The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1886-07-07
A VITAL QUESTION.

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A VITAL QUESTION.
The Physiological Effects of Rum on the
Human Body-A Searching Investiga-
tion and Its Conclusive Results.
We are glad to see that the more ad-
vanced and wide-awake members of
the medical profession are turning their
attention to the physiological effects of
rum on the human body. By rum we
mean any kind of liquor-spirituous,
| vinous or malt-which contains alcohol
in any quantity whatever. There is a
growing disposition among the doc
| tors TO investigate the old beliefs of the
profession regarding runs work in the
body's economy; to take nothing for
| granted because it is current as a part
of old medical literature, but to put
each assertion to the proof, and test,
by actual experiment, its truth or
falsity.
The Blade recently discussed the
topic of rum as medicine, and en-
deavored to give its readers, without
the use of technical or medical terms,
the latests results arrived at by the in
vestigations of English scientists and
medical men, which results may b.
summed up in the statement that alco-
hol, and of course rum in all it's forms,
Is poison, no more, no less; never
tonic, never stimulant, in the medi-
cal sense; in fact, not medicine.
Within the past few days the use of
alcohol (and rum) in medical practice
was discussed by the Ohio State Med
ical Society, at it's annual meeting at
Akron. this State-the discussion being
brought up by q paper read
before the society by DR.. Will
lam B. Davis, of Cincinnati, on
'The Alcohol Question" While the
paper was for the most part strictly
professional in its treatment of the SUBJ
ject, and hence of interest only to ply
sicians, the general conclusions of the
author, as well as we are able to Judge
from the brief summary before us, were
in accord with those before given in the
Blade. There were some additional
facts given, however, as to the habit
ual use of rum, that are of the widest
interest to the public.
Most interesting was his discussion
of the influence of rum on the dura-
ton of life. One might reason by
analogy that as alcohol is poison,
the constant drinking of rum is equiv
alent to slow poisoning of the indi-
vidual, and that shortening of the
natural term of life would be the inev-
liable result. DR.. Davis shows that this
is actually so. 1t is found by the great
life insurance companies that the use
of rum shortens life. These companies
have direct pecuniary motive in as
certaining the truth of this matter. To
them it is not q humanitarian ques-
ton, but one of dollars and cents. Put
in its plainest form, the problem they
had set before them to solve was:
'Does it pay to insure drinking mcnP"
One of the most eminen. Of English
actuaries, Mr.. Nieson, made within the
past few years a searching investiga-
ton OF the ''risks" Ga technical term
for the persons insured) of the life in
surance companies of England, with
special reference to the effects of alco-
hol upon the duration of life-or, to
to put it in other words, to find wheth-
er company is justified in insuring q
confirmed drinker mot necessarily a
drunkard, but a steady, moderate"
drinker) or not. The results at which
he arrived are startling. Understand
that the worst class of drinking men
are excluded from the list-those who
are SO far on the downward road that
no insurance company would accept a
risk upon their lives-and that in the
class of drinking men, all are in
cluded who use intoxicants to any de-
gree. The results of this investigation
may be stated thus:
l. Where, in a given number of
'risks," ten non-drinkcrs die between
the ages of fifteen and twenty, there
are eighteen drinking persons die.
That il, stating the fact in another
form: nearly tUo drinking youths die
to one abstainer, among those whose
ages range from fifteen to twenty!
, 2. Between the ages of twenty-one
and thirty, there are fifty-one deaths
! of drinking men to ten deaths of alb
stainers. That's over fue Incorporate
, men die to one temerate man!
, 3. Between the ages of thirty-one
and forty, there are forty drinking mer
die for every ten abstainers; that is
| the ratio of deaths is four to one!
1t must be understood that compare
lively few of these men die directly
from rum. They do not all, nor near
ly all. die in the horrible rawlings of de-
, lirium tremens, for instance. But then
lives have been shortened by rum. The
I alcoholic poison has undermined the
! constitution of each, and destroyed al
recuperative power. The disease
!, whatever it may have been, which was
/ the immediate cause of death, was vic
torious only because the system of tho
, sufferer was enfeebled by rum.
What else could be expected as the
result when man, day after day fol
years, takes into his system a poison
!, The currents Of life are polluted at thu
: fountain-head. The life-energy is ex
!, pended in the daily task of overcoming
! the pernicious physical influence o
rum. Every organ of the body is NOR
. or less disorganized and enfeebled
and when disease comes, the power O
resistance being lessened to a grea
. degree, death results far more quickl
than did this state of things not exist
), Mr.. Nelson's Investigations also lie,
to the following results as to the com
!. parative length of life the drinker an
!. the abstainer may look forward t
Q with reasonable degree of certainty
!, At the age of twenty years, a temper
. ate man may reasonably expect to liy
e A.2 years longer; a drinking man, onl
~ IL