The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-10-24
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF INTEMfERANCE.
What is the Best Thing to Leave
Alone? Drink - 1t Does Not
Keep Out Cold-It is Not Food

We talk to our readers again to-
day, as we have often done ever since
this newspaper was established, about
the advisabiity of leaving alone
drink, the false stimulant that does
not stimulate, the false pleasure that
means pain and failure in the end.
We write in the hope that the
millions of men into whose hands
this editorial will come will read it,
above all, that they will improve
upon it's arguments, and impress
them upon those that need or may
need them, upon the young men of
the country especially.
We all see what drink does. It
works secretly at first, but it's story
IS plainly and loudly told in the end.
The story is written in numbers on
the boards above the graves in Pot
ter's Field. The story is muttered in
a low voice in the courts, when men
and women confess the crimes to
which a'deadened brain has led them.
The story of drink is cried aloud
in the cells of the insane asylums,
and at the receiving rooms of the big
hospitals.
We see what drink does. How
does it do it, and why do men persist
in poisoning themselves, running
themselves, as others, to their posi-
tive knowledge, have done over and
over before?
Alcohol supplies arguments in
plenty to those whom it is conquer
ing. 1t supplies arguments, also, to
those of clearer minds who oppose it.
1t is well in talking against plausi-
bic alcohol to use the argument that
cannot be answered - the argument
of science. Here are some of them.
Please cut these out to remember
them and use them when you can for
the good of your fellow men.
A man drinks, giving as his excuse,
sometimes sincerely, that he wants
Ito keep out the cold"
1t is an absolute scientific fact
that alcohol lowers the temperature.
The entire temperature Of the body,
the amount of vital heat that the
body contains as a whole, is reduced
as soon as you put alcohol into the
body. This is a good reply to the
foolish people who declared that the
agency that fills the hospitals and
asylums is friend of health.
Alcohol is talked of as a food.
= Alcohol is not food. 1t is a scien-
tific, unquestioned fact anent alcohol
that this product Of the fungi ulti-
mately leads to morbid changes in
practically every cell of the body, but
most especially in the nervous sys-
far S,,ba ha lnfa faI
after death, though there is no trace
of it's presence elsewhere.
This so-called food" attacks vi
ciously and surely the nervous sys-
TEN, the wonderful and delicate sys-
tenn of telegraphy with which our
mind controls the body, and with
which the brain comes into contact
with the. outside world.
Rust and hailstones destroy the
wires of iron no more surely than al
cohol destroys the nerve fibre.
Metchnikoff proves in his famous
book, The Nature of Man." that
damage once done to the nerves can
never be repaired. Other parts of
the body have the faculty Of renew
ing themselves, but the nerves have
not. Once hurt, the injury is perma-
nent
The alcohol advocate may ask you,
Can you deny that alcohol stimu-
lates the hearth" The reply Of
science is:
Alcohol is false stimulant. The
sudden action of the heart which fol-
lows the drinking of alcohol is the
hearts protest against poison.
The muscles of the heart beat
wildly when you put alcohol into
your blood. 1t is the hearts protest
against the poison that will destroy
it and silence 1t ultimately.
, This is not guesswork, but science.
Whatever apparent stimulation
may come from alcohol is invariably
followed by greater loss in the sub.
sequent depression.
In the physiological laboratories OF
Germany and in France and America
careful, actual tests have been made.
1t has been absolutely proved that
alcohol delays the rapidity and i'm
pairs the accuracy of mental pro-
cesses."
And alcohol, always a plausible
cheat and swindler, while produc-
ing the most convincing illusion Of
ease and rapidity,' actually de-.
creases all efficiency.
You know how proudly and rapidly
the drunken man will talk. And you
know that he is convinced that he is
talking very wisely. But is he talk
ing wisely? You know that he is
not. If alcohol, talking through him,
does not deceive you, don't let it de-
ceive you in talking through your
own brain.
This newspaper believes that the
gradual diminishing Of intozication
among men will continue. 1t believes
firmly that poverty creates drunken
ness, and that better government and
greater kindness among men, by di-
minishing poverty, will diminish
drunkenness and destroy it ulti-
mately.
The intelligence of men will ulti-
mately make it impossible for them
to poison themselves deliberately.
Meanwhile we say to each one Of
our readers, as an individual:
Protect yourself in the future by a
thorough understanding of alcohol
and what it means. =
Keep your vitality for your work.
And do your duty by your fellow-men
by talking to them. A man saved
from drunkenness is saved indeed.
And while you save him you save all
those that depend upon him.-Arthur
Brisbane, in the New York Evening
Journal.