Does inebriety conduce to longevity? / by Norman Kerr.

  • Norman Shanks Kerr
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Does inebriety conduce to longevity? / by Norman Kerr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    place, or that such figures were ever issued by any scientific body of medical men; and with one accord they bewail the publication as a “ terrible blow to temperance.” My good friends have been as mistakenly incredulous as they have been needlessly afraid. A moment’s reflection ought to teach that no returns showing a greater average premature mortality among abstainers than among drunkards under or¬ dinary and equal conditions, can possibly be accurate. Common sense, with very little knowledge and experience, should suffice to prove that there is a vital flaw somewhere in any anti¬ abstinence application of these eccentric statistics. The mis¬ statement (if designed) is too gross to be explained away; the blunder (if unintentional) is too palpable to avoid detection. The Facts Stated. It is quite true that such figures were set forth, but it is not true :—(i) That they warrant any deduction in favour of the superior longevity of excessive or limited drinkers. (2) That the British Medical Association, or any of its committees or officers, g'ave utterance to such an absurd and unfounded conclu¬ sion. These are the facts. In the course of enquiry into “the connec¬ tion of Disease with the Habit of Intemperance,” an appeal was made by the Collective Investigation Committee to the 13,000 members of the British Medical Association to fill up returns showing (among other particulars) the age and cause of death of male patients who had died over the age of 25 years, from the counterfoils of each practitioner’s death certificate book for the preceding three years. The report was presented by Dr. Isambard Owen at the annual meeting of the Association in Dublin, in 1887, and was published in the British Medical Journal June 23rd, 1888. Moderate Drinking. Dr. Owen, who collated the returns, has again and again publicly repeated the disclaimer embodied in the Report of the
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