Friend or Deceiver ?
Licensing. Summarized by Courtenay C. Weekes. (National Temperance League, 33 Bedford Place, W.C. 1. Is.) COMMUNAL concern and legislative interference with what used to be regarded as the private affairs of the individual citizen have, in these latter years, grown apace. Whilst, in the main, such collective regulation has yielded more good than evil, no one who understands the meaning of liberty can contemplate with entire complacence the progressive dis- functioning of the faculties of private judgement and personal responsibility. These considerations are relevant to the subject-matter of the two books here under notice. Seeing how ancient and how, hitherto, almost universal a national habit is that of drinking fermented liquors, and how zealous are those who would, by persuasion or by compulsion, sup- press that babit, it is well to have brought together in coherent
and balanced form the main facts, physiological and socio- logical, essential to a just consideration of the rival claims of custom and innovation.
An impartial student can but assume the existence of a prima fade case for a human practice that, regardless of latitude, has persisted among most of the highly developed races of mankind through recorded time. No mere vice has such world-wide vitality. On the other hand, there can be no disputing the gravity of the ills, personal and social, directly or indirectly attributable to the products of the brewer and the distiller. But here, again, caution is necessary. To what extent are these evils due to drink ; to what extent are they due to excess ? If the evil consequences of excess are. to be debited to the thing misused, how many of the gifts of Provi- dence can hope to pass the ordeal unscathed ? Dr. Courtenay Weekes' volume—the title of which suggests an impartiality markedly absent from the chapters that follow—consists of
selected extracts from the medical evidence before the recent Royal Commission, so arranged and so annotated as to lead the innocent reader to believe that all medical opinion of repute and honesty lends support to the contentions Of the National Temperance League. Convinced " Temperance " advocates who want plausible arguments for propaganda pur- poses will find the book useful ; but to those whose minds are still open it is of less value.
The other volume under consideration is of a very different order. No author's name appears on the title-page ; but its chapters are contributed by such distinguished and com- petent authorities on their several subjects as Dr. Roche Lynch, the Senior Official Analyst to the Home Office, who writes informingly and entertainingly on " Alcohol as a Poison " ; Professor F. S. Langmead, who deals with " Alcohol and the Body's Resistance to Disease," and Dr. Howard Florey, of Cambridge, who writes on the physiology of the subject. These and a few others equally expert and equally reputed were members of a medical committee set up a few years ago—before the present Royal Commission was ap- pointed—to compile an impartial report on the effect of alcohol on the mind and body of man, in health and in disease.
The authors expressly limit themselves to a review of established knowledge on the subject. " The book," they write, "does not purport to contain any original research or new material." They certainly have given us an adequate and impartial summary of relevant physiological facts ; and the work may confidently be recommended to anyone who wishes to form a true judgement on the legal and social status of alcoholic drinks. The significance of these physiological and other findings will be apparent to any reader. The fact that there is no method of storing alcohol in the body, and that it is but slowly excreted, explains the well-known cumu- lative effect brought about by repeated doses taken within a short time. Alcohol is very quickly absorbed even from the stomach ; and, as its physiological or pathological effects are proportioned to the degree of its concentration in the blood, the timing of intervals is clearly as important a factor in " over-dosing " as is the actual amount taken at each dose. A man of average weight is able to consume as food, and so to eliminate, in one hour, about one-third of an ounce of alcohol—the amount contained in about a third of a pint of stout or in five-sixths of an ounce of whisky. A man, there- fore, drinking anything in excess of this at hourly intervals would progressively increase the alcohol concentration in his blood. An interesting fact is that a more marked narcotic and inco-ordinating influence is exercised by an increasing concentration than by a stationary one of even higher degree ; the nerve-cells being apparently able to some extent to adapt themselves to their new environment, though " unable to adapt themselves to the paralysing effects of the alcohol as long as the concentration is actually increasing." Some enter- taining diagrams drawn by the subjects of experiments devised to verify this fact are reproduced in the book.
The effect of inoderate doses of alcohol on manual work is experimentally found very closely to accord with common experience. Work needing no great precision or elaborate manipulative co-ordination is hardly at all affected in amount or efficiency. But, wherever subtlety of co-ordination or delicate adjustment is demanded, even minute quantities of alcohol lessen efficiency and accuracy. From this one may reasonably argue that, in the complicated activities of modern man, alcohol has much more sinister possibilities than in the simpler life of non-mechanical ages. It is probably safe to say that most people in these days would be wise to cultivate the habit of postponing their consumption of fermented drink until the work of the day is finished and done with ; though even here a certain latitude may be harmlessly allowed in accordance with idiosyncrasy and the nature of the work. In the treatment of disease, alcohol regarded as a drug no longer holds the place it formerly occupied. Few competent physi- cians to-day believe that wines and spirits have any remedial value other than as resolvers of anxiety. By " gladdening the heart " they may increase the readiness of the patient to take and enjoy food, and they often serve to renew his self-confidence and zest for life.
The part that may legitimately be played by wines and other fermented drinks in the everyday life of healthy man is
not so simply defined. There is considerable first-hand evidence that some forms of human achievement, customarily regarded as no less valuable and no less admirable than those involving rapid co-ordination of muscular movements, are frequently carried to a higher level of perfection through the temporary inhibition of those critical, self-conscious exercises of the mind which are as often hindrances to action as are physical disabilities themselves. Hesitancy and scepticism are often based not on the conscious weighing-up of clearly seen " pros and cons," but on unconscious conflicts in which buried impressions and almost instinctive pulls, of which we may be entirely unaware, play a leading part. It is these conflicts which, in the experience of many people, are resolved by a glass of wine or its equivalent ; and this brings us to the true explanation of the wide temporal and geographical popularity of alcoholic beverages. This popularity is due, not primarily to any sensory appeal which choice vintages and careful distillates may possess, certainly not to consciously hygienic considerations, but to the euphoric quality of alcohol—its capacity to make one feel better, more confident, more ready and able to face the difficulties of life. Idealist reformers are prone to assume the potential earthly per- fection of man. But the whole evolutionary method of animal development implies, and is indeed dependent on, relativity of adjustment to environment. Practical life is compact of trial and error ; of makeshift defences against a thousand hostile forces which only folly could hope to defeat by, direct assault. There is one other consideration.that can- not be entirely overlooked before we dismiss alcohol as the pure evil it is sometimes alleged to be. Man cannot adequately be contemplated as a detached solitary individual. He is also a member of human society ; and harmony with his fellows and with the life about him is little less desirable than harmony within his own being. We cannot lightly brush aside as but indicative of man's degradation the age-long association of the convivial glass with kindly and harmonious social inter- course. The impression left on the impartial mind is that, whilst alcohol cannot be included among the necessaries of life, and whilst terrible evils, social and personal, attend its abuse, there is a good deal to be said for Matthew Arnold's dictum that " Wine used in moderation seems to add to the agreeableness of life, and whatever adds to the agreeableness of life adds to its resources and power."
HARRY ROBERTS,
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