The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-02-05
ALCOHOLISM AND
WHAT CAUSES IT
Or. A. {. Taylor, University Of Penn
syIvania, Traces the Growth Of Drink
and its Resultant Evils to High
Pressure of Modern Life.
1T Is NOT HEREDITARY

1T IS NOT HEREDITARY
The high tension of modern life is
responsible for the excessive use of
alcohol and the ensusing evils
among the working classes, accord
ing TO DIR. Alonzo E. Taylor. He
advanced this view in a thorough
and uncontroversial lecture entitled,
The Action of Alcohol" at Hous--
ton Hall. The speaker, who is pro-
fessor of physiological chemistry at
the University of Pennsylvania,
maintained that alcohol must be
considered, from the public stand
point, as dangerous narcotic rather
than a stimulant. He continued:
The drunken man is proof
against fatigue and free from care.
1t is necessary to understand the BIZ
ological basis of the use of narcotics
if we are to do justice at once to the
substances and to their devotees.
From this point of view, the greatly
increased use of narcotics in modern
times becomes clear and inevitable.
Our life is strenuous past the capac-
ity of the average nervous system.
The biological basis, then, of the use
of narcotics lies in the ability of the
nervous system to meet the demands
of the environment. And herein
lies the explanation of the constant
ly increasing per capita consumption
of alcohol in the Caucasian races
These facts Doctor Taylor added,
did not mean that the daily use Of
alcohol by the average individual
has increased. On the contrary, he
said, there were more abstainers
than ever. But the advance in tenn
perance in the cultivated cless. he
said, was overbalanced by marked
increase in the use of alcoholic bev-
erages in the laboring classes.
The latter he interpreted as the
indirect result of the high pressure
of modern industrial life, the high
cost of living and the exacting de-
mands of the whole modern ENVIRON
ment upon the nervous system.
Drinking Among Women
He dwelt, too, upon tie marked
increase in the use of alcoholic bev-
erages by women, saying:
"A generation ago few women
touched alcoholic beverages at all,
and this was confined to the use of
wine at the home table. Today the
use of alcoholic beverages by women
is so common as to provoke no COM
ment, and as to be seen everywhere
in public places. There is of course,
no social. sociological or pharmaco-
logical reason why women should
not use alcoholic beverages as men,
except for the fairly certain fact
that the nervous system of women
on the average is more susceptible
to narcotics than is the case In men,"
After denying that tendency to-
ward alcoholism could be inherited,
the speaker stigmatized ethyl alco-
hol as the most potent single cause
of crime and the most effective cause
of industrial inefficiency.
DR.. Tayor was emphatic however,
in condemning the use of alcohol as
a drug, especially in the hands of
the layman, and concluded:
AT best alcohol is only luxury.
Harmless to many individuals as
they use it. to society as unit alco-
hol is not only a menace but pro-
found injury. The question of the
harmless use of alcoholic beverages,
as one of the pleasant luxuries of
life, Is question of ethics and not
of physiology; and the plea for total
abstinence upon the part of all men
and women, under all conditions
and at all times, must be made upon
the basis of the ethical duty and
obligation of the individual toward
society, and not upon the basis of
physiology."--The Umpire.