The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-12-02
Your Health
 By WILLIAM BRADY, M. D.
LET US TRY TO BE A ARCHAEOLOGICAL

That was an excellent article you had in the paper little while ago on alcohol (writes a readeD. We meant to preserve it if you have any reprints please send me smoe. CW. s. H.
 Tn the same mail came a letter from another reader who protests my characterization of the in- dividual who drinks the usual "oc- casionaln glass of liquor as a defec- tive. This reader argues that "the same logic could be applied to a great many other things besides alcohol. 1 have watched people reaching for a package of cigarettes when they rae tense. Then some people take a cup of tea or coffee when they are down. Why do you restrict your remarks to alcohol?" (B. M. W)
 I do not know which article brought these responses. I have no reprints of articles appearing in this column.
 What is a defective? A defective is a person who is lacking physi- cally or mentally. I contend that a person who is not lacking physically or mentally will not indulge in any kind of alcoholic beverage or liquor.
 It is absurd to compare the use of tobacco or tea or coffee with the use of alcohol.
 Use of tobacco by children or youths is injuriOus-this is unques- tionably the consensus of medical opinion today. Physicians recognize tobacco heart" as common among young smokcrs-palpitation, irregu- larity, rapid action; in some cases heart pain of a shooting character, which may be severe; in some cases attacks of such severity that they deserve the name of angina q quote this from Osler). Tobacco amblyopia (partia4 blindness) and acquired color blindness from ex- cessive smoking in young people are recognized by oculiSts. Smokers duodonal ulcer complex is frequent ly recognized in young women who smoke excessively-all of the symp- toms of ulcer except the X-ray demonstration of ulcer. Many per- sons who have stomach or duodenal ulcer find that they suer more when or if they smoke than they do when or if they do not smoke. Still, as a matter of health, 1t is questionable whether smoking is injurious to the majority of adults who smoke as nearly as I can de- termine the consensus of medical opinion today,
 Some of the gravest eects of alcoholic indulgence, such as mul- tiple or polyneuritis partial par- alysis) and Korsakoff's psychosis (a kind of insanity characterized by confusion, severe disorientation, memory defect and confabulation) are due as much to nutritional de- ficiency. particularly vitamin B complex deficiency, as to positive damage to nerves and brain by alcohol. The nutritional deficiency IS lllClucllIai VO tLic tlCtitii AAC4uCle, prolonged or periodic abstention from food in favor of his or her tipple, or sometimes to the patho- logical repugnance he or she de- velops for food and the vomiting that occurs when or if the victim tries to eat.
 But all that is degeneration - deterioration. decline from a higher state of the normal state of health of mind or body to a lower, abnor- maj state. As Webster says: De- generation is deterioration of & tissue or an organ in which its vitality is diminished. Remember this, please. when I say that many drinkers are degenerates. This term implies that the person has been normal but has now begun to de- cline, to degenerate. to die. The term defective. on the other hand, implies that the person has never attained full normal development of mind or body.
 Copyright ls46 by John F. bile Col