The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-08-06
From the chronological Journal.l
The Teetotal Muddlement.

Was there ever such a muddle? The
women are praying the rumsellers out OF
their business. Some persons are ap-
plauding and other persons are condemn
ing their efforts. Some Christian minis
tiers are quoting Scripture to show that
Christ manufactured, and that the Book
commends, an intoxicating beverage.
Other Christian ministers are quoting
Christ and the Bible to prove exactly the
contrary. Medical men are writing pro
and con concerning the uses and abuses
of alcohol with renewed vigor. Profes-
sors of medical colleges are informing the
people, through the media of the news
papers, that grog is good-good medicine,
good drink, and good food-or, at least, a
substitute for victuals. Other professors
of other medical colleges are warning the
people, through the columns of the same
newspapers, that grog is neither medi-
cine, drink, food, nor substitute for
victuals Family physicians of great
learning and large experience assure
their patrons that alcohol, employed in
moderation, is useful. Other family
physicians, of equal reputation and stand
ing, declare that all use is abuse. Was
there ever another muddle like unto the
alcoholic2
Alcohol is the mystery of mysteries
finding out The problems of pabulum,
spontaneous generation, prehistoric man,
or cremation VS.. inhumation, are as moth
ing compared with it. Though its ma
ture is simple enough-carbon, oxygen,
and hydrogen-its properties puzzle doc
tors of divinity, doctors of medicine, and
doctors of every other name and voca-
ton.
Authors on toxicology declare alcohol
to be 'tcaustic and irritant poison.
Authors on materia medica affirm it to
be a supporter of vitality" Authors on
pathology name "a score of specific dis
eases which it produces to say nothing of
its general effect of alcohoHSmus. Authors
on therapeutics tell US it is an indisputa-
BILE medicament in cases of prostration
and debility. Authors on physiology
make it out to be everything or nothing,
according to their standpoint of obser-
vetion, as the rural schoolmaster was
willing to teach that the earth was round
or fat, Just as the people pleased.
The people drink alcohol and become
paupers, sots, vagabonsd, maniacs, MUIR
.derers. People drink it, and while they
gibber and stagger declare they could
not live without it. Temperance orators
trace its history for four thousand years,
and assert that vice, crime. and social
desolation have ever blackened its path
way Yet temperance orators get sick,
and the temperance doctors prescribe
alcohol to restore them to health Sta
tisticians tell as that alcohol is the chief
agent in filling our prisons and peniten-
tiaries, and the newspapers report MUIR
ders every day in the year because of 1T;
yet medical men administer hundred
thousand doses, and non-professional
persons take million of drinks daily.
Arithmeticians calculate that money
enough is expended for Intoxicating
drinks to pay our national debt in less
than ten years; yet newspapers and poll
ticians commend its manufacture and
traffic as great and important industries
Is there no way of getting at the truth
of the uses and abuses of alcoholic Is
this forever to remain the only problem
that cannot be handled logically nor sci
enti6callyl Cannot our learned men
find some reliable basis on which the
subject can be nationally Investigated,
and its trQthfulness demonstrated Can
not the principles of physiology, the laws
of vitality, or the suggestions OF common
sense be applied to alcohol as to all other
things under the sun
There is o ray of hope for u.s. The
National Temperance Advocate offers pre-
mium of $500 for the solution of this mo-
mentous problem. The sum is little
enough, and so would $1,000 be. Liquor
drinking costs the good people of the