Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1923-03-17
A Look-In On The Scientific As
poets Of The Prohibition
Question.

The following is from the pen of a
medical practitioner, and presents one
of the most sensible aspects of the
Prohibition question that has come
under our notice:
"A great many people are inclined
to exaggerate the prevalence of n.y.
pocrisy among the advocates and de-
tenders Of prohibition. Those of rs
who try to keep in touch with the
findings of modern laboratories of
physiology and psychology as to the
effects of moderate doses of alcoholic
beverages have no insuperable diff
Guilty in making our practice square
tolerably well with our professions.
Prominent among such laboratories
is the Nutrition Laboratory Of the
Carnegie Institution, located at Bos-
ton. It's main findings as to psyche
logical effects of moderate doses of
alcohol on man were summed up in
an address by the Director, DR.. Fran
els G. Benedict, delivered before the
New York Academy Of Medicine on
April 6, 1916, and published in Sci
,ence for June 80, 1916. The gist of
these results is that small or moder-
ate doses of diluted alcohol-doses of
about the alcoholic equivalent of two
glasses of ordinary pre-Volstead beer
slow down very perceptibly nearly
all kinds of nerve and muscle re-
actions, with the notable exception of
Pulse action. In other words, moder-
ate doses Of alcohol appear to reduce
the working efficiency of the average
normal human machine. Similar re-
suits have been obtained in other sci
entific laboratories of the United
States and Germany.
"The opinions of a practicing ply
stefan, the late DIR. Abraham jacob,
one of the comparatively few Ameri-
can physicians Of the last two or
three decades who has put into print
good words for alcoholic beverages,
may be offered in the way of rebuttal.
To this, Jacobs impressions did not
result from actual experimentation in
physiological and psychological labo-
ratories, hedged about with all checks
and controls devised by. modern sci
ence for eliminating the personal bias
cf the experimenters and provided
with modern machinery for the au-
tomato recording of various kinds of
responses.
Other medical and scientific aspects
of the alcohol problem are treated in
@popular way by DR.. Eugene Lyman
Fisk Director Of the Life Extens n
Institute of New York, in his admir-
able little book on "Alcohol-Its Re-
lation to Human Efficiency and Long
evity."
"Even the most thorough-going
prohibitionist and teetotaler is oblig-
ed to accept the dictum of science
that as result Of the decomposition
of sugar in the digestive tract the hui
man system manufactures a certain
amount of ethyl alcohol naturally,
but there is a great mass of evidence
tending to show that this is all the
'shome brew" that the normal system
needs. Thus, the more or less popu-
lar slogan "Every man his own brew
er" acquires a restricted and peculi-
arly intimate significance.
It is unfortunate that since the a
doption of the Eighteenth Amend
ment and the passage Of the Volstead
act the campaign for public education
as to the effects Of alcoholic beverag-
es. even in moderate quantities, has
been generally dropped. Many highly
educated people seem to be unac-
quainted with the we'll established
facts. Ours is an age of science rath-
er than an age of authority. If the
inhabitants of our "wet" centers OF
population can be convinced that the
Eighteenth Amendment is concerned