The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-06-22
To the School Teachers of Allen
County.

Published by request OF the w. @. 4. U.
In as much as Professor A. O.
Atwater, of Wesleyan University.
Middletown, Conn, has made an at
tack on the public school textbooks
on physiology to prove the teaching
of scientific temperance erroneous,
your attention is invited to the follow
ing summary of facts
Professor Atwater's alcohol expert
ments reported last June have turned
the thought of medical circles to the
scientific side of the alcohol as never
before. Since January ], 1900, these
experiments and conclusions have
been widely discussed by the standard
medical journals of the country.
The Journal of the American Medi-
cal Association, the organ of the
national society of allopathic phys
cirns, contains an exhaustive discus
sion by Professors Woodbury. and
Egbert, of the Medco Chirurgical
College of Philadelphia, on the At
water experiments. This discussion
shows that the tables of these expert
ments, giving the gain and loss of the
body do not prove that alcohol acted
as a food: and that. in short, there is
nothing whatever in these experiments
to show those scientists wrong who
declare alcohol to be a poison and
not food.
Winfield S. Hall, Professor of
Physiology in a University Medical
School in Chicago. shows the fallacy
of calling a substance "to limited
extent a food, " or "sometimesa food
on the ground that it has one charac.
teristic of a food, by the following
syllogism: Foods are oxidized in
the body; alcohol is oXidized in the
body; therefore alcohol is afood. w,
, might as well say: Horses breath,
oxygen; the yeast plant breathe.
oxygen: therefore the yeast plant is {
horse.
Articles and editorials in the New
York Medical Record, St. Loui.
Medical Brief, the Bulletin of tn,
Northwestern University Medica
School, the Therapist, the Practica
Druggist, and others are in line Will
the Boston Medical and Surgica
Journal which says:
"To demonstrate this fact (tha
alcohol is food it must be proved
that the sum total of the effects of tn,
ingested alcohol is useful rather thar
harmful in the maintenance of tn,
animal economy. And this DR.. At
water has not proved. And it has no
yet, so far as we know, been demon
strated. In fact, the weight of expert
mental evidence is decidedly against it. ,
The Practical Druggist says: Ever!
standard work on toxicology anC
medical jurisprudence classifies al
cohol with other poisons; and if al
cohol is not poison because it is pos
sible to use it in ways and doses t
which poisonous or fatal conquence
can not be directly attributed, then w
should be compelled to admit there i
no such thing as a poison on earth
for whatever may be true of alcoho
in this respect may prove to be true o
every poisonous drug known"
Such opinions from standard medi
cal authorities show that Professo
Atwater has not proved the presen
temperance teaching erroneous.
Textbook Committee MARY II. HUNT.
g of Advisory Board: World : and Nation
a. H. PLUMB, ID. ID. al Superintendent
JOSEPH COOK, LII. ID. of the Departmeu
DANIEL DORCHESTER, DID. of Scientific Ten
n. ID. CROTHERs. NJ. d. perance Instructio
) {. II. SHEPARD, NJ. ID. OF the w. c. Il, L.
, l.. d. MASON, NJ. D.