The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-10-08
INEBRIETY IN FRANCE.
How the French Are Degenerating
Through the Consumption of Alcohol.

io" bho arc
Through the Consumption of Alcohol.
The arguments of the opponents Of
total abstinence that the use of beer
and light wines on the continent is con-
ducive to temperance and that the peo-
pie are not led thereby into intemper-
ance and debauchery are being
thoroughly refuted. This is the work
of scientific medical men in both Ger
many and France. The Paris, France,
correspondent of the Chicago Sunday
Chronicle, writes:
A good deal of superficial claptrap is
repeated year after year by writer's
about the remarkable sobriety of the
Latin races generally and of the French
people in particular. The Italians GER
tainly seem to be as abstemious as they
are hard working, but as for the French
they are declared by their own most
eminent medical authorities to be I'M
dergoing a rapid process of degenera-
ton, brought on by the reckless con-
sumption of brain-paralyzing, blood
poisoning liquors. Dr. Brunon, the we'll
known director of the medical school at
Rouen, and student of his, NJ. Tour
dot, have just published the results of
their studies on the subject, and these
are eminently calculated to alarm
French patriots. The latter gentleman
dressed himself up as waiter and OBJ
tanned a place in a tavern in Rouen fire.
quented by the lowest class of work
men, many of whom sleep there for a
penny night. NJ. Tourdot first studied
his own colleagues. He declared that,
on the whole, they are sober class, but
adds that the perpetual strain on their
nerves, the lack of fresh air and the
emanations from the alcohol generally
bring on aenemia and tuberculosis,
which means death in about IS months.
But the guests of this and similar places
were the principal objects of NJ. Tour
dots Investigations, and he says that
these pitiable people, who earn about
fourpence an hour came regularly,
drank their hours wages in a few min
utes, went back to earn more by the
most laborious work, and then took to
drinking the proceeds of it in like man
ner till day wore on into night and con-
seriousness was dimmed to intoXicatiOn,
Sometimes he saw $50 glasses of the
most pernicious alcohol served out in
the short space of ten minutes. Dr.
Brunon bitterly complains of the enor-
nous number of little taverns of this
type, and mentions one street in Rouen
containing $50 houses, of which rs are
licensed to sell poisonous beverages.
Turning to the mothers of the COM
ing generation of France, DR.. Brunon
remarks that they are seldom brutally
drunk, but that they subject themselves
to process of slow but chronic intoxi-
cation, productive of horrible results,
and this mainly by drinking coffee.
Not that coffee is bad in itself, but that
it is never partaken of nowadays with
out alcohol, and in this latter form is
drunk at all hours of the day and night,
administered to the children-nay, act
ually brought to their cradles in little
bottles by the affectionate mothers. At
the tender age of seven years the I'M
fortunate children are no longer given
coffee with spirits, but alcohol neat.
This sound incredible, but it is too true.
A schoolmaster lately inquired of his
pupils, all boys under nine years, how
many of them abstained from these
drinks, and he found that among his 63
pupils "a were accustomed to parta<e
of ia goutte' every day of their lives.
The mystery is that they live as long
as they do. He estimates the proportion
of boys and girls thus infected with al
coholism in Normandy at from 40 to Is
per cent. At ten or eleven years the
boys add the nicotine poison to the
alcohol and are decimated like flies, or
contract incurable diseases. No for
eigH foe, no destruction of human life
by floods, collisions or explosions could
possibly intiict upon the French race
anything like the unspeakable evils
which this curse of alcoholism has eSn-
jured up.