The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1923-04-20
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS RECENT ARTICLE
IN GOLFERS SMASHED BY MODERN SCIENCE
Scientific Temperance Expert Adams Assertions
Most Convincngly; Tomato Analogy Belongs
Cheap Opera Boufe.

Golfers, the National Weekly, for
April : carries an article by Samuel
Hopkins Adams under the caption
Science Has Its Say About Alcohol.
Mr.. Adams recounts experiments
upon chickens by DIR. Raymond Pearl
from which he arrives at the startling
conclusion that moderate drinking OF
alcohol does not tend to shorten human
life. DR.. Pearls experiments were
made i'll 1917 but arc referred to by Mr..
Adams as something new and startling
pioneer work in investigation in the
field of effects of alcohol on progeny.
Can it be that the statistics patiently
gathered for the past fifty years by lii,
insurance companies which conclusively
show that the abstainer is longer lived
than the moderate drinker, are wrong
Can ii be that ether scientists whose
experiments prove that alcohol is 4
racial poison and shortens life, are all
wrong?
Evidently Mr.. Adams is not we
vestigation of the effects of alcohol for
vestigation of the effects of alcoho lfor
the Introductory sentence to his article
reads, Everybody has had a shot 1t
alcohol except the scientist"
He makes the statement that up till
now propagandists on both sides have
been arguing the wet and dry question
but neither side knew anything about
the fundamental facts" He clinches has
argument with the following:
1t is very like the tomato. Our
great -grandmothers were convinced
that this fruit of the vine while es-
Unable as an ornament to the
garden would be deadly il taken
internally. Along came some bold
spirit, ate tomato and survived
Now everybody eats tomatoes and
while it is undeniablc that every
body dies the mortality is not
charged tip against the crimson
edible. Similarly a vast majority of
grandmothers has been declaring
for generations that alcohol is 4
threat to the human race and
everybody has believed it in the
! face of the demonstrate fact that
strong drink has been habitually
used for long centuries by the very
races which are generally regarded,
a; leaders OF civilization. The mani
rcints of the creed are tia. alcohol
saps vitality, shortens life, and that,
absorbed into the blood" OF the
drinker its evil effects are passed.
en- to hi, dcscenden's producr;g lis
ability and degeneration. Racial
poison" is popular descriptive
term. Now science steps in, checks
up the theory against ascertained
facts and discovers that the theory
is mostly wrong
Mrs. Emma L. Transeau OF the
Scientific Temperance Federation has
prepared for American Issue the fol-
lowing reply to the Collier article
Science Has Its Say About Alcohol
by Samuel Hopkins Adams, but what
science says and what Mr.. Samuel Hop
kins Adams says Science says" are nct
quite one and the same.
DR.. Raymond Pearl, whose cxpari
ments reported in 1917 are represented
by Mr.. Adams as something new ard
startling, pioneer work" is one or
many investigators in the field of the
effects OF alcohol on progeny and his
revolutionary findings about the SUI
periority OF his chicks from alcohol;1cd
hens eggs were explained the follow
ing year by DR.. c. R. Stockard in coh-
nection with the account of his cwrl
experiments on aleoholizcd guinea pigs
The young of guinea pigs, the sab
jects OF Dir. Stockards experiments
are, as a rule, brought forth in litters
of three or four. Rarely do normal
guinea pigs produce only one young to
litter. With alcoholized guinea PIGS
this happens often.
Dr. Stockard found the explanation,
Many of the young in the alcoh olized