The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-22
HYGIENIC EFFECTS oF~ALCoHoL


In 1887 the legislature of Minnesota had
one of its spasms, the exciting cause be-
ing one of the fits of periodical activity
on the part of that small but persistent
portion of the community who, making
no use themselves of any of the many
forms of alcoholic stimulants, firmly be-
the right or the privilege of using them.
Failing in their efforts to have a pro-
hibitive law enacted, they blarneyed the
legislature into enacting law that re-
quired "all teachers in the public schools
of the state to give systematic and regu-
lar instruction in physiology and hy-
giene, including special reference to the
effect of narcotics and stimulants upon
the human system" They clinched the
law with a requirement that no teacher
should be certified who failed to pass a
satisfactory examination on that topic,
and by directing the state superintend-
ent to withhold the school apportion-
ment from any school that failed or
neglected to make such instruction part
of its curriculum.
The law died of hamilton soon after the
book publishers had compiled a treatise
for use in the schools and parents had
been obliged to buy them for their chill
dren, but it still cumbers the statutes, in
company with large progeny of other
reformatory legislation to which no one
pays the least attention and the exist
ence of which IS unknown to the bulk Of
the people. Now, however, comes Prof
Atwater and makes report to a socio-
ty that has had alcoholic stimulants I'M
der investigation for several years. treat
ing the matter from the standpoint of the
scientist, whose only object is fact, in
whose object is to make people think and
act as he does. He says that certain
foods, starch, sugar and the fats, are
the fuel needed by the human organism
to produce combustion in order. to rem
der assimilable other foods that are nu-
tritious. Alcohol is a fuel food, of which
one can have too much or too little just
as he can Of starch or sugar, or of the
proteids for muscle and bone making,
and just as boiler can have too much
or too little fire under It, 1t is its abuse,
not its use, that Injuries; its proper use
being beneficial.
Taken to task for his statements as be-
ing directly opposed to and destructive
of certain theories tenaciously held by
the alcophobists-to coin a needed word
he blandly asks: If we are to teach sci
ence, must we not teach fact? If fact COL
lides with fancy must it not be the lat
ter that has to give way? Where would
agination? And we confess the professor
seems to have the better of the argu-
ment. The situation clearly calls for a
revision of the text book printed years
ago under the anti-alcoholic inspiration
of the Uneasies. True the law is couched
in general terms and under 1t text book
~---OS IAOANSoOA
would be admissible to our schools, but
everyone knows that under the general
phrasing of the law was the design to
make alcohol odious by teaching the
children that it was utterly and univer-
sally an evil, without mitigation; a
thing to be reviled and abjured True,
neither these good people nor the Iegis-
lature appeared to realize the awful fact
that their quarrel was with that Provi-
dence which provided alcohol with some
wise purpose for human use, or if they
sensed it they felt that the source lay
beyond their reach. But revision. is
needless. The law is as dead as a door
nail; the common sense of the people
prevails over the hysteria of the I'm
easies, and placidly pursues their ways
in calm indifference.