APPENDIX M 279 



constantly see the offspring of drunkards perfectly temperate, 

 especially if they have been brought up in an atmosphere of 

 total abstinence. 



n. I deny that deep habitual drinkers get much enjoyment 

 from the excessive use of alcohol, and would rather incline to the 

 opinion that really so-called temperate people do often enjoy 

 its use. 



12. I consider this assertion unwarranted either by evidence 

 or recognised experience, and this paragraph should not be in- 

 serted. Races to whom alcohol has been introduced without 

 knowing the consequences of indulgence in the same, and recog- 

 nising its effects as those of exhilaration and, to a certain extent, 

 pleasurable, take to its use, and then to its excessive use, until 

 they perceive the injury it is doing to their race and people, and 

 then they learn the better way, leave it off, and so become tem- 

 perate. It seems to me that, unfortunately, no nations have been 

 more exposed to the use and abuse of alcohol than the British, 

 to say nothing of the Scandinavian or Russian, and yet its use 

 is increasing more and more, among the British at least, with the 

 direst results. 



14. Seeing that I deny the inborn tendency to inebriety, it 

 follows that I deny its heredity ; races which have no experience 

 of alcohol are, per se, not the most drunken. There is no 

 evidence to prove that they are. Their acquired habit of drink- 

 ing is the result of the continual and continued pouring into their 

 midst of liquors with the most potent inebriating qualities. 



I approve of the latter half of this paragraph on the whole. 



Geo. K. Poole, M.D., 



Surgeon-Major, H.M.I.S. 



