The Chief Enemy of Women : Part 3

Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles
by C. W. Saleeby, M.D.

(Page 23 of 30)

Now if there be anything certain about the action of alcohol upon the brain, it is that it degrades the quality of the self. Much of the cruder pathology of alcohol is open to doubt. A great many of the supposed degenerative changes in nerve-cells, which were attributed to it and thought to be irrevocable, are now interpreted otherwise. Chronic alcoholism is looked upon by such foremost students as Dr. F. W. Mott, less as a disease due to organic changes produced in the brain than as a chronic functional derangement due to the continued action of a poison. This newer interpretation of chronic alcoholism has the very important practical corollary of encouraging us to the belief, which is frequently justifiable, that if the chronic intoxication ceases, the individual may completely or all but completely recover, as would not be the case if the fine structure of his brain had been actually destroyed. The recent modification of our views on this subject has, however, only served to render clearer our understanding of the mental symptoms of alcoholism. Here is a drug which poisons the organ of the mind. The action of a single dose persists for a far longer period than used to be supposed, an. Therefore we now know that in the great majority of civilized men everywhere, the nervous system, which is the home of the self, is continuously under the influence of alcohol.

That influence, as we have said, consistently shows itself in a degradation of the quality of the self. The poison deranges first the latest and highest products of evolution; it beheads a man, as we may say, in thin slices from above downwards. Beginning as it does with the most human, and only at the very last attacking the most animal part of our nervous constitution, it is essentially the bestializer, save only that the alcoholized human being is much lower than the beast, on the general principle, Corruptio optimi pessima - the corruption of the best is the worst.

Now wherever alcohol is consumed women have to pay the penalty for its daily deterioration in the human scale of the men with whom they live; nor need any reader of even the smallest experience require any writer's assurance that in vast numbers of such cases the woman suffers more than the man. He has its moments of compensation, inadequate though they be; she has none.

While women suffer in every respect from the influence of alcohol as a degrader of their men, most of all do they and the race suffer through the action of alcohol upon the racial instinct. In my book on personal hygiene was sought an interpretation of the difference between low and high types of mankind largely in terms of their success or failure in achieving what may be called the "transmutation" of the racial instinct. In less metaphorical language this transmutation depends upon the measure of self-control and deference of present desire to future purpose. These are supremely human characteristics, and there are none which alcohol more surely and early attacks. Men are not so constituted that they are at all likely to profit by any substance which keeps their racial instinct on its original and less than human plane, and certainly women suffer in many ways, and with them necessarily the future suffers, just because of this action of alcohol upon men.

The argument need not be elaborated, but it may be added that the disastrous action upon young womanhood of the consumption of alcohol by young manhood is greatly increased when we find, as we do, that the young women start drinking too. In these modern days, when the controlling influence of religion and especially of religious fear is steadily relaxing, the young woman's best protection is to be found in her own judgment and self-control and prevision of the future. But these are the very defenses which alcohol in her nervous system saps. Every social worker is familiar with the daily truth that young womanhood connives at its own ruin under the influence of alcohol, where otherwise it need not have fallen.

This last consideration leads us to the study of a phenomenon which in many respects is new and unprecedented, while none could be of worse omen.

It has for long been alleged that the amount of drinking amongst women is increasing. When writing an academic thesis on the consequences of city life, I attempted to discover definite evidence on this point. Nothing that could be called precise was forthcoming, though the evidence was abundant that the general assertion is correct. Drinking amongst women means, of course, drinking amongst mothers. It means drinking by unborn children. No one concerned with the fundamentals of national well-being can ignore anything so minatory. Within the last few years, much attention has been directed to the subject, and the Church of England Temperance Society, for instance, sent out a form of inquiry to the medical profession as to their experience in this matter. It may now be stated, without any fear of contradiction, that drinking has greatly increased amongst women of all classes during the last twenty years, and especially, it seems probable, during the latter half of that period. Along with it has gone an increase in the amount of drug-taking; some, at any rate, of the drugs being not dissimilar to alcohol in their action upon mind and body.

It is here necessary not so much to discuss the causes of this fact as to insist upon its consequences and indicate some possible remedies. So far as one can judge there seem to be three principal causes for this increase of drinking amongst women, and quite briefly they may be named in order to guide the subsequent discussion, though it is not necessary to occupy space here in discussing all the evidence for this diagnosis.

A cause of some importance at work amongst women of the middle and upper classes would seem to be the general tendency to revolt against gender restrictions and limitations. In order to prove themselves the equals of men, women proceed to demonstrate that they are capable of imitating men's vices and indulgences. The trainer of chimpanzees for the music-hall acts on the same principle. Directly the animals can smoke and drink, they are such good imitations of men, in his judgment and that of his patrons, as to be worthy of exhibition. Any ape, any boy, any man, can learn to smoke and drink. It may be taken for granted that any woman can do likewise, but the actual demonstration is worse than superfluous.

Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York.
Copyright 1911 by Mitchell Kennerley.