PROHIBITION PARS.

White Ribbon, Volume 25, Issue 289, 18 July 1919, Page 7

PROHIBITION PARS.

ARMY SURGEON AND ALCOHOL. An army surgeon recently stated that he had conducted 4,000 surgical operations and dealt altogether with 14,000 cases during the war. He had fever once administered alcohol and had never lost a patient.

DRINK, LUNACY AND VENEREAL DISEASE.

Sir Robert \rmstrong-Jones, K.A MX., said: “It had been the idea of the Lunacy Commissioner that if alcohol were abolishc d the solution of the question of insanity would be found They did not say that drink was Hie only curse hut they did say that it was the short cut to all the other mums. There "as a certain disease a communicable disease which was an absolute and positive danger to the country, and to that disease alcohol was a short cut.”

\IXOHOL THE ENEMY OF EFFICIENCY.

W infield Scott Hall, M.D. : “Investigations in University laboratories of Europe and America have shown that while brain activity is increased with small doses of alcohol, the judgment i'' le>s sound, the reasoning less accurate. the perception less clear, the thinking less logical, the will power weakened. Thus activity was gained at the expense of control and of eftic i ency.

“Recent researches, therefore, have demonstrated that alcohol profoundly influences physica 1 efficiency decreasing strength, agility and skill of mus cular action, interfering with judgment, reason, will power and logical thinking Alcohol is the great destroy er of physical efficiency.

COWBOY FEARS PROHIBITION

The cowboy looked worried. “There's one thing about this prohibition that Urn afraid of,” lie remarked. Stranger: “Why, you all look better for it as far as 1 can see.” “Ah, yes, hut the death-rate will go up. We’re all so steady in the nerves. \\V shoot much straighter.”

Surgeons innumerable have testified th»* abstinent soldier mote prompth and more surely recovers from wounds and returns sooner to the firing line.

LIQUOR AND DRUGS- ALLIES In response to a cable message from Mr Thomas E. Yarley, a Jesuit father in Austria, as to the statement that 'Prohibition increases the drug habit, the following reply was cabled back by \rthui Capper, the former Govci nor of Kansas, and H*nr\ J. Allen, the present Governoi : “Records in Kansas and throughout country show Prohibi tion decreases drug habit. Liquor creates desire for diugs.”

Wording to Representative llcniv T. Rainey, of Illinois, Chairman of the (Omniittee appointed by the Treasury Department to investigate the use of narcotic drugs, “dope fiends*’ are in < reasing in numbers faster in wet than in dry cities. There are in the United States 1 1,500,000 drug addicts, but the greatest increase in Hie use of sui h narcotics has been in such wet <itiev as Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and C hicago.

PROHIBITION AND MORTALITY. One naturally associates the war with the enormous number of those killed in action. Consequently it is with somewhat of a surprise and .1 shock that we read the mortality fig ures which the New York Life Insui a nee Company gives of it-> p» *1 i« y hold eis in German) during the four \cais of war from August 1, 1014. to July ;i, Kjifc. These figures have iiM l>ecn compiled by the Company's thief a< tuary .ind show that the mortality, in eluding deaths on the battlefield, was 14 per cent, less for the war period of four years than for the eleven year.-, of peace immediately preceding. The Company’s chief actuary says: “It is probable that this has been the result of restriction in diet, limitation in Hie consumption of alcoholic beverages, and a laig« amount of exercise whic h the Germans of middle life, the bulk «»f our insured, have had to stand.’ Then he adds that these faMs “point a way to longer life for the average man, to wit: restricted diet, lotal abstinence from alcoholic drink, proper

exercise.”

BEER AN ENEMY OF THE. I NIKI TEXT.

One-half to one quart of beer is sufficient to distinctly impaii memory, lower intellectual power, and retard simple mental processes, such as the addition of simple figures. This nai cotic or deadening influence is first ex-

cited on the higher reasoning powers that control conduit, so that the lower activities of the mind and nervous ys tern are tor a time released. The eyerx-day, well-poised, self-controlled man goes to sleep, as it were, and the piimitivc man temporal il\ wakes up.

VIXOIIOL A HANDIC AP

A leoh I is a handicap for a nation at war. It is a handicap for .in individual in the struggle for existence. Phis is not the judgment of scientists alone, nor of weaklings and faddists, but of the big brained, strong-fibred men upon whom has fallen the tremendous burden of guiding great nations through the greatest crisis in history.

THE BEST S.'KVI

\s regards straight shooting, it is everyone’s experience that abstinence is ncccsary for efficiency. By careful and prolonged tests, the shooting efficiency of the men was proven to be '<) per cent, worse after the rum ration than before. Admiral Sir J. R. Jcllicoe.