Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-12-17
ALCOHOL ARRAIGNED.

Tr-'@N--f-
Drinking Men.
During tine year 1890, the people of
the United States consumed $4,000, 900
gallons of distilled spirits, 4O,OOO,0OO
gallons of wines and 800. 600, 900 gallons
of malt liquors, making a total OF 400 :
600, 900 Of alcoholic beverages. This
cost the consumers, at the very lowest
estimate, $500 900, 900. or about S13 per
capita for the total population of the
country, men, women and children. In
estimating the nations drink bill,
however, we must add to this enor-
nous total the time lost from work, and
that lost because of sickness and crimes
due to drinking.
1t is estimated by Dr. n. S. Davis of
Chicago, that this cost at least as much
more. hence the total drink bill of the
nation for the year 1890, ran up to the
enormous total of 81 900, 600
1t must be remembered, too that the
consumers of liquor got absolutely
nothing of value to themselves for this
enormous expenditure of money. Rum
does not add to mans health, nor to
his strength. 1t answers no purpose
of clothing nor of food. In negative
results, look at the wasted fortunes,
ruined lives and homes. Men who do
not indulge in drink can do better
work, and can work more steadily, than
those who indulge. Why then does
anyone drink?
A large number of people begin
drinking, at least, because of erroneous
ideas as to the nature of alcoholic bev-
erages and their effects upon the
human body. Before chemistry an
alyzed rum, it was supposed TO be
stimulating, warming soothing and
restorative. All these. in the clear
light of science, are now seen to be fall
lacies Yet. the belief is strongly
rooted in the minds of thousands that
indulge in liquors for this purpose; es-
pecially fallacious is the idea that any
alcoholic beverage contains nutriment
in any marked degree. A five-pound
loaf of bread contains as much actual
food as man would obtain in year
if he drank from eight to ten quarts OF
beer daily. At that rate of drinking,
by the end of the year a man would
have swallowed a barrel of alcohol.
Beer contains about four per cent. of
alcohol wines about fifteen per cent,
and distilled liquors from fifty to sixty
per cent The question then presents
itself: what is the effect of this al
cohol upon the physical SYSTEM
The answer of science is that alcohol
is a poison, pure and simple. A slow
poison, If you win, but one whose eff
fects are directly proportional to the
amount taken, and to the rap idity with
which it is imbibed. Because it does
not kill instantly, men think that there
is no foundation for its classifca-
ton as poison. Its effects,
when steadily taken, are detrimental
to all the great bodily organs. 1t
causes permanent structural changes
in the liver, the.kidneys, the stomach,
the hlood-vessels and in the nervous
tissue. In the liver and kidneys it pro-
duces two incurable Observation-Disclosures
and Bright's disease 1t INJURIES the
brain by hardening it, and consequent-
ly Injuries the mental powers of those
who imbibe it, and it is the testimony
of the highest medical authorities that
IOG 0dU1Ludl uSt VI dlCOnOAtc
lessons the natural duration of life
from ten to fifteen years. That is to
say, a man who would, did he remain
temperate, live to be seventy years old,
will. as a moderate drinker, die some
where between fifty-five and sixty
years old.
Besides its effect upon the brain, al
cohol has a very deleterious power
over the minds and morals of the vic
TINS Prof Axel Gustafson declares
that alcohol holds prominent place
as blood poison, and that suicide, in
sanity. idiocy and various kinds Of
moral mania are directly traceable to
its influence on the brain. More than
this, the habit of moderate drinking
greatly increases the danger to any pa
tent who may be attacked by disease.
This is because alcohol reduces the vi
tality of the system and its power Of
resistance.
These are. facts which should be
brought home to every man, and
especially to every young man. in the
United States. Every mother should
know them. and teach them to her
children Every father should not
only be able to warn his sons of these
evils. but should set them a personal
example Of abstinence. The crying
need Of the times IS for the dissemina-
ton of Just such scientific knowledge
among the masses of the people
There is no politics in it II is simply
making known the facts which science