The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1917-03-23

lima State Board OF Health, dated
January %, 1917, says:
For number of years alcohol has
been attracting the attention of
health workers on account of its re-
lstion to disease, insanity. poverty,
and the conditions leading to disease.
A number OF state boards OF health
are now treating the liquor problem,
not as d moral issue altogether, ono
for the churches to fight out but as
a vital public health problem
Boards of Health Against 1t
In one of the monthly bulletins OF
that stale department there occurs
this statement:
Boards of health lay special stress
on tho following points: (a) Such
phases as the false idea of liquor be-
ing an aid in physical or mental work.
OBJ The fact that man drinks raises
a question as to the stability OF his
mind to begin with; that is, that the
liquor habit is often the result, not
the cause, of mental weakness, and
therefore the drinking habit is re-
Fiction on mans insanity; and (c)
last and strongest, they lay stress on
the effect of liquor on heredity, its
effect unto children of the third and
fourth generation"
These citations illustrate the po-
sition taken by most state depart
ments of health, though few of them
have been as insistcnt as the North
Carolina board.
The New York City department of
health, in addition to its frequent ref
erence TO the use OF alcohol in its
weekly and monthly bulletins, issues
a series Of two page pamphlets, some
essentially informing and some enter
tanning and secondarly informing
and bearing such titles as Nobody
Home" do You Love Babies?"
Eric Johnson's Expericnce," "Mr. T.
B. and His Friend, Mr.. Booze"
What Chick Says" and "Brights."
One OF these says--You don't need
alcohol for health, you don't need it
for strength, you don't need it for
food, you don't need it for drink, 1t
never does you any good. 1t always
does you harm. Let it alone-gct on
the water wagon.
Another employs the vernacular-
What Chick says in nutshell is that
alcohol shrinks the liver, tans the
stomach, makes cold colder and
makes heat stroke hotter, makes the
kidneys leak and makes the brain
weak, and that the sins of the parents
are visited on their children.
A Habit Forming Drug
DIR. Haven Emerson, Health Com
missioner of New York City after
stating that 1000 deaths in New York
City each year admittedly due to the
exec ssivc use OF alcohol and that
5000 cases of alcoholism are treated
annually at Bellevue, goes on to say:
alcohol, consistently depressing
habit forming drug, causes character
istic. easily recognized disease of the
brain. nerves and special senses.
| Alcohol causes definite damage to
the heart, kidneys, blood vessels,
and organs of digestion, especially
the stomach and liver When alcohol
is used so moderately as TO cause
none of the special disease due solely
to its effects it is known to damage
the unborn babe, the nursing child.
and the grown man and woman in
such ways as to make them pecu-
liarly susceptible as to the infections
and communicable diseases to which
all people are exposed"
Certain types of permanent damage
TO mentality and various physical dis
orders in children are accepted re-
suits OF the use of alcohol in parents.
Alcohol can be used as food, but at
a cost both economical and physio-
logical, which causes bankruptcy of
pocket and health. In few diseased
conditions, it has been found uesiuI.
but not indispensable.
DR.. Abbott OF the state hospital at