EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT SYDNEY TOWN HALL BY SIR THOMAS ANDERSON STUART, M.D., DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE.

White Ribbon, Volume 22, Issue 261, 19 March 1917, Page 10

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT SYDNEY TOWN HALL BY SIR THOMAS ANDERSON STUART, M.D., DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE.

Docs alcohol prevent a man from becoming a good soldier? 1 answer that it does, and 1 proceed to give my reasons. Discipline is the first qual ty of a soldier; it is the foundation of all military efficiency. Unless the sol dier obeys the orders of his super or officers, and acts promptly and intelligently in support of his fellows, no plan of military operations can be carried out, and the man is a nuisance and a danger. Now, this is the kind of man produced by the influence of alcohol, for even a single dose — a’nd that not a very large one- lessens self-control and will-power, and with these we may take prudence, with the sense of responsibility and conscientiousness—in a word, the higher functions of the brain. Alcohol «u ts on the body as a chemical substance, just as you have seen acid eating into iron, and in the action of alcohol on the body it first attacks the brain, and first of all that part of the brain the development of which distinguishes the man from the brute. 1 hat is why alcohol debases a man and reduces him to the level of the beasts that perish. In the course of the development of man—that is, in the course of evolution, in what is called ‘‘the ascent of man”—it was this part of his brain which was last developed ; in the process of degeneration set up by the action of alcohol, it is the first to go. The case is entirely paralleled by that of many insane persons, who, as to their mere bodies, are strong enough, and may live for many years, nevertheless society has found it necessary to shut them up in a madhouse. Now, the man who is “in liquor” is temporarily insane, unsound, and that is not the kind of soldier we require. Thus the ascent of man, which occupied untold millions and millions of years, is undone, and the descent of man is accomplished, it may be in a few minutes. Then, again, still speaking of the moral qualities, alcohol excites the sexual passions at the same time that it lessens the self-control of the individual, so that Baca bus and Cupid and Venus so often go together in pictures and statuary. The drink-shop, indeed, is

a common entrance to the brothel. One in every three prostitutes is infective, and so venereal disease is the frightful source of shame and inefficiency among soldiers, chiefly, of course, the young men and recruits. The men from the country and the backblocks, unused to the temptations of the city life, are those who are most ready to fall victims to the lure. The statistics of the segregation camps are sorrowful reading, and of this the indirect cause in a large proportion of cases is alcohol. Some time ago 1 said that alcohol was the most soul-destroying, bodydestroying, nat.on-destroying, substance that had ever been known. The first part of this 1 have already dealt with here. And now about nationdestroying. Is any argument really necessary? The nation is a group of individuals. If the component individuals are largely poisoned they are no longer efficient, and such a nation is bound to go down before a more efficient nation. The Kaiser knows this. On November 24, 1910, while addressing the military cadets in Berlin, ne said: “Victory in the nex) war will go to the' nation with the least consumption of alcohol,” and he urged his hearers to become abstainers. In the* beginning of the war, the Russians recognised this, and by the act of the* Czar, the manufacture and sale of vodka ' Russian spirits) was abolished in the Russian Kmpire, and every account that conies to us from our Ally shows that the Czar was right, hi:> people more prosperous and better in every way, and the army more efficient than anyone ever dreamed was possible. The F rench have followed in prohibiting the manufacture and sale of absinthe for all time, and the Knglish, in spite of “the trade,” have restricted the sale and consumption of intoxicants to a very considerable rxtent. MI .»