The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter.

Date:: 1853

Credit: The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

58/192 (page 50)

$for theft, and several were about to be removed to our penal colonies. At Greenock, the governor stated that out of 461 prisoners, 297 might be said to have committed their crimes under the influence of drink. At Kilmarnock, Captain Blane believed that he was under the mark, in stating that four-fifths of the crime there was caused by intoxicatini;: liquors. In Dumfries, the governor was ' Avarranted in stating that nineteen out of every twenty brought before him were so in consequence k of drinkingand when conversing with thirty prisoners out of the total number (forty-two) twenty-nine acknowledged that strong drink had been the cause of their imprisonment; and the sitting magistrate stated to the clerk of the police court, that very morning, that were it not for intemperance, the premises might be shut up for ever. At Ayr, the- governor ' had no hesitation in saying that thirly-nine cases out of forty were the fruits of intemperance,' and added : ' If you think proper to • visit the prisoners, you will find that my statement is pretty correct we visited each cell, and conversed with every unfortunate inmate; and out of seventy-three prisoners there, no less than seventy acknowledged that had it not been for these accursed drinking customs, they never would have occupied the lonely cell of a prison. Similar statements were made to us when visiting the prisons of Paislej', Stirling, Hamilton, Dumbarton, Airdrie, and Kirkcudbright; and what is true of Scotland is to a very great extent the same in England and Ireland These facts have all been fully corroborated by the testimony of the ■ respective governors of Millbank Penitentiary and Newgate, London;; Wakefield House of Correction ; Manchester New Bailey; Newgate and the Female Prison, Dublin ; and having visited these prisons and con- versed with criminals in each of them (with the exception of ]\Iillbank,, where it is not allowed), we found that their statements respecting-; the cause of crime were quite in keeping with those referred to iai Scotland. 50. It is frequently objected to the conclusions based upon these and similar data, that it is false logic to attri-,- bute crime to the intemperate use of Alcoholic liquors;. Bince, even if there had been no such incentive, the ignorance ■ and vicious propensities of a degraded population would of' themselves have led to the same results. We are furnished,, however, by the statistics of our MiHtary and Naval services,. with a class of facts which affords a most decisive refutation. of this doctrine. For where we find three sets of men, of ■ the like class, of similar education, and under corresponding-; conditions,—one set total abstainers, another set temperate,', and a third set intemperate,—presenting the strongest; possible contrast in their general conduct, no one can reason*.- ably hold back from the admission that there is here a decided.I relation of cause and effect. Now, the following Table,--,$