The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness.

  • Pattin, H. Cooper.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    33/196 (page 21)
    diet to the healthy. It is a food in the scientific sense, in that in its oxidation it yields up heat and energy. It is, however, of very limited practical value as a food, and is very costly. The most it can do is to replace a small amount of fat, and possibly of carbohydrate in the human dietetic laboratory. As a food it is about ten times dearer than bread, for example, and one has to remember that its effects upon the nervous and circulatory systems may, and do, counteract the benefit which might otherwise result from the production of heat and energy by it. Alcohol as a food is not favourable to the production of sustained muscular exertion, and may do positive harm by paralysing temporarily the sense of fatigue, which is nature's warning against excessive effort. The claim of alcohol to favour lies in the circumstance that it is a stimulant, the temperate consumption of which, at appropriate seasons, adds to the agree- ableness of living. So long as its consumption does not affect the social value of the consumer, i.e., does not involve any detriment to the race, I for one shall not find myself able to find an ethical claim to prohibit the indulgence. The ritual of temperance in respect of the drinking of alcoholic stimulants, then, is for those in normal health to take alcohol only at meals, and not more than half-an-ounce at any meal. To take it then, only if its use be found to improve digestion, and to add generally to the agreeableness