The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1890-02-19
A NEEDED REVIVAL.

The Wisdom and Duty of Personal Abb
stinence from All Kinds of Intoxicating
Beverages
There is urgent present need of more
effective teaching among the masses
concerning the use Of intoxicants. The
increase in the prQduceOn and con-
sumption especially of fermented liquors
in the last quarter of a century is start
ling. The quarterly report of the chief
of the United States Bureau of Stats
tics of the Treasury Department, for
the three months ending March 81 1889,
Colonel w. f. Switzler, being then the
official head of the Bureau, states that
there were consumed in the United
States during the year 1888, of malt
liquors, 767, 5S7, 056 gallons; of distilled
spirits, -, S45, 49, gallons; and of wines,
80, 335, 06S gallons-a grand total of all
kinds, of S79, 767, 476 gallons of liquors
This is about IA. 80 gallons per pita of
the entire population of the country.
Deducting abstainors, it indicates still
larger per capita consumption of liquors
by those who do drink. The large ma
jority of drinkers. moderate and i'm
moderate, are men. AS under our form
of government men, at the polls and in
halls of legislation, determine legal
methods for the regulation, or prohibi-
tion, of the SAFE of intoxicants, it is a
matter of the utmost Importance that q
majority at least of the men be won over
to the ranks of the abstainers who will
intelligently and conscientiously refrain
from their use. Men who are won't to
use intoxicants, even occasionally in
moderate quantities, will not generally
be inclined, either as voters, legislators
or executive officers, TO do much to stop
their manufacture and sale.
In the minds of many otherwise intel
ligent people there fingers the conyic-
ton that in reality, if not abused"
alcoholic liquors, especially fermented
liquors, may be taken without injury in
health. and in sickness, with essential
benefit.
In Europe. especially in Great Britain,
and to some extent now on the cOnti-
nent, eminent medical men are doing
much to dispel this illusion by teaching
with the authority Of enlightened
science that in health they may and
should be wholly dispensed with, and in
sickness that they are useful only in
limited sphere and when prescribed
with scientific accuracy. Somewhat
singularly, on this side of the Atlantic,
where the earnest Temperance agitation
years ago originated, it has now rela-
lively less support and encouragement
from eminent and leading members OF
the medical profession than abroad. The
Temperance reform, in its educational
and preventive aspect, greatly needs in
this era more help from the medical
profession, whose representatives are
accepted by the people generally as the
true opponents of the lessons of science
concerning alcoholic beverages, as in
other matters pertaining to health and
physical economy.
One grand pioneer in American scien-
tific alcoholic investigation survives
still to render most valuable service,
DIR. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, the father
and founder of the great American Med
ical Association. In recent pamphlet,
published by the National Temperance
Society, he discusses, from the scientif-
ic doint Of view, with marked ability
and with the authority of an expert of
large experience and observation, the
influence of alcohol on the human system,
especially as used in beer and wine, and
he declares unqualitiedly that there is
no greater or more destructive error ex-
listing in the public mind than the be-
lief that the use of fermented ard dis
titled drinks does no harm so long as
fdfey do not intoxicate." He further
declares that the oft-repeated popular
phrase ut is not the temperate use, but
the abuse st alcoholic drinks that does
harm" embodies "the error which helps
to rob more than 100, 600 persons Of from
five to twenty years of life each in the
United States, through the gradual de-
Selopment of chronic structural dis
eases induced by the daily use of beer
ale, Mine or distilled spirits in quanti
'duce intoxication. He maintains tha
a popular error but little less mischiev
Gus is the opinion widely prevalent
that the substitution of beer and wine
for distilled spirits promotes Temper
nnce and lessons the evil effects of alec
hol on the health and morals of thos,
who use them. His pamphlet is replet,
with most valuable instruction on thu
alcohol question, both for the medica
profession and the general public. W,
know of nothing more absolutely con
elusive in behalf of total abstinence.
There should be general revival o
total-abstinence agitation which shall
make 1890 memorable as year of prog
ress in converting those people, mel
and women, who are now consumers o
alcoholics and patrons of the brewery
the distillery and the saloon, to an &C
acknowledgements in theory and practice
of the wisdom and duty of personal alb
stinence from all kinds of intoxicatin,
beverages.
In this greatly-needed revival Chris
tian ministers and members of churche
should take the lead. Within the churcl
nothing is worse for the spiritual wei
fare of its members than the alcohol
paralysis which injurious social drink
ing ussges beget, and in the world a
large there is no more powerful agenc
for the promotion of irreligion than tn
saloon and the ungodly influences radiat
ing therefrom. Latterly public atten
ton has been very largely directed tc
ward the SHE of intoXicants. and rela