FROM THE HISTORY OF STUDYING CHILD ALCOHOLISM IN RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX — BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURIES (PART II)
Abstract
The second part of the article continues viewing the problems of study the influence of alcohol abuse on the child’s body at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. The analysis of domestic scientific literature revealed that along the works that provided an overview of the investigations of domestic and foreign authors published at that time, a sufficient number of studies based on the results of the authors’ own observations had already appeared. Especially positive was the fact of preparing dissertations of an experimental nature, in which evidence of the negative effect of alcohol consumption on the growing organism was given. The experiments were conducted on young small in size animals and birds, while histological, biochemical, and clinical techniques were widely used in the process of setting up the experiment, behavioral reactions were studied, the weight and height of the animal and its individual organs were measured in comparison with the control group. Cases of the birth of defective offspring in people who were alcohol abused, known since ancient times, attracted attention of many researchers during that period, lively discussions were held on this topic, scientific papers were published. Most of the authors’works who shared the opinion about the grave influence of alcohol on heredity were based on clinical and statistical analysis. There are works of psychiatrists, teachers, criminologists, public figures proving close etiological connection between consumption of alcoholic beverages in childhood and adolescence and marginalization of children and adolescents, the development of various forms of deviant behavior (crime, suicide, prostitution), mental illness, high mortality. Numerous scientific studies of the scale of alcohol consumption by children, harmful effects of alcohol consumption on the child’s body, the consequences to which it leads, have contributed to the formation of idea that the cause of alcoholism in children is the totality of socio-economic living conditions that children are exposed to: hunger, incredible crowding in the premises, family situation created on the basis of ignorance, constant need and deprivation, desperate exploitation of labor. Great claims were made to school, where, according to the evidence of that time, there were all conditions for the prosperity of consuming alcohol: violation of elementary rules of sanitation, high academic load, lack of educational work, in general, the “gray everyday life” of
a student. Caring people — doctors, scientists, lawyers, teachers, public figures, representatives of the clergy organized various commissions, circles, gathered congresses, developed programs for conducting sobriety lessons in schools, organized courses for teachers in order to teach them how to work with schoolchildren to promote sobriety, etc. However, no holistic program aimed at combating this evil was created. There were also no forces and means capable of at least mitigating the effects of factors contributing to the development of drunkenness among children and adolescents. Most commonly, among the main directions of the fight against alcoholism, the need for state measures was called.