The Wilmingtonian., 1884-10-25

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1854.
Scientific BASES of the Temperance Ref
Ormation.
BY DR. BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON.

All through the temperance ranks the
arguments which appeal most strongly to
the sentimental part of mems nature are
being enunciated with vivid force. Nay
this enunciation is not confined to the
abstinence world. Hosts of men and women
of the temperate sort, who are quite as
earnest, in their way, for national reforma-
ton, quite as energetic in denouncing the
evils of intemperance, and quite as strong in
declaring the privileges and beauties of tenn
perance as we are, go with us, as freely as
we go, up to the act of queuching the appe-
ute for alcohol to which we, logically, pro
coed. l do not, therefore, consider it my
duty to dwell on those parts of our argu-
ment which touch on the sentimental side
Let the good and sympathizing continue
this good and symp athletic and truly evan
gelic work What matters it to science if
in the United Kingdom fifty thousand per-
sons die each year from alcohol? What
matters it If the judge be true who said that
80 per cent. of all the criminal cases were
from the same causeP What matters it if
work-house and asylum are charged in regu-
lar course from the same cause? What
matters it if every act of sedition and rebel
lion, if every pound of damuable dynamite,
be made and laid under the influence of the
agent that brings it into activityP What
matters to science2 Nothing. The greatest
good for the greatest number is her pre-
scription, aud if this thing alcohol bad as it
may be, is Necessary, let it rage and live like
storms and hurricanes and earthquakes,
which smite and kill, and yet out of the
very womb of death bring forth the most
perfect forms Of life.
| shall do my part best by letting senti
ment in other hands, For the moment l
will take my stand with those who cry for
the greatest good for the greatest number,
be the consequences what they may. If all
the evils incident to the consumption of
alcohol be as bad as they are made to be; if
England he doomed to wreck aud ruin, 10
mental and physical death from it; still, if it
be part of the great natural design, if it
be absolutely necessary to man. as one Of
our leading publicists has recently declared
it to be; if it be as necessary as fire, let it
remain. Make every protection against it
as against fire; insure against it; have sta
tions to which to carry those who are injured
by it; do everything that can be done to
remedy all the misery it accompishes; but,
II it be absolutely necessary" let it remain
is IT NECESSARY?
- The scientific bases of the temperance ref
ormation will be laid if it can be proved:-
LIST. That this thing alcohol is not neces.
sary.
2nd. That as thing unnecessary it differs
from many such things in being an evil
thing.
will try to prove these positions.
l need not try to prove more.
In this effort | will be careful to put for
ward no statement that shall oyerstep the
views of the thoughtful men of science,
whether abstainers or not, who have recently
examined the questions relating to The
action of alcohol upon man and life. If a
point occurs upon which there is reasonable
doubt will not press it, and will give up
all special personal views which may have
urged from direct experiment and obserya-
tion, unless they have fallen in with general
acceptance or observation.
AGAINST THE ASSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL AS A
CONSTRUCTIVE FOOD.
After a long struggle of opinion, there is
now all but uniformity that alcohol supplies
no structure to any part of the body.
There was never at any time the slightest
scientific proof that it did; but it was
assumed to do SO. In my student days l
was zealously taught that wines and spirits
and ales made blood, that blood was liouid
flesh, and that they therefore made flesh or
tissue, In course of time, as the discoveries
of Majehdie disclosed what varieties of food
really sustained the animal tissues; as the
discoveries of Schwann and Schleiden dis
closed the cellular formation of the tissues:
and as the discoveries of Liebig unfolded
the chemical relationship of various foods. il
has come out, by clearest proof, that alcohol
does not belong to the class of organic food
substances that can build up the nitrogen
GUS or vital parts of an animal body.
That IL was not necessary for this purpose
has been proved and is proved millions of
times over, in the existence of the millions
of millions of living things that exist with
out resort to the use of it. IF the horse and
the COW generally-to use an illustration by
Dr. Munro-required alcohol for their vital
sustenance, the human world employed In
making this substance would be sufficiently
taxed. But if all animals demanded it for
the same natural reason, the whole human
family, doing nothing else, would barely find
time to replenish the whales, the elephants
and the hippopotami alone with the mater
ials for their bodies, to say nothing of the
requirements for the smaller kinds of ami.
mails, birds and beasts, reptiles, and other
things of life. Common sense, which is the
best form of common science, would point
to this evid ence of uselessness as all-suff-
Client to show that alcohol contributes, by
necessity, to no structure. But, in further
support, special science comes to our aid.
and shows us beyond doubt that for the for
nation of the vital structures one particula,
elementary base is required, namely nitro
gen, with sulphur, phosphorus, carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen as other necessary ele-
ments, combined in distinctive combina-
tion. She further shows us that these |
structure building heterogeneous compounds
are amply provided for us, ready made, in
The vegetable world.
press this argument no further. There |
is not an authority in the world of science
who would now presume to advance the old
lotion that alcohol feeds the living struc-