TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 21750, 19 June 1934, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.)

" From my long experience as a teacher of physical culture I have come to the conclusion that the use of alcohol is a very decided disadvantage from a health point of view, and is a big handicap from an athletic one. Even the mild use of alcohol slows one’s control of muscles,’ says Clarence Weber, the famous Austrian athlete. ALCOHOL AND RACIAL REGENERATION. From an address by Mrs T. £. Taylor, dominion president of the Women s Christian Temperance Union ’: — Last mouth I had a letter from Dr Salecby, the gi’eat research scientist and eugenist, in answer to a question ot mine, asking him whether certain modern scientists are correct in belittling the effects of alcohol as a racial poison and a prolific cause of mental degeneration. In his letter ,he declares that there is nothing later in scientific findings than those given in a leaflet entitled ‘ Guard Your Race,’ which is the mime of an address given by himselt m Toronto in 1922 and which has been on our literature shelves for years. He tells in his book, ‘Methods ot Race Regeneration,’ speaking of work bv the biologist Maedougall and others on germ plasm—work recommended by Professor Gilbert Bourne, of Oxfoid, for English students: —“ In this new work T venture to find steadily accumulating warrant for the view that certain substance's, of which alcohol, lead, and the syphilitic toxin, are types, are racial poisons, which may originate detect, abnormality, or disease in a previously healthy stock, the more important ot them being capable of producing poisoning of the ggrin plasm, which falls most severely upon the mcndelian factors ol the nervous system of the unborn child. To all and sundry T would say: Mould you befriend men. women, and children? Go, protect parenthood from alcohol; and fear not that kind or laughter which is as ( the crackling ot thorns under a pot.’ ” . Sir Truby King has fully endorsed all this in his advice to mothers and expectant mothers, and to his own testimony. Dr Saleeby adds that, among ß *; many others, of Professor Stockard, of Cornell University Hospital, Dr Beitholct, of Lausanne, and Mr Mjeou, ot Norway. And coming quite dose home. Dr Grey, Director-General of Mental Hospitals in New Zealand, m his annual report for 1932, says, in writing; ot the causation of mental disorder: Conti ai j to popular belief, serious massed stresses do not produce insanity, the healthy, stable brain is capable of insisting' tremendous stresses. A sound inheritance is the best insurance against mental disorder.” But he goes on.to say - “As is well known, alcohol and syphilis can cause profound tion of the .nervous system, with resultant insanity.” , , „ Surely no more authorities need be adduced to make causation m a huge number of cases quite clear,.and. our duty, as teachers ot total abstinence. 18 thus raised to the highest possible plane, and its necessity made imperative m race regeneration. , . , To those who imagine that classification, segregation, or sterilisation aie sufficient to stem the rising tide ot mental defect in our nation, we would point out that in Great Britain, Aus tralia, New Zealand, America, to say nothing of other countries, the authorities are agreed that the numbers of those unfortunate people are so great that the resources of the nations arc utterly inadequate to cope with the cost of segregation. Sterilisation may help to cut off the source of supply ior a time, but cannot possibly prevent the poisoning df healthy stock by alcohol and V.D. in future generations A further opportunity for studying this question wi". be taken during convention, as well as for passing necessary resolutions. This brings us to the end of a very inadequate review of the past, and leaves us, perhaps, staggering at its demands upon our faith and resources, as far as the future is concerned! INTOXICANT’S IRE. When a drunken man was arrested by the Clarence street patrol in George street, city, he struggled desparately with Constable Scott in the back ot the car while being taken to the Central Police Station. Assisted into the. station, the man suddenly drew a bottle from his hip pocket and smashed it to atoms on the floor. That completed the energy of intoxication, and he passed meekly into the cells. , ~ This seems like locking np the stable door after the baboon has escaped. Jr he had only treated the first bottle ike that instead of the last he wouldn t have been in the cooler.—“ Grit. ITALIAN DOCTORS AND WINE. We are indebted to Dr Hercod lor the following verdicts by representative Italian doctors, concerning the use ot alcohol with meals. ~ “An obstacle to the digestion, Dr Beallanti, University of Pisa. “ Always unnecessary, often harmful,” Dr G. Jona, Civil Hospital, Venice. ~ “ In the majority of cases useless, Dr Muggia, Sondrio. “ Better not to drink wine at all with food,” Dr Pellizi, Pisa University. “Is superfluous, not necessary to life,” Dr Bianchini, Nocera. “ An obstacle to normal digestion, Dr Vivante, Venice. “Is always useless and dangerous, even in moderate doses,” Dr Zannoni. Vicenza. LIQUOR DRUGS THE BRAIN. In a newspaper of recent date wo read of the young man who, having been arrested for being drunk aml_ committing a crime, when he was questioned by the judge aswerod: “ I drank beer and liquor and did not know what I was doing.” That young man’s eye was dimmed and his natural force was abated by the consumption of that which intoxicated. Instead of following the example of great men of sane and sober habits, he had listened to the lure of the liquor interests’ invitation to drink that which stole his mind. ALL ALCOHOL A POISON. Professor Max Kassqwitz, of Vienna, a distinguished scientist, makes this statement: “ Alcohol is neither a good nor a bad nutritive substance, but a poison attacking and destroying proto.plasni.” BEER UNUSED. General Lee was a free man physically. The story is told of him as be was starting to the Mexican War that a. friena prevailed upon him to take a bottle of fine old whisky. He carried it all through the conflict without opening it, and on his return home sent the bottle back to the giver that she might be convinced that ho could get along without liquor. 1