The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1914-05-09
Drink BILL CROWS
Englishmen Spent S25, 900, 900
More Last Year
Than the Year Before for In.
toxicating Beverages.

London, May 9.-The drink bill Of the
United Kingdom for the past year
shows an increase of twenty-five mil
lion dollars. The United Kingdom
Alliance, whose mission is to decrease
the consumption Of alcoholic liquors.
makes this report, and suggests that
the increase is probably due to UMPIRE
cedented prosperity. for the kingdom
had never experienced a greater wage
bill. The encouraging feature, accord
ing to the alliance, is a decrease shown
in the per capita consumption. which
attained its maximum during similar
trade revivals in 1874 and 1899.
A discouraging feature is the in
crease in the consumption Of spirits,
which leads with an increase Of L.
267 900 gallons. Beer is second with L.
002 900 gallons and wine third with
131 900 gallons. The share of each in
dividual in the United Kingdom in the
drink bill. for 1918, was $18 while the
average family of five persons was $50.
Since these figures do not allow for the
boys and girls under Is years of age
and the total abstainers. it may be as
sumed that among the drinkers the av-
erage per capita expense for drinks is
much higher than stated.
During 1911, 2,8O2 men and 2,O74
women were certified to have fled in
England and Wales alone as the re-
suit of alcoholism. This number docs
not include those whose deaths have
been accelerated by the use Of alc..-
hol. DR.. w. c. Sullivan is quoted in
the report as making the estimate
that twenty per cent of the suicides
in the United Kingdom are due to the
use Of alcoholic stimulants.
startling feature of the infant
mortality figures furnished by the AL
lance is the fact that in 1912, LIS
babies under one year of age were
suffocated while sleeping with their
parents or other elders, and the or
ganization claims that most of these
cases can be laid at the door of alco-
hOlic indulgence. The organization
also points out the effect of alcohol
on the physique of the race, on crime
and on divorce.
Without anaesthesia or modern in
struments, native surgeons among the
BedOuins of the Algerian hinterlaD i
have become so ski1ful that they do
not hesitate to undertake operations
as delicate as trepanning. This re-
port is brought by H. Hylton-Simpson.
who, accompanied by his wife, has
just returned from a scientific expe-
ditiOn among these almost unknown
nomadic tribes Of the desert. The ex-
plorer and his wife lived among the
natives and established the closest re-
lations with the ruling sheiks of re-
mote villages.
They found that surgery had gown
to be a really skilled profession.
Hylton-Simpson was lucky enough to
come into contact with a friendly
Arabian physician who arranged a
meeting for him with eight of the tri-
bal surgeons. From them he COL
lected a mass of interesting informa-
ton and a valuable collection of ma
tive surgical instruments. Their saws,
lancets and probes are Of the crudest
design, but prove highly effe :tive in
the hands Of their native operators.
The only training these native sur
geons have il instruction from their
fathers. Very few Of them are able
to read or write.
-Trepanning operations are probably
more common in this country than any
where else in ~ world because OF
the frequency with which the natives
resort to stone throwing in a fight
The use Of an anaesthetic is unknown
and pain Is regarded with such contempt
that the people seem imper.vious to It
Hylton- Simpson saw one case in which
| a boy was operated on for fifteen days
| for the removal of small piece oi
skull. The operation was successful
and the patient recovered. Besides
surgery the natives claim to have dis
covered two hundred cures for varioul
diseases