The Effect of Alcoholic Drinking.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 3077, 11 December 1888, Page 3

The Effect of Alcoholic Drinking.

What is really llie effect of alcoholic drinking on .certain forms of dku&u'i The Committee of the British Medical Association report that gout ami diseases of the kidneys are distinctly Aggravated by iilcobol; but that apart from these disoideis, ivliilo th« nxcpt. flive ÜBo of it predisposes tliu body towards llie attack of disease generally it does not [ircdispofe towards unv particular ailment, In the case of cancer there is gionnd for lieliuf that the use of alcohol not only does not help on the malignant disease, but that it actually regards it. Alcohol also retards tho formation of tubercles in voting people, but "there is somo reason to believe" that it works in a contrary way wi'h older people. A tendency to apoplexy is not inducwl by alcohoWfch bronchitis nllectud i ' is,of course he is connected mar from of the respiratory organs, and the portion of deaths from these diseases is greater in the temperance section than the ordinary section. . Deaths from affections of the brain nra about one eighth of tbo whole, and here again the temperance section oxceeds the other—possibly owing to tho undue excitement to which teetotallers are notoriously given, But deaths from diseases of the heart, the stouiacli the liver and the kidneys are out of all proportion more numerous in the ordinary section-amongst those who presumably drink alcohol—than in the toinperance section,, This is ' caused, of course, by those who go far beyond St Paul's advico to Timothy , to 1 lake a ' little 1 wino for his stomach's sake." And tho deaths from accidents and suicides arc in ■ the proportion of one in the tern- . perahce section to 13 in tho ordinary section. With regatd to the accidents this can be understood. The total abstainer does not run tho risk of falling down stairs, or under a j brewer's dray, or out of a train, or ( off ft ladder to tho exteut that is customary with the drunkard; and there is no " Providence (hat watches over 1 drunken men" because they are such, ! And the suicides must be put down in . many cases to the horrible bill of J crime for which drink is annually ' responsible among us, Drunkenness, 1 liko anger, is short madness; pro- j longed drunkenness means deliriun, ( and frequently suicidal mania, That, j which, usod with reason and judg- ; ment, is pleasant, harmless, and even ( beneficitd, ia made tbo cause of madness and death, But it would not be . projiosed—except, perhaps, by somo . teetotal fai.atics who neod not be : named—to abolish the air of Heaven ■ because tho loss of life results from a i galo of wind,-Yorkshire Post,