TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 4031, 16 June 1931, Page 67

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published’ by arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) THINGS WE WONDER ABOUT. 1. Why our Government, which has made it compulsory that our children in primary schools be taught the scientific truth about alcoholic beverages, and that alcohol is injurious to hyalth, permits advertisements of these beverages to be plastered all over our streets. In the schools our children are taught that liquor is bad, and outside in the streets they read that it is good for them! Bother puzzling for the young folk, isn’t 2. Why is it that if liquor is the cause of about two-thirds of the disease, crime, and poverty in our midst, the Church can only arrange for one temperance Sunday in the year. A CHAMPION DIVER. Mr Clive Barrass, of Cremorne. New South Wales, diving champion of Australia (1927) wrote:—“There is no doubt that success in sport, and alcohol, do not go hand in hand. Either one most go. There are many examples to be found of fellows who had the ability to be champions, but failed through not curtailing the alcohol habit. In sport, alcohol only leads to the inevitable dead-end.”

BETTER THROWN AWAY. Professor Sir William Osler, of Oxford University, in an address delivered at the Working Men’s College, Camden Town, shortly before his death, made this pronouncement:— “Throw all the beer and spirits into the Irish Channel and the North Sea for a year, and the people in England would be infinitely better. It would certainly solve most of the probit ms with which the philanthropist, the physician, and the politician have to deal.” BEER EXPLAINED. Water is added to barley • until it sprouts, whfen the starch is changed into sugar. Then heat is applied to kill the young sprouts and drive off the’ water. The barley is then called “ Malt.” This malt is ground and soaked in water, in order to dissolve all the sugar. The sweet liquid is boiled, hops are added, and, by the aid of yeast vinous fermentation is caused. This changes the sugar into carbonic acid gas and alcohol. The carbonic acid gas rises to the top and escapes as bubbles, while the alcohol remains mixed with the water. The result is either beer, ale, or porter. WATER IS “STRONG DRINK.” That seems startling at first, but really we ought not to use the term ’’ strong drink ” as the name for the liquors that the trainers of athletes, always tell them they must let alone if they wish to become strong. In the words of Charles H. Spurgeon: “ Water is the strongest drink. It drives mills. It is the drink of lions and horses; and Samson himself never drank anything else.” Hear Sydney Smith: “It is all nonsense about not being able to work without ale and gin and cider and fermented liquors. Do lions and cart horses drink ale? ” Tire great athletes of the world drink only water when in training and in action. They know that alcohol would destroy their chances for winning.

RUBBING ALCOHOL. Runners whose feet are inclined to be tender, and those who have tender skins, frequently use alcohol rubbed in to harden the skin.- Alcohol is very useful for this purpose, because it .absorbs the moisture from the skin and makes it tough and hard. The point to remember is that, if alcohol does this for the skin outside, it also does it for the tissues inside. Drinking alcohol regularly causes a hardening of the liver and produce serious diseases, because these organs should always be soft and able to deal with the fluids of the body. The continual presence of alcohol in the blood also tends to have a hardening effect on the texture of the brain, and when very much alcohol is taken regularly, insanity is quickly produced. Alcohol has many uses, so long as it is kept outside of the body, but as soon as it is taken into the human body it can do nothing but harm. BREATHING. If you take the trouble to count the number of times you breathe you will find that you breathe about 17 times a minute, with a little rest between each breath. When working hard, or taking vigorous exerqise, we breathe more quickly, because the cells in the muscles of our bodies are using up larger quantities of oxygen, and we have to breathe in more of it from the air. Stuffy rooms make us feel stupid, because the oxygen in the air gets used up. Drinking alcohol makes us breathe more quickly because it interferes - with the red corpuscles in the blood that carry oxygen. Alcohol tends to break up those red corpuscles, and consequently the blood does not carry as much oxygen as it should. AS THE TWIG IS BENT. We must remember that the human head ie but a few inches in circumference, and many heads are so constructed that they have no apartments left for new ideas. The convolutions of the brain have become so hardened that it pains them to take fresh impressions. Remembering this, when will reformers learn that the brain- cells of a child arc soft as gelatine, and can be etched for God and goodness with lines indelible? —Frances E. Willard.