Alcohol and the Human Body: An Introduction to the Study of the Subject, and a Contribution to National Health

1920

Truby King Collection QV 82 HT35 1920

London: Macmillan and Co.

In 1901, in conjunction with the Asylum, Truby King founded a Home for Inebriates at Orokonui, just south of Seacliff. He believed that abstinence and a regulated life greatly aided physical and mental improvement in alcoholics. In this battle of rooting out self-indulgence and imposing self-control, he was aided by Dr Colquhoun, a local expert on the subject of inebriety at the University of Otago. Alcohol and the Human Body was a popular reference work on the topic by Victor Horlsey and Mary Darby Sturge. Horlsey knew that many injuries admitted to the hospital were due to alcohol and he became an advocate for temperance reform; ‘Maida’ Sturge pioneered the belief in the value of sleep, sunshine and fresh air in the treatment of illness. Plate III was no doubt concocted to get their message across to readers.