholders as it was among the ibstaining section. His experience with this disease led him to say that i? i: more rapid and more distressing among those who take alcohol. Dr. J. Wallace Beveridge, formerly instructor in children’s diseases in Cornell University Medical College, declares that the consumption of spirituous liquors by parents materially reduces the birth-rate, particularly that its use by mothers qf babies results in infant disease and death. The effect of alcohol upon infant mortality is appalling. He also says: “Just let us glance for a moment at the physiological action of alcohol. It causes a lowering of the body temperature of from one to three degrees. At first it increases the heart action, but lowers the blood pressure through the dilation of the blood vessels. It affects the nervous system directly through the blood.

“It has been found present in the blood stream fifteen minutes after taking. It causes a tremendous flow of blood to the capillaries and small blood-vessels that supply the stomach. At the same time there is a corresponding lessening of the blond supply in the brain. “After alcohol has been taken for some time, either in smaM or greater amounts, the muscle cells degenerat • through a fatty degeneraion or through direct starvation. The small blood vessels of the brain often are ruptured, and minute (lots form. “This breaking down of the cell structures of the body, of the lessening of the oxidation, creates a distinct toxic condition which is very difficult to eliminate. In tinn* various portions of the body, sueh as the liver, stomach, and kidneys, become seriously damaged. “One very interesting fact which I have noticed is that in the majority of cases when a patient is suffering from malignant growths, such as cancer in the abdominal organs, there is usually an alcoholic hist ny. It is reasonable to presume that where a vital organ like the stomach has its delicate tissues constantly irritated, as is done by the steady use of alcohol, that the way is opened for whatever pathological change may take place wherein

cancer is given a chance to manifest itself.” A‘ a medicine, in the opinion of many of our greatest doctors, alcohol has practically no value. The great weight of scientific evidence leads to the conclusion that alcohol is an unmitigated evil. It has been eliminated from the pharmacoepia of the U.S.A. The figures gathered by the State Hoard of Health show that only three-fourths of a tablespoonful per year per patient is prescribed by the best and highest class physicians. That it is not efficient as a medicine is easily shown by the fact that many of the best doctors never prescribe it at all. At the annual meeting of the neurologists of America, held in Chicago, July, 1 <>l4, it was resolved: “That organised medicine should initiate and carry wn a systematic, persistent propaganda for the education of the public regarding the deleterious effects of alcohol.” Friends, this is what we must do, carry on a systematic propaganda for the education of the public regarding the evil effects of alcohol upon the organs of the human body. The following leaflets should be purchased, and distributed by all Unions, especially at public meetings, and at meetings held for mothers in connection with Cradle Roll work. 1 would also suggest that the two leaflets, “Alcohol Drinking Hinders Business,” and “Alcohol, the Young Man’s Greatest Enemy,” be distributed to boys of high school age. I can supply the following at per dozen:— Safe Remedies in Illness, Bd. Yew Evidence Against Alcohol, 4d. Medical Opinions of Alcohol as a Remedy, 4d. A Patent Medicine Quiz, 4d. How can the Medical Temperance Department of the W.C.T.U. Help to Bring Prohibition? 4d. Why' Headache Remedies are Dangerous, 4d. Beer Drinking Injures Health, 4d. Do Weak Hearts Need Alcohol? 4d. Alcohol Drinking Hinders Business Success, 4d. Should Pledged Abstainers t T se Alcohol as Medicine? 4d. A Yew York Physician’s Arraignment of Alcohol, 4d. How Drunkards are Made in the Home, 4d.

Medicated Wines, 4d. Do Alcoholic Liquors Aid Digestion? 4d. Medical Temperance Quiz, 4<;l. Medical Men and the Alcohol Ques tion, 4d. How to Avoid Constipation, 4d. West Virginia State Medical Society Against Alcohol, 4d. Special Medical Directions lor Women, 4d. What Can Nurses Do for Temperance, 4d. Trained Nurses and Alcohol, 4d. Recent Medical Opinions and Find ings Upon Alcohol, 411. Alcohol the Young Man’s Greatest Enemy: Why? 4d. Alcoholic Degeneracy, 4d. Alcohol Injures Children, 4d. Alcohol and Nursing Mothers, 4d. Save the Babies, 4d. British Doctors Against Alcohol, 2d. Nerve Specialists and Insanity Ex perts Denounce Alcohol, 2d. A Bottle and Two Glasses, 2d. Physicians Not Using Alcohol, 2d. The Medical Profession Officially Divorced from the Liquor Traffic, 2d. Alcohol Baths, 2d. Why Patent Medic nes Should Not Be Advertised and Sold, 2d. Deaths, Poisoning, and Drug Habits Result from Taking Patent Modi cines, 2d. An Easy Road to Drunkenness, 2d. A sample packet, containig one each of the above leaflets, is, j»st free. Trusting that every Union will send a report before December :51st. \ours in White Ribbon bonds, CLARA M. NEAL, Dominion Supt., Pahiatua.