Arizona republican., 1909-06-13

tractors that this, scientific fact did not in any way fdeny the evils of in
 temperance or oppose their advocacy of total abstinence. It was. indeed, merely a scientific truth, with no moral bearing ohe way or the other. A somewhat similar report has just been made public by a special gov ernment commission in England in which a good word is uttered for the nutritive value of beer. The gen. eral idea that beer is primarily an alcoholic drink is opposed in this re- port, which holds that, when well and properly made, it is a beverage con taining a very small amount of alco- hol and a relatively large amount of nutritive material Says The Hos pital' London, May, D in an editorial about the report:
 Tt is time that the erroneous view that beer has no nutritive value in itself, and merely consists of a bev- craze upon which d certain portion of the community intoXicates itse,f, should be exposed and discredited. The results of our commission show that beer is par excellence the nu- tritive alcoholic beverage. All bever- ages because they contain alcohol should not be regarded in the same | light. The spirit-nipper is commit- ting quite different act from the
 beer -drinker; in fact, beer is much l farther removed, from the point of view of it's alcohol content, from some wines and all spirits than it is from | ginger-beer.
 When man drinks good beer he drinks and eats at the same time, just as when he eats bowl of soup. The 1 terms eat and drink are curiously | but inconsistently used as connoting | the difference between what is mere | iy quenching our thirst and what is actually consuming nourishment Our commissioners point out man might more properly be said to eat beer | than to eat certain kinds of soup, OF indeed watermelon. Their report will
 enable members of the medical pro- | fession and the public to understand
 clearly what constitutes good beer,
 and where and how they may obtain | it. Beer r-drinkers, the numbers of
 whom we hope will increase con- | siderably as the result of the re- 1 searches of our commissioners, are
 now in a position to protect them l selves from bad beers, and we hold | the view that it would be infinitely
 better for the we.l-being of the peo-
 pie of these islands as a whole if | they were to select beer as thsr hab- itual drink. rather than wines or | spirits Climatic conditions have a | good deal to do with the dietic value
 of substances used for allaying thirst l Our commissioners properly drive home that when a man drinks beer
 or stout habitually, he is not only
 drinking but eating, a fact which had
 not been sufficiently recognized in recent years. These beverages con- tain all the elements of a typical diet
 with the exception of fat, and in d proportion approximately physiologi
 cal Our commissioners remind us
 that if the worth of a food is meas
 ured by it's calorimetric value the | fact is that a glass of good ale is approximately as nourishing as a glass of milk, and that a quart of good beer is nearly equivalent to a quarter of a pound of beef"
 Beer and stout, the writer goes on
 
 the obese. or for those with renal disorders, glycosuria or diabetes; but where there is no counter indications their habitua use in moderate quan- titles is certainly more beneficial than. that of wines or spirits. We read further:
 Another important medicinal as- pect of beer and stout, and especially of the latter, is their hypnotic action. Stout is one of the most harmless and best hypnotics we possess, and is often far more efficaeious in the treatment of insomnia than drugs. Part or their action is due our com [ missioners remind us, to the hypnotic 1