Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1882-05-06

Alcohol Kills More People than the
Yellow Fevcr-The Statistics to that
Effect.
TO the Editor of the Inter Ocean.
LINCOLN, H., April 26.-Seeing so
many letters in your paper making sug-
gestiOns to the State Board of Health as
to public health measures that need
their attention, have concluded to call
attention to a subject which, as yet, L
have not seen noticed. / refer to alcO-
holism, which has become so common
that it fails to attract attention. | will
quote from an essay which l read on the
subject of alcoholism" before the Illi-
nOis State Eclectic society at Springfield,
in May last:
''Dr. Willard Parker, of New York, is
authority for the statement that statls-
tics show that 10 per cent. of all the
deaths i'm this country result from alcO-
h0l; and now do hope that no one will
brand that as a fanatical statement UNI
til they acquaint themselves with the
statistical facts in the case and the stand
ing of DR.. Parker. The official vital sta
tistics show that ten times as many per-
sons died in the United States in the last
decade Of alcoholism as did from yellow
fever"
And yet the public press, and even the
medical journal, are about as silent as
death as to
1.-THE RAvAGES OF THIS DREAD DISEASE.
Other sources of danger are not winked
at. few pieces of bad pork sent out
from the United States were sufficient to
thoroughly alarm three of the greatest
nations of the earth to such an extent
that, if we should judge from the legal
measures that were Immediately taken
for protection, and the amount of buster
that has been going on in their public
journals, we would be led to believe that
every one of their millions of inhabitants
could already feel an American trichma
spiralis knocking for admission at the
door Of his meat-hOuse.
During an epidemic of yellow fever in
the South our city papers are filled with
startling accounts of the dreadful raw
ages that yellow Jack" is making
among our neighbOrs. And, as for the
State Board of Health, the lightning eX-
press trains are entirely too slow to ac-
commodate the Secretary and President
as they fly from one point on our border
to another in their industrious and
worthy efforts to keep this unfriendly
visitor from our state.
DUTY OF THE STATE BOARD.
MISUNDERSTANDING tIle ldCb IlldL ycllOW
fever never killed fifty Of our inhabitants
while alcoholism has been the cause of
tens of thousands of deaths among the
Peep Of this state, if those who are COM
missiOned to look after our public health
(Our state board, for instance) would
spend little less time in looking after
the manufacturers of baking powder to
see that they don't get any alum in it,
or in guarding the public against hav-
ing little oleOmargarine imposed on
them in the place of dirty butter, or in
preventing the vinegar men from get
ting little harmless acid in their goods
or in discussing the best means of pre-
venting the spread of leprOsy among the
dear people mot genuine case of which,
probably, ever occurred in the State.
If they would spend less Of their valu-
able time on these subjects, / repeat,
they could devote some to good adyan-
tage to this disease, which is producing
ten out of every hundred deaths in the
state, and, in their report to his Excel
Iency the Governor of the state suggest
such sanitary and quarantine regula-
tions as to them might seem best; for, il
we have right to quarantine against
yellow fever, smallpox, cholera, scarlet
fever, and leprOsy, we certainly should
have the same legal protection from al
cOholism, which, according to unques-
tionable official statistics, is the cause of
more deaths in the state of Illinois than
all these terrible diseases combined.
VIM. W. HoUsER, M. ID.