ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 55, 14 June 1910, Page 7

ALCOHOLOGY.

THE SYLLABUS. (Published by Arrangement). Last we looked into the Temperance Syllabus of the English Education Board, but only Section Avas considered. That section deals with "Food and its uses." We now propose a glance at Section 2. which deals more directly with "Alcohol and the Effects of Alcoholic Beverages on the Body." At the outset we are told •that ''Beer, wine and spirits are not useful to the body in any of the special ways in which ordinary food, is useful. They also contain the dangerous substance which was referred to in the last section. This substance is alcohol." In dealing with alcohol it is pointed out that though very useful in the arts una manufactures it is not useful in the human 'body; for \t does not dissolve food as water does and ''therefore cannot help the body to absorb and make use of food"; it make animal and vegetable substances hard and tough and therefore useless as food; it has a great attraction for water and so when taken into the stomach it hardens food by extracting the water from it and also makes the drinker more thirsty still ny the same process of absorbing the water in the body, so that "Alcoholic beverages make a. .person thirsty in the same way as he becomes thirsty after perspiring . freely." In dealing with the proportion of alcohol in various beers, wines and spirits, this section also point* out that so-called "medicate.'! wines" contain a Large percentage of alcohol and says: "That iby the indiscriminate use of such wines harm is done and intemperate habits may be formed." The important lessons for schools, both teachers and scholars are in subsection 4 of this part of the. Syllabus, where the effect of alcohol is explained; on growth; resistance to disease, and hence health; on strength and power, to .do work; on digestion ; on ',he bodily heat; on the brain and its functions. For children these are very important phases of the temperance que;, turns, and when it is shown on the best authority that "Alconoi cannot help the body. to grow, but rather retards and stunts its growth," they should be well fortified against any who offered them alcoholic drinks, and be able to give a good reason for-saying, "Jfo, thank you." The proofs that alcohol "weakens the muscles, the heart and the ibody generally," are taken from the works of Dr. Partes, Sir Frederick Treves and Lord Brassey, each of whom is an authority of the first rank. The conclusion that "men engaged in veiy hard manual labor do their work more easily, in all respects, without alcohol" is abundantly proved. Some ,exuaeis, without comment, from the portion dealing with the effect of alcohol on the brain may well close this article: "The man who' is under the influence of alcohol believes his external surroundings to be better than they really are because he is unable to feel or realise his limitations so acutely on account of this deadening effect. The feelings and sensations are blunted and the proper control of the brain over the muscles is weakened. As one result of this loss of con-1 trol, accidents, such as falls, or factory mishaps with machinery, may occur._ . . It has been shown that comparatively small quantities of alcohol may injuriously affect the nerves and the senses (sight, touch, etc.)" "Observations made by.Dr. Askiffenburg on the \uii* of compositors led him to conclude that when alcohol was taken by men accustomed to its use, fewer letters were set up than when no alcohol was given, although the men themselves were under the impression that the alcohol caused them to work better and more rapidly. Dr. Leopold Lang finds reason to think that a similar conclusion holds true of marks earned 'by school children in Holland, Austria and Germany. It has been shown that in 'very good' and 'go/xt' classes the abstainers head the list by considerable proportions; and in those giving 'inadequate' or 'bad' results the proportion of those who drink is more than twice as great as those who abstain."