If the full story could ever be told of the national tragedy of drink and the war there would be no more ghastly chapter than that which would tell how drink fought the Red Cross; how, without pity, it hindered the work of mercy that is the general consolation of the world in days like these. We are coming to a famine not only in food, but in doctors. The death-roll has been heavy beyond all parallel; the strain on the medical services has been almost too great to be borne, and we look anxiously round to know where the doctors and nurses will come from. With Prohibition the problem would be largely solved, for the ordinary burden of life would be largely lifted from our doctors and hospitals, and thousands of men and women would be free to give themselves to the war instead of mending up and patching up the sordid effects of drink. A rich brewer gave a donation for extending a hospital. “Ah! but we should not have to extend if he would shut up his public-houses,” said a doctor. It is easy to see how drink is telling all the time against our doctors, our nurses, and our hospitals everywhere. Let us call a few witnesses. Somebody gave a glass of neat whisky to two wounded men at a garden party in Tottenham. Both were drunk when the brake came to take them home, and one died on the way. _Facts in “Sheffield Telegraph,” September 3, 1915_ Three wounded soldiers at Oxford were overcome by four bottles of rum smuggled into the hospital by visitors, and one of the men died. _Records of Oxford Coroner, January 1916_ A wounded soldier asked for two hours’ leave, came back in four hours drunk with whisky, and died after a terrible night in the hospital. _Facts in “Daily Mail”_ Two limbless soldiers were found helplessly drunk on the pavement at Brighton. A publican was fined £20. _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” November 25, 1916_ A wounded soldier, mentioned in despatches, was charged with causing the death of a soldier with whom he had been drinking. Reeling under a heavy blow, the injured man was helped to bed, but when the bugle sounded in the morning he was dead. _Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 21, 1915_ A soldier, aged 29, with a gunshot wound in his arm, died from alcohol at Oxford. One Sunday night he and two other wounded soldiers consumed four bottles of rum brought into the hospital. _Records of Oxford Coroner, January 10, 1916_ Three soldiers in hospital uniform were found lying helplessly drunk on the tramlines of Sheffield. Two were back from the Dardanelles. _Facts in “Sheffield Star,” March 2, 1916_ Seamen on a ship bringing wounded to England from Boulogne were so drunk that they interfered with the stretcher bearers, and one fell across a wounded soldier lying on deck.