The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-02-01

*Iowa ratifies the spirit Of the amendment
/ election that proposes to have q school-h0use
| on eDerB hin and no saloons m the UdlIgu" thus
| crystalizing into deed the prayers and labors
of the W. c. 7. Q. and kindred Temperance
| organizations.
Hrs. 3. z. Housh, in Woman at Wor1t.
THE SUPPOSED UTILITY OF ALCO.
HOL.
There has been great advance in
public sentiment in regard to the sup
posed utility of alcohol.
Sixty years ago the use of alcoholic
liquors was supposed to be necessity,
in order to health. One of the first
/ questions raised, when the reform be-
gan, was whether it would be possible
for men to maintain good health if they
desisted from their use entirely. Itwas
supposed to be necessary often to re-
sort to them. They held complete sway
| in all fields of labor and no man was
supposed to be of much value in the
field or shop, as laborer. without
them; and it was held to be impossible
to withstand severe heat or cold with
out their aid. They filed large place
in na0teria naedica, and were freely re-
sorted to for every kind of illness, as a
sovereign remedy.
Tho quaint superstitions of Theoricus
| in the ancient Hollingshed chronicles
overlapped the first quarter of the pres
ent century, ascribing to alcoholic drinks
the following remarkable virtues: 'It
sloweth age; it Strengthened youth; it
helpeth digestion; it cutteth phlegm;
it abandoneth melancholy; it relisheth
the heart; it ighteneth the mind; it
quickeneth the spirits; it cureth the
hydupsia; it healeth the strangurie; it
pounceth the stone; it expelleth the
gravel; it putteth away ventosity; it
keepeth and preserveth the head from
whirling, the tongue from lisping, the
mouth from snatfiing, the teeth from
chattering and the throat from rafting;
it keepeth the weasen from sitting, the
stomach from wambling and the heart
from swelling; it keepeth the hands
from shiyering, the sinews from shrink
! ing, the veins from crumbling, the
bones from aching and the marrow
from soaking
Sixty to eighty years ago public senti-
ment had advanced little, and but
little, beyond these superstitions of the
| olden times, in regard to the virtues of
! alcohol. Thirty years ago an old man
! approaching his ninetieth birthday
said: "a Kind Providence and good
New England rum have spared my life
so long. ''Black strap" made of rum
and molasses, or rum sweat were in
| dispensable remedies for acold Rum,
seasoned with cherries, protected
against cold" Rum, made nutritious
! with milk, prepared for the maternal
office; and under the Greek name of
Paregoric rum, doubly poisoned with
| opium. Quoted the infants cries.
| ''Females, or valetudinarians, courted
an appetite with medicated rum, dis
guised under the chaste name of Hex
hams Tincture' or sStoughton's
| Elixir In some sections of the coun-
try it was customary to take whisky
| favored with mint soon after waking in
the mornings and so essential was it re-
garded to health that scarcely any
person of any age or sex was exempt
from it.
Can alcoholic drinks be safely dis
pensed with was a question seriously
and conscientiously pondered when this
reform was in its incipient stages.
Even DR.. Benjamin Rush was some
time in settling this point; others were
longer still in reaching a conclusion.
To dispense with them altogether, it
was felt, would make men weak and
puny, the sure victims of exhaustion
and disease. These ideas were current.
These mischievous decisions, relics of
darker ages, have now been dispelled
from multitudes of intelligent minds.
How great the change! How seldom we
meet such notions now, only among
acknowledging people, who are un-
pardonably lettering behind the march
of mind, held back by the subtle delu-
sion of appetite.
As early as 1850 the use of alcoholic
beverages had been condemned by the
best medical authorities in Great Brit
ain and the United States, as not only
needless, but positively injurious. Pri-
or to that time alcohol had been dem
onstrated to be poison in a healthy
body. Two thousand of the best med
zeal and surgical gentlemen in Great
Britain declared, over their signatures,
that 1.-THE most perfect health is COM
patible with total abstinence from all
intoxicating beverages, and that ''to-
tai and universal abstinence from such
beverages would greatly contribute to
the health, prosperity and happiness
of the human race. One hundred
and twenty-five of the first phvsi-
clans in New York City united in de-
claring that ''alcohol should be classed
with other powerful drugs, and when
prescribed incidentally, it should be
with conscientious caution and grave
sense of responsibility" Soon after
the publication of these views an article
appeared in the Westminster ReUteU adj
vocating alcohol as food. Some French
Investigators, however, of a high rank,
quickly exploded this pernicious theory.
and the Westminster ReUies0 magnani-
mously retracted it. Ex-Governor An
drew, before a Legislative Committee
of Massachusetts, with a great array of
learning, reasserted the theory that
alcohol is food, or leasatt an assimlator
of food, and the effect of it has been a
reaction of sentiment in some circles Of
society. But the battle has been fought
over again, and the demonstrations of
the ripest science are against alcohol at
all as a beverage. end also as a medicine,
except in exceedingly rare cases. In
the language Of the Sanitary editor
Of the I1licpeBlf1st. Every gain in
sanitary knowledge and 10 The study of
the condition Of perfect health tends to
drive leohQl from use.n