Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1914-12-14
Prominent Life Insurance
Man Tells Meeting of In
surance Presidents That
Liquor Kills More Men
Every Year Than Worst
of Wars. Advocates Alb
solute Abstinence by All
(By Associated Press.)

-
five hundred thousand men as the re-
suit of the present warfare could be
made good in less than ten years
through complete abstinence from al
coholic beverages by all the inhabi-
tants Of Russia" according to Arthur
Hunter, a New York actuary, who re-
ported to the convention of the Asso-
citation of Life Insurance Presidents
here today some of the results of an
exhaustive mortality investigation just
completed by the life insurance COM
panies into 100000 insured lives in
the past rs years.
Mr.. Hunter is chairman of the cen
trail bureau of the Medico-Actuarial
committee which had charge Of the
three and one-half year inquiry. The
investigation dealt with the experience
Of forty-three of the leading compan-
les of the United States and Canada In
a great many groups of insured per-
sons supposed to have a higher NOR
tality than the average among insur-
ed lives. While the fundamental OBJ
ject CT the investigation was to aid the
companies in determining what risks
in the future should be accepted, rated
up, or declined, Mr.. Hunter said that
the results also could be utilized to
lengthen human life.
Taking up some of the specific re-
suits of the investigation, Mr.. Hunter
said: Nothing has been more con-
clusively proved than that steady
free use of alcoholic beverages, or &C.
casional excuses, are detrimental to
the individual. In my judgment, it has
also been proved beyond peradven-
ture of doubt that total abstinence
from alcohol is of value to humanity;
it is certain that abstainers live longer
than persons who use alcoholic bev-
erages. Among the men who admitted
that they had taken alcohol occasion
ally to excess in the past, but whose
habits were considered satisfactory
when they were insured, there were
2S9 deaths while there would have
been only 100 had this group been
made up Of insured lives in general.
The extra mortality was, therefore,
over SO per cent, which was equiva-
lent to reduction in the average life
Of these men Of over four years."
One Of the most significant results of
the investigation, he said, was the high
mortality experienced among railroad
men. Among locomotive engineers the
mortality was 60 per cent. in excess
Of that among the insured as a whole,
which is equivalent to FIVE years re-
duction In the average lifetime.
There is general impression that
saloonkeepers do not live as long as
persons in non-hazardous occupa-
tons" he continued, "but 1t is not gen.
orally known that most classes which
are connected with either the manu-
facture or sale OF liquor have a high
mortality. Among saloon proprietors,
whether they attended the bar or not,
there was an extra mortality of 70
per cent; and the causes Of death in
dicated that free use of alcohol bev-
erages had caused many of the deaths.
In the fourteen subdivisions Of the
trades connected with the manufac-
ture and sale of alcohol, there was
only one class which had a normal
mortality, and that was the distillery
proprietors."