DRINK AND THE DEATH RATE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 228, 27 March 1895, Page 2

DRINK AND THE DEATH RATE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. g IRi —Will you kindly publish the following extract from the British Medical Journal of December Bth, 1884, the organ of the Association, an extract from a report of which you published a few days ago under the heading of " An EyeOpener": —" We have already on several occasions called attention to the unwarrantable construction which has been placed by certain persons—perhaps not altogether disinterested —on the report of the Collective Investigation Committee with regard to the connection of disease with habits of intemperance. In spite of our frequent warnings and explanations on the subject, the misleading assertions continue to be made, and in consequeuce the following memorandum, signed by Dr Norman Kerr, chairman of the Inebriates Legislation Committee of the British Medical Association, has recently been drawn up : —' The attempt to construe the statistics published by the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association as proving that intemperate drinkers live longer than teetotallers is quite unwarranted, and is in direct opposition to the conclusions of the reporters themselves as expressed in their report. Teetotalism, as thej r suggest, has only of late years been largely practised in Britain, but drinking to excess has had great antiquity ; therefore, the average age of living abstainers niust be less than the average age of the rest of the community. So that the average age at death of abstainers being fifty-three years as against fifty-eight in the case of drunkards at death proves nothing against abstinence. The accuracy of this explanation is proved by other tables given in the report. When deaths under thirty years were excluded, the average age of the abstainers was about four years more than that of the decidedly intemperate. When deaths under forty were excluded the average age of the teetotaller at death was more than five years greater than that of the intemperate. To guard against misrepresentation and misunderstanding, the committee expressly stated that the returns reported on afford no means of coming to any conclusion as to the relative duration of life of abstainers and habitually intemperate drinkers; that habitual indulgence in alcoholic liquors beyond the most moderate amounts has a distinct tendency to shorten life, the average shortening being roughly proportionate to a degree of indulgence ; and that total abstinence and habitual temperance augment considerably the chance of death from old age and natural decay.' " I am, &c, W. G. Shkahior. Feilding, March 25th, 1895.