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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    Investigating- Committee, viz.:—“We have not in these returns the means of coming to any conclusion as to the relative dura¬ tion of life of total abstainers and habitually temperate drinkers of alcoholic liquors.” Intemperate Drinking, The Committee in their report state, inter alia, that on the whole they may not unfairly claim to have placed upon a basis of fact this conclusion, viz. :—“That habitual indulgence in alcoholic liquors beyond the most moderate amounts has a dis¬ tinct tendency to shorten life, the average shortening being roughly proportional to the degree of indulgence.” The Report Misrepresented. It is therefore manifest that a wrong use has been made of the figures given in the committee’s report; that there is no warrant for the printed statement that “ the habitual drunkard has the advantage of the Blue Ribbonist by one year, and the Temperate beats him by more than a decade ; ” and that this statement is directly opposed to the terms of the British Medical Association report. Notwithstanding the explicit language of the report, and autho¬ ritative contradictions by the British Medical Journal, by other leading medical papers, by Dr. Owen and by other persons with a knowledge of the facts, the misapplication of the figures and the misrepresention of the committee’s report are persistently being promulgated far and wide. It may therefore be useful to enter a little into details. Defects of the Enquiry. This investigation, however serviceable as a guide to future enquiries, was too defective to warrant any dogmatic general conclusions.
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