TEMPERANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42744, 6 July 1905, Page 1

TEMPERANCE.

By Reformer.) Befoee the parliamentary commission of Great Britain, in 1872 Mr William Collins stated as a well established physiological fact, that the drunkard’s appetite, when once formed, never becomes completely extinct, but. adheres to him through life. Dr Hutchinson said; 11 1 have seen only one case of (chronic alcoholism) completed, and that,after a seclusion of two years’ duration In general it is not cured, and no sooner is the patient liberated than he manifests all the synip-:-; toms of the disease. Paradoxical as it may appear to be, such

individuals are sane only when ;. ; confined in an asylum. ,Y/i A clergyman said, in his x testimony to the Committee of the Lower House of the Convoca- /, tion of Canterbury, “ I have been direction for some years to the more permanent effects of drinking habits, as tending ; to; produce a depraved or debilitated offspring, not only making • • the patient ‘ nequiorebs ’ but I have collected some very curious facts on this point, tending to prove not only lunacys but also other obscure diseaos, of the brain, , may be tracod to intemperance of parents.” Another clergyman says, f My parish exhibits a high rate of mor- , tality, chiefly among children; who are very often born in an imperfectly organised condition and badly nourished afterwards in consequonce of the intemperance of the parents. lam con** tinually called upon to sign papers for lunatics through drink.” To the Committee, a siiperiritendant of Lunatic l Asylum said, ~ the proportion of cases traceable to intemperance; cannot, I think , be much under cent., • T|o these must be added an unascertainable number , of idiots, im-. beeiles| etc y' the. .offspring,, of intemperate " parents, in whom . the sins of the fathers are visited on the. children.” Dr. A. Mit- . chell said, “I think it quite certain that the children of hahi-. tuai drunkards, - , are, in| larger proportion -idiotic than othrir children, arid a larger proportion ‘ tkemselyes, drui^ards; they ave , also in ' larger - proportion liable to-the ordinary forms of ; acquired comes on later-imlife.” ; : :' ; Dr Howe the Mas-.- v sachusetts Legislature; ct, Tbat the habits of the parents of;«3p0 idiots had been learned, and that' |§ 145 of them were known to be habitual drunkards.” .. He: §sti- "" mates that threedourthe of : the idiots bom are the ,; offspring of intemperate parents. ■- • M. Lunier estimated, that in great cities, at least, the parents of 50 per cent, of the idiots and imbeciles were notoriously drunk j? ards. He also considers that the majority of the renborn of parents when drunk or who are constitutionally drunkards, are weak in some way or other.