The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1910-11-09


a fact which has been overlooked
| that
tuberculosis Advances With Ciyili-
Zation
The poorer classes were formerly
far poorer worse housed and worse
| nourished, yet there was little of
this disease. Today when salaries
have doubled in fifty years, and
homes every way improved, it threat
ems our dissolution! a strangel
thing-the plague increases with
the progress of hygiene
Where is the fundamental vice n
1t is surely to be found in alcohol.
ism. With the advance of this
plague there is a steady advance of
tuberculosis.
Race Degeneration.
Professor van Bunge, he who
first pulled the fire signal and has
been at work for twenty years fight
ing the tremendous alcoholic con-
Migration, has just delivered before
the Federation Of Labor in Basel Il
lecture on The Sources of Degen-
GRAFTON" No urbane nonsense here,
but note of warning pitched in
the harshest key. Speaking Of how
little comparatively has been done
by medical science in the last centA
ry for protection from chronic dis
eases, he SAYS:
Just consider, for example, the |
state of things here in our cih OF
Basel. Every sixth man dies of tt
berculoss; every ninth passes out of
life a drunkard, leaving behind a de |
generated posterity; every tenth dies
of cancer with horrible suffriuSs |
Half of our Childrn have ricketts,, half
of our young men are incapable of
doing their military service, four
hfths of the women are unable to
nurse their children. Then Think of
the army of Inconsistencies from
those with relatively slight nervous |
ness and hysteria to the genuinely |
frantic and imbeCile. Think Of our
overlooking madhouse. Recall all
the symptoms of race degeneration
which lie on the surface, plainly Wis |
ible to the most superficial 0Oserv-
er. Think for example of the horri
bic state of our peoples teeth. We
are actually rotting alive.
Now, l do not contend that alcohol
is the only cause of race dtgcncra-
ton, of tuberculosis neurastnenia,
carries. There are, of course. many
others. But l do assert that Il is II
chief cause, which we can immedi-
ately prohibit and abolish. To re-
commend moderation will not help
The spring and source of excess is
coll AI Il
;hls endures we shall have drunk
enness, sickness, madness, crime.
Some years ago question was sent
to all the physicians in Basel asking
them what they thought of elJmg
alcoholics to children. rher all
condemned the practice on the
ground that this poison is especially
dangerous to the tender growing or
ganism But they forgot to adl that
The youngest and tenderest organ
ism is that of the germ cell itself
They forgot to draw the Inevitable
conclusion that no one should more
strictly abstain from drinking than
grown persons in the years in which
children may be born to thch. Tor
thinking man the thing is simple
'llVuSIs MI Silpult HNblu tltOnOlI
poison. Away. then, with it. An i'm
beetle will continue baling while the
water still flows.
All those who attempt to destroy
an evil without regard to its cause
acts as these imbecilos.
Officials and governors Wno set
apart even greater sums for asyluus
and hospitals, but will do nothing to
prevent madness and sickness.
Charity conferences AMI philan-
t.r,pic societies, which contln lally
get together moneys i,r opileptc
homes, sanatoria for ,onsumptlvri
and for the cure of alconotsts, poly
Clinics for free dentistry. etc, tut
sources of decay of teeth ur COW
sumption of the lungs, Of epilepsy,
drunkenness ana all the rcst
Judges who continue Furnishing
criminals without attacking our
drink customs the chief spring of
crime.
repeat it. TO root out the
causes of race degeneration, of
which alcohol is a chief one, is a
problem the solution of which adj |
mits of less delay than any other
The quotations used i'm these pa
pers have been taken from European
notes in The Record of Christian
Work The names ana whereabouts
of more than a hundred of the emf
nent scientists who are lighting al
cohol in Europe can be furnished
those who may be interested.
NJ E SAWYER