The national prohibitionist. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1907-1911, 1908-02-20

Twenty-Five brawls reported in which
number OF persons received minor injuries On
two occasions riot took place in which the po-
lice were overpowered, injured and even be-
sleged, while band of young roughs terrorized
the whole population of the place In seven
other cases there was opposition to the state
authorities while on seven occasions great dam
age of various kinds was committed Further
more, fire, robbery and theft were the
work of alcoholics. Not less than thirteen per-
sons were injured, six fatally and one severely.
WO persons died from severe alcoholism. two
committed suicide.
Manifestly my attempt to draw picture OF
the effects of alcoholism in daily life from stats
tics obtained from newspaper clippings were very
incomplete 1t is probable that only the most
startling ocCurrences-and these ONLY in Dart-
came under my notice. But even thus it is ap-
parent that during single year in the district
from which this hospital receives its patients.
twenty-one persons suffered a violent death as
result OF alcoholic excuses, while at least fifty
TOUR were severely and some dangerously
wounded"
II conditions in Rochester are bad enough to
warrant calling this, not merely an Improvement,
but, as DR.. Crapsey would have us believe. cure.
they are even worse than most people have be-
eved
In the same article DR.. Kraepen discusses the
relation OF drink to insanity in the whole Ger
man Empire. Upon this subject he saws:
1T is we'll known that in the asy1ums for the
msane m the German Empire ten percent of the
PattentS haze been committed ON account of men,
tai diseases due to ALCOHOL In some institutions the
number is as high as thirty percent, and even
these figures do not include numerous cases in
which alcohol has been an exciting but not the
primary cause of the trouble-in cases of mania,
epilepsy and paresis In 1898 in the Heidelberg
clinic, the alcoholics formed more than thirteen
percent of the total number of patients: in the
mems ward alone the percentage being twenty
fve'
his IS the testimony, not of an American
clergyman, taking heeting glimpse at conditions
III foreign country, but of one of the greatest
scientists that Germany has produced, writing
upon the drink question from the standpoint of
scientist
DR.. Crapsey's attention might very pro6tably
be concentrated for a few moments upon docu-
ment which even he could hardly fail to recog-
nlze as of much evidential value regarding con-
ditions in the German empire
This document is a statement or manifesto.
signed in 1907 by more than one hundred German
professors of medicine and Jurisprudence, holding
positions in German universities Translated by
Professor J. G.. Evert the manifesto in part saws
More than half of the inmates of our penal
institutions have been actuated to their criminal
course by alcoholic indulgence and about one
fourth OF the male inmates of the insane asyums
owe their deplorable condition to the same cause
Domestic misery, poverty and crimnality follow
IN the wake of this posoner of the race
Alcohol has been shown to be the cause of
one-tenth OF the deaths among the adult popua-
ton. Thirteen hundred deaths occur annually in
Germany alone in consequence of ntoxcation
and sixteen hundred victims of alcohol commit
suicide every year in this country, while about
10000 are added annually 70 the 1ist IF those