The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-07-24
MEDICAL SOCIETY DENouNcEs
USE or ALCOHOL

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medicine. To use the somewhat in
elegant but ~forceful expression of the
press, they put their scientific foot
down upon it." This was done at the
annual convention of the society held
June 1918 in Raleigh, N. C. The adj
dress of the president, DR.. j. NJ. Par
rott, foreshadowed the action of the
convention in passing the following
resolution which was offered by DR..
]. T. J. Battle:
"As chairman of the section on
state medicine, it is my opinion that
alcohol occupies a position which
very greatly affects the health of the
citizens of this nation, and directly
and indirectly their financial condi.
ton.
81 propose to offer some figures de.
rived from the higher class of drink
ers. These figures are the result OF
the Medico-Actuarial investigation,
which occupied five years to com
plete. They comprise the experience
of forty-three of the largest insurance
companies in America.
I'm explanation of the expression
higher class of drinkers / will say
that by this is meant that these stats
tics do not give accurately the i'm
mense amount of injury alcohol is do
ing the human race, as insurance
companies have always realized that
whiskey increases their mortality,
and for that reason they decline to
insure the spree-er, the common
drinker and the immoderate user, Sc
it was only the moderate User who
was insured on which these figures
are based.
I'm analyzing the report of the Med
ico-Actuarial Associations investiga'
ton it is found that, taking 100 as the
normal expectancy for all ages, those
who indulge in occasional excuses
show a mortality of 151 per cent. or
81 per cent. over the normal. The
steady user shows a mortality of sc
per cent. above the normal. In these
cases cirrhosis of the liver was five
times the normal, while diabetes, tu-
berculosis, pneumonia and suicide
were twice the normal. Those who
have reformed from intemperance
without treatment showed a mortality
of 80 per cent. above the expectancy,
while those who reformed with treat
ment showed an excess of 35 per cent.
In both of the two latter classes the
unusers were total abstainers from
the time of their reformation.
There have been a few companies
who have put into separate classes
the ~abstainers and the non-abstain-
ers; but moderate users and the act
uarial investigation proves that the
~abstainers show a marked superiority
to the non~-abstainers, throughout the
entire working years of life, on every
class of policy, and for sexes, howev-
er tested
DR.. J. M. PARROT of Kinston, pres
ident of the medical society of the
state of North Carolina, as reported
in the Raleigh News and Observer,
said:
fENyArxy Snfn1lfnnnf ~ Inr Nryc fh0t
alcohol is ten thousand times more
destructive than war that it has no
food value, that it auses more crime
than all other agencies combined,
that it defies nature, curses God;
that it lowers vitality, invites disease,
that it's deadly breath blows out the
mental flame from one out of every
four that sit in mental darkness; that
not satisfied with cursing homes,
stabbing hearts, and blighting hopes,
it takes its awful toll of progeny even
to the fourth and fifth generation. 1t
is more to be dreaded than a mad
dog. On every occasion it should be
booted, and the boot thrown away.
"As a medicine, in the opinion of
many of u greatest doctors, it has
practically no value. The great
weight of scientific evidence leads to
the conclusion that alcohol is an un-
mitigated evil. 1t is about, if not al
ready, to be eliminated from the phar-
macoepia. The figures gathered by
the state board of health show that
only ~three-fourths of a tablespoonful
per year per patient is prescribed by
u best and highest class physicians.
That it is not efficient as a medicine
is easily shown by the fact that many
of our best doctors lever prescribe it
at all. There are a number of cities
in North Carolina in which it is not
kept at the drug stores, and where no
prescriptions have been written for it
since statewide nrOhihifion wont into