" Alcohol
had been found to prevent the elimination of waste, thus the body is
loaded with worn and decaying tissues, leaving the system an inviting
field for all sorts of diseases. Life insurance companies, influenced by
business interests wholly, make a distinction between liquor users and
non-users. Nelson, a distinguished actuary of England, employed as an
expert by life insurance companies, found after investigating over 7,000
cases, none of which were drunkards, that between the ages of 15 and
20 the proportion of deaths in total abstainers to those in moderate drinkers
is as 10 to 18; between the ages of 25 and 30, as 10 to 31; between
30 and 40 as 10 is to 40.
With reference to the effect on the offspring of drinking parents, the
medical profession had accepted the teaching of the French specialist, Dr.
Jaccound, that "of the children of drinkers some of them become imbeciles
and idiots; others are feeble in mind, exhibit moral perversion, and sink
by degrees into complete degeneration; still others are epileptics, deaf
and dumb, scrofulous, etc.," and of the English teacher, Dr. Kerr, that
"long continued habitual indulgence in intoxicating drink to an extent far
short of intoxication is not only sufficient to originate and hand down a
morbid tendency, but is much more likely to do so than even repeated
drunken outbreaks with intervals of sobriety between."
Thus the men who have been of the greatest honor to the profession
in every land were a unit in opposing the use of alcohol in health or
disease and in holding that if people are determined to use it there is less
danger in health, as then the system is in better condition to throw off
its evil effects.
Pages:
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360