Whilst 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 defences 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 Ch