The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-01-26

~
sumption of Alcohol Among the French
People,
To begin bluntly with the actual con-
sumption of alcohol in France, the
amount per head of the inhabitants has
more than tripled in the last forty years.
In "a workingmen's suburb of Rouen
average absorption is a half litre (SS
hundredths of pint) for each lnhab
tant daily. By this is meant that AMOUNT
not of beer or wine, but of spirits of
alcohol however taken, writes Paris
correspondent of the New York Trl bune.
1t would be wrong to suppose that such
excuses are limited to the laboring class
of the population. DR.. Lancereaux says:
Women have particular taste for ABB
sinthe; and, if they rarely intoxicase
themselves with wine and with alcohol
it must be acknowledged that in Paris,
at least, they are often injured by
aperitifs (absinthe, bitters, etc.. With
out fear of being accused of exaggeration,
I venture to say that this kind of intoxi-
cation, for some years back is as COM
mon among women as among men.
Throughout all France there are now
$4,000 more liquor shops than before the
war of 1870. With the $4,000 open in
Paris and the AZ, 500 in the departments.
there is one place for selling alcohol to
every eighty-fve inhabitants. The
quality OF the alcohol thus sold may be
gathered from the scale of prices in the
popular resorts-two cents a glass for
absinthe, three cents for coffee with the
little glass" (brandy.) The price, but
not necessarily the quality, is higher at
the places where the wives of respecta-
BILE bourgeois sit beside their husbands.
OF late there are frequent complaints of
the use of absinthe before the noon
lunch and the evening dinner in the
family itself. AS to drunkenness proper,
it has until recent years been no very
noticeable an evil among the SO called
Latin races. At present, in France there
is large and growing number of in
stances. In some of the country parts
there is something frightful in the statis-
tics of minoIs(under sixteen years of age)
brought up before the courts for scan
dalous intoxication. In Paris the fire.
quency of drunkenness has long been
known fact and is rapidly on the in
crease. Its significance is strengthened
by the great mum Der of deaths registered
as due to accidents alcoliques." The
doctors in their comments on these facts,
have not limited themselves to furnish
ing political reformers with data. They
have taken part in social agitation de-
signed to create public opinion quite
independent of any action that may be
taken by Parliament. Some of their
number have ever taken an active part
in reorganizing the moribund French
Temperance Society, under the name of
Association Against the A buse of AL
cobolic Liquors." Toward the close OF
the Exposition of Lyons various special
lists reported their side OF the case to
large audience assembled in the Univer-
sity Hall of that city.
DR.. Pirret, head physician of the asy-
Ium for mental diseases at Bron, insisted
ON the peculiar character of the "uncon-
scious alcoholic" This is the person
who is never really drunk, but who daily
passes the dose of spirituous liquor
which the organism can safely tolerate.
This commonest result of this excess,
which is unconscious" is a successive
getting out of order of the vital organs,
stomach, liver, kidneys, followed reg
uIarly by mental and moral disorders.
DR.. Motel. who is among the best known
of the medical cr1minalists of Paris, fol-
lowed with the description of series Of
effects produced in mind and conscience
by bad alcohols. For each one he had
chosen an actual crime falling under his
own experience, by way of illustration.
DR.. Rey, head physician of the insane asy-
lum of Marseilles Ia part of France once
known for its sobriety), gave statistics
of the changes of the last twenty years.
Before that period the asylum was uffi-
Gent to the needs of four departments,
including the island Of Corsica. 1t is now
insufficient for the bare city of Marseilles.
Moreover, in the city schools, there
are more than 300 half-witted and epilep-
tic children, whose condition, like that of
the inmates Vi tuc dsJ luuls is uuc w d.
coholism-in their case by heredity from
drinking parents. Outside of the schools
there are at least as many more whom it is
impossible even TO attempt to teach.
This speaker concluded with the impress
sive words:
"Unless we apply a remedy to the evil,
alcoholism will make of US, in the long
run a people of cretins."
No doubt the question is complicated
all over France with the growth of alb
sinthe and bitters drinking before meals.
Here the evils of alcohol are increased by
the hurtful qualities of the herb-ab-
sinthe (wormwood). nyssop, fennel, anis,
badiane (Chinese anis seed), angelica,
wild mar jora q, and the various mints-
which are infused in the Installation.
Dr. Magnan, at St. Anne's Hospital for
the Insane, with others of the Paris fac
ulty, has investigated this subject by
practical experiments with dogs. The
essence of absinthe (the most poisonous
of all these substaDces) hyssop and fen
Ii,vhf trt