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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    between meals, or even getting* drunk occasionally, but not making either practice a habit, and, on the average, not'materi¬ ally exceeding the so-called “ physiological quantity ” of one and a half ounces of pure alcohol daily. The free drinkers were stated to be men who drink a fair amount, or take their wine freely, habitually exceeding the physiological quantity to a material extent, yet who could not be called drunkards or be considered as having forfeited a reputation for sobriety. The decidedly intemperate were called “drinking men,” “hard drinkers,” and “drunkards.” This distribution will, by those who have devoted close attention to inebriety, be recognised as most indefinite so far as the habitually temperate, careless, and free drinkers are concerned. There is a large proportion of drinkers who are abstemious to a degree in company, but who indulge to excess in secret, their habit of secret and solitary intoxi¬ cation, or of less pronounced drinking, never being discovered except by accident. All these and other qualifications must be borne in mind when considering the lessons to be learnt from this enquiry in which, it will be remembered, were included only males dying above 25. Only 2*8 per cent, were abstainers, about 42 per cent, were habitually moderate, 25 per cent, were careless, and 30 per cent, were more or less distinctly intemperate. If this state of matters be true, it is very serious that less than one half of our drinkers should be “habitually moderate.” Greater Longevity of the Temperate versus the Intemperate. The average age at death was, of abstainers 51*22 years, of the habitually temperate 62*13 years, of careless drinkers 59 67 years, of free drinkers 57*59 years, and of the decidedly intem¬ perate 52*03 years. This shows a difference of ten years in favour of the habitually temperate as compared with the decidedly intemperate.
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