ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 43, 31 May 1910, Page 3

ALCOHOLOGY.

AMONG OUR SOLDIERS. (Published by arrungement.) There was a time when it was thought that soldiers going into battle needed to ■be primed with nun to keep up his courage of course—only it was Dutch courage. How much harm resulted therefrom we shall never know:: we are getting to see a little of it; but the taie of battles lost, lives sacrificed, and misfortunes attributed to the wrong cause would be very sad and very humiliating for a proud people as we are. SURGJtfON-GNERAL EVATT. in a lecture on "The teachings of Hygienic and Medical science in relation to the Future of the British Empire," lets in some light and gives some guidance for the future. His argument was) that the Army was a part (a part only) and i parcel of the whole nation. Hence every question that applied to the soldier applied to every man and woman in the Empire. Efficiency is now our great aim. What tends to military efficiency tends to general efficiency. The mill-hand and | the soldier are subject to the same in-! lluences. He gave some insight into the Crimean War which, was so disastrous to the British troops. Pie said that a disastrous drunkenness interfered with efficiency of various branches 'of the Army organisation, and that this accounted for the terrible death roll in the Crimea. Only 3000 died from the effects of Russian bullets, swords, and bayonets and shells; but 18,000 died of disease. All -alcoholics had a low resisting power against disease. Turning to other countries the war between Russia and Japan showed what water-drinkers can do. General Evatt said that in that war Japan lost fewer lives by disease than any European army had ever done. This low death rate was not the result of alcohol drinking but of the absence of it. Ignorance is the reason why so many turn to alcoholic drinks and medicines: this ignorance must be removed. So many are now crying out for compulsory military service, forgetting that at the same time the Army doctors are rejecting tens of thousands as physically unfit. The use of alcohol produces the unfit and alcohol in turn is their resort when they feel their unfitness. THE ROYAL ARMY TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION. I

is an object lesson in alcohology. This association has made great advances and with much benefit to the army. In India the teetotal soldier shows up well. Long ago in the days before the Indian Mutiny teetotal soldiers showed to advantage. When an emergency arose and some companies were not to be depen led on, 'being unready; the general said that Havelock's saints were always ready—tliey were as a disgrace to many brave military achievements that, a successful siege and capture of an enemy's city or town was so generally followed by wild excess and ineUscrimin&te plunder. The history of the .siege and capture of Ghuznee so long as 1840 •was an exception and the historian says: "It is in itself a.moral triumph exceeding in value and duration the praise of the martial achievement of the troops, that, in fortress captured by assault, not the slightest insult was offered to one of the females found in the zenana within the citadel." This good conduct and forbearance he attributes to the fact of the European soldiers having received no spirit ration for some days previously, and that no intoxicating liquor was found in Ghuznee. Coming down to recent dates and experiences, the records have been compared in seven regiments stationed in various parts of India, some in healthy stations others in what are known as unhealthy, between abstaining and non - abstaining soldiers' and in every regiment and in every kind of station the former have been much less subject to disease than the latter. In every one of the regiments observed the admissions to hospitals were from nearly two to three times as great among the drinkers 'as among the teetotallers. Talcing the totals of the seven •shows that while the drinkers in hospitals were 92 per 1000 the teetotallers 'were only 4!) per 1000. To have the highest quality of work in the army, as elsewhere, we must have the greatest physical and mental fitness; to use General Evatts' words: "The hien who worked the Dreadnoughts were better than the Dreadnoughts."