“Malt does more than Milton can/To justify God’s ways to man.” So sings A. E. Housman, in The Shropshire Lad. Men have been drinking more than they ‘should since first they learned to ferment grain and grape. Why do men and women sink into debasing servitude to the cup that ought to cheer? Mr. Patrick Frawley, of the razor blades and the automatic pencils, is striding into this realm of mystery. It is Mr. Frawley’s conviction that most, or much, addiction to alcohol is of genetic origin, rather than psychological. The villain is not one’s overindulgent or overdisciplinary mommy, but one’s remote ancestor. Certainly the typical man of northern European ancestry does not behave so well under the influence of drink as does the modern southern European. If the cause is genetic, primarily, limitless hours on the alienist’s couch will not. redeem the lush. So Eversharp, Inc., hopes to market a new medicine, called Enzopride, extracted from yeast. (Scientifically put, it is diphosphopyridine neucleotide, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.) This drug, developed at Shadel Hospital in Seattle and at Enzomedic Laboratories, Inc., is meant to provide a coenzyme which will metabolize alcohol and prevent “the chemical reactions that are the basic cause of progressive drinking.” This year, the federal authorities will decide whether En-— zepride may be sold generally. What is the evidence for the theory to which Mr. Frawley subscribes? Well, the farther north one goes, the harder and more disastrous the drinking. The Irishman drinks far too much, and takes the pledge and enters special hospitals, in repentance. The Scot is a ferocious and gloomy drinker. The Swede has to be rationed by his government. The German is obnoxious in his cups. The tipsy Russian thrashes his spouse. Even the Frenchman—particularly since he has had money to jingle in his pocket— destroys himself by liqueurs. These seem to be national curses. But who has beheld a drunken — Jew—a jeu desprit, as it is put in Fractured French? What Italian grows riotous or murderous over a bottle of wine? What Spaniard must rouse sluggish passions by tippling? The culture of the olive and the vine produce few boozers. Some argue that these differences are cultural. The Italian child, for instance, is first introduced to a few drops of wine in a glass of water, and very gradually and temperately learns to enjoy a drink which, after all, is comparatively low in alcoholic content. Besides, the Italian and his Mediterranean neighbors mingle water with their wine commonly; even the libations to the gods, in classical times, were thus mixed. The habit has become characteristic of the people. Yet perhaps what commences as the custom of a culture may be transmuted into genetic tendency. The folk of the damp and chilly North, in former ages, drank strong brew and distilled spirits to put warmth into their bodies, in a time when fuel was scarce. In the cities of our century, such stimulus to the blood is far less needed; but the craving for alcohol, particularly in an idle hour, may have entrenched itself in the race’s genes.
Historically, the subject is perplexed. We learn from the Socratic dialogues that Greeks often sank under the table, talking philosophy over an amphora; certainly the later Romans both ate and drank far too much, though they and the Greeks had no distilled spirits. Their descendants, or alleged descendants, are different, and pleasantly temperate, for the most part. On the other hand, one can cite instances of Northern drinkers who, if governed by strict morality or social inhibition, did not become addicted, e.g., the topers of Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance. Also class, and manners, are involved. Today Scotch whisky is an international status-symbol, producing addiction by emulation; but in the eighteenth century, Scotch was drunk only by rude Highlanders who could get nothing better, while gentlefolk and burghers drank claret. “Claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes,” says Samuel Johnson. He does not mention base usquebaugh, or whisky. Gin and vodka seem to do the greatest damage. Cheap gin was the ruin of the lower classes in London of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; vodka besotted and brutalized the Russian peasant. Whatever the remote causes, peoples of the Cold Lands, generally considered, drink more than they should, and suffer Greadfully from it, in body, mind and character. Mere laws are no remedy: reaction against the Volstead Act showed that. Besides, why forbid the temperate to drink in moderation, that the alcoholic may seek his pleasure behind shuttered windows? Seebohm Rountree, the Quaker philanthropist, once approached the Archbishop of York with a petition for the establishment of compulsory abstinence in York. The Archbishop declined to sign. “Why not, my lord?” “Because, Mr. Rountree, I had -rather see England drunken and free than sober and slave.” So I trust that Mr. Frawley’s Enzopride will be as efficacious as he means it to be. (It is supposed to help those already addicted “by removing the accumulated toxic byproducts from their body which contribute to their craving,” as well as to reduce possible addiction among those not already quaffing too deeply.) No medicine can totally immunize a man against John Barleycorn; but there exist some prospects that _ those little genetic devils may be restrained by the humble yeasty enzyme.
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