The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-08-31
WHAT BEER CAUSES.
Brieht's Disease.

DR.. W. T. Ridenour: II have no
doubt the rapid spread of Brights
disease is largely due to beer drink
ing. I have always believed that
Bayard Taylor fell a victim to the
German beer that he praised so high
ly. He died of Bright's disease at fifty,
when he should have lived, with his
constitution, to ripe old age. He
went just as beer drinkers are going
all the time and everywhere
Dr. C. A. Kirkley: Il believe that
forty-nine out of fifty cases of chronic
Brights disease are directly pro-
duced by it. | have never met with
case in which the patient has not
been Incorporate to a greater or less
degree. The proportion may be too
high, but that is certainly my expert
ence Mr.. Christian, celebrated
author, states that three-fourths to
four-fifths of the cases met with in
Edinburgh were habituaI drunkard5."
An Artificial Prop.
DR.. C. A. Kirkley, in constant prac-
tice in Toledo fifteen years, says:
do not believe the healthy organism
needs an artificial prop to sustain it.
Depression below the standard of
health always follows just in proper
ton as the system is stimulated
above that standard. Every physician
is familiar with cases in which ner-
vous wear and tear in an active life
have been kept up by stimulants
without apparent loss of power for
years. Bodily and mental vigor, how
ever, suddenly fail. The repeated APP
plication of the stimulus that the eX-
ertion might be prolonged has really
expended the power of the nervous
system, and prepared him for more
complete prostration. The temporary
advantage was purchased at a great
cost. The greater the expenditure OF
nervous power by the use of stimu-
lants, the more complete the exhaus-
ton"
Children of Drunkards-ldiots.
DIR. G. A. Kirkley: "Plutarch says,
One drunkard begets another and
| n
| children like unto themselves. A re-
port was made to the legislature Of
Massachusetts, think by Dr. Howe.
on idiocy. He had learned the habits
| of the parents of 300 idiots, and 143,
| nearly half, are reported as known to
be habitual drunkards, showing the en-
| feebled constitution of the children of
| drunkards. l have in mind an instance
where children born to the mother be-
/ gotten when the father was intOxicat-
| ed all died within eight months of
| birth. They would have recovered
had they not had the enfeebled con-
stitution inherited from their intem-
perate father. Instances are recorded
| where both parents were intoxicated
| at the time of conception, and the re-
| suit was an idiot. There is not a
| doubt but that inebriety not only
makes destructive whatever faint may
exist, but impairs the health and nat
ural vigor for remote generations"
Dr. A. Mcfarland: "That the in
| EQUITIES of the fathers are visited upon
the children; that the fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's
teeth are set on edge are truths that
no Scripture is needed to teach. In
other words, he who sins through
physical excess does not do half the
harm to himself that he does to the
inheritors of his blood. The penalty
must be paid as sure as there is seed
time and harvest.
1T is your stout old hero who goes
to bed every night with liquor enough
under his belt to befuddle the brains
of a half dozen ordinary men, and
yet lives out his three-score and ten,
that will be found at the head of the
stock that pour into the world, gener-
alton after generation, such crop of
fanatics, epileptics, eccentrics, and
inebriates as we often see The i'm
punity with which one so constituted
will violate all physical laws gets its
set-oif in a succeeding generation,
when the great harvest begins