ALCOHOLOGY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 321, 22 February 1910, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY

PROFESSOR SIMS WOODIIEAD, M.U.

(Published by arrangement)

The Professor of Pathology at Cambridge University in an address he lately gave at Durham said:—"From a scientific standpoint I maintain wo must look upon excess as any quantity of alcohol which interferes in the slightest degree with the perfect performa'Kc of all tiie functions and activities of a man's brain and a man's bodv. Anything which goes ■beyond that must be looked upon as excess. Now, in the old days, when the methods of determining pathological processes anil conditions .were less elaborate and delicate than now, it was quite excusable for a man to say that, so long as a man cou'd walk straight and had control enough to be able to pronounce 'British eoiivitution' without any very great lapse, he was to be looked upon as sober, rir.u as not having taken an excessive quantity of alcohol. But we know now fnm the very delicate tests that have been made with the aid of very accurate apparatus, that long before that stage is reached a man has less control over certain parts of his mental and physical apparatus—if I mav so call it—and that there are certain parts of his bra ; n that are not acting as well as they should, and that certain small muscles have lost a certain amount of their deli- ( .cate working power, and that to that I extent the man is not doing the best | of which he is capable. If we take the | the first definition —that is, the powvr of doing the best that is in one—we must acknowledge that moderation; is a much more moderate thing than most of us even now imagine. Let we I give you an example. It is a very wellknown example. I could give you fifty or sixty. We all know that to be a good shot requires grea ( t acuraey of eye and great power of co-ordination, and great steadiness of hand. It means that all the muscles of the eye and hand must work well together, and that We must have what is called a ver'- fine co-operation of the eye, or coordination of eye and hand. Now, in order to test this, the Swedes —who, by the way, have been making tremendous advances in the study of this question—took a couple of companies 01 soldiers, men who were about equal shor.s. and they gave to the men in one company an ounce and a-half of brandy, am? then took the men out and set them to shoot at a target the size of :>. man. They were told to fire as quickly as possible and as accurately as possible. Those who had taken the alcohol were very much surprised to find that those who had not taken it had finished tb.'ir shooting considerably before thev had, and that thev had been beaten as to rapiditv of firingj by the abstainers. On reckoning up the points it was found, that those who had not received alcohol had made 30 per cent, more hits -than those who had taken a longer time, and who had alcohol. Thev said, 'lf ,-ou had given us a little more time we cou'd have made as many hits as the abstainers.' They were allowed to take more time, and take a steady, carrfnl aim. and then the abstainers were found to have beaten them, and were now SO p->r cent, better. 'Oh,' they said, "of course you have go't much better shots in the abstainers''oomnany than in the other.' Then they let them rest a few (lavs, ind then gave the alcohol to the other set of men,. with precisely .similar results. Any number of like cases could ( ie given. The effect of alcohol was, first of all, to make the men deceive thruselves as to what they were do'ng. This experiment showed that alocohol had a very definite effect in interfering with the co-ordination between the ->ction of the hand and eye, and the sooner we realise this the better it will be for us." The above from a man of such authority as Dr. Sims Woodheac* v< r portune just as this country is entering upon an advanced svstem of milltny training.