46 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



of immediate stimulation to anything like the 

 same degree. 



It will not be expected that I should speak in 

 this place of the use of alcohol in the treatment 

 of disease, but there is another most important 

 branch of the subject, and one of most serious 

 public interest, which I have not yet alluded to, 

 except incidentally ; I mean the influence of ex- 

 cessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks as a cause 

 of disease. What are the physical effects on the 

 organism of the abuse of alcohol ? In every large 

 hospital in a great city like this many cases of 

 serious and fatal disease are always to be found 

 which owe their existence to intemperance. The 

 general public are little aware of the enormous 

 amounts of strong spirits which are consumed by 

 some of the working-classes. Cabmen, Covent 

 Garden and dock laborers, the inferior class of 

 lawyers' clerks, and compositors, are among the 

 worst offenders. I will mention two instructive 

 instances : A cabman applied as an out-patient to 

 King's College Hospital, suffering from a grave 

 form of disease the result of spirit- drinking. 

 "You drink hard?" said the doctor. "Pretty 

 fair," said the cabman. " What do you drink ? " 

 " Whiskey, mostly." " How much whiskey a 

 day ? " " Can't say exactly, sometimes more, 

 sometimes less." " But give us a rough average." 

 " Well, I s'pose, one day with another, about a 

 couple o' quarts a day." " But," exclaimed the 

 doctor, " that would cost you eight shillings a 

 day; how can you afford that?" "Oh!" an- 

 swered cabby, " it ain't a matter of affbrdin' if a 

 man gives his mind to it ! " Now this quantity 

 seemed so enormous that I mentioned the case to 

 one of the inspectors of police at Great Marl- 

 borough Street, and he assured me that from his 

 experience of cabmen he did not think the esti- 



mate excessive. The second case was that of a 

 dock-laborer, also suffering from serious, irreme- 

 diable disease caused by alcohol. The dialogue 

 that ensued was to much the same effect : " What 

 do you drink ? " " Mostly whiskey." " How 

 much a day? " " Well, I'm never the worse for 

 liquor." " But how much a day ? " " Well, per- 

 haps about a pint a day, more or less." Now, 

 here was a dock- laborer spending at least two 

 shillings a day, that is fourteen shillings a week, 

 on whiskey ! and at middle age he becomes a 

 charge on the charity of the public. Yet this 

 man appeared when in the hospital to be an in- 

 telligent, well-disposed man. " He had taken the 

 whiskey in his heavy work, thinking it would 

 strengthen him." 



It is this ignorance that we should strive to 

 remove. We shall never cure the laboring-man 

 of his intemperate habits by trying to force tea 

 and coffee down his throat. Education, as Mr. 

 Lowe has said, may be expected to do much to 

 check intemperance ; but it should be education 

 in which a knowledge of the plain, simple laws of 

 physiology and health has a place. 



It must not be forgotten, in considering what 

 is the true remedy for intemperance among the 

 poor, that drunkenness is frequently the offspring 

 as well as the parent of misery. Want of educa- 

 tion, improvident marriages, dirty and unwhole- 

 some dwellings, are all of them directly and indi- 

 rectly causes of intemperance ; and if we would 

 diminish habits of drunkenness among the lower 

 classes, we should trust rather to the removal of 

 influences such as these, than to the promulga- 

 tion of exaggerated statements as to the baneful 

 effects of the moderate use of alcoholic bever- 

 ages. 



— The Fortnightly Review. 



A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 1 



THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY OF A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS 



BELIEF. 



SIR JAMES STEPHEN.— Many persons re- 

 gard everything which tends to discredit 

 theology with disapprobation, because they think 



1 A certain number of gentlemen have consented to 

 discuss from time to time, under this title, questions 

 of interest and importance. Each writer will have 

 seen all that has been written before his own remarks, 

 but (except the first writer) nothing that follows them. 



that all such speculations must endanger moral- 

 ity as well. Others assert that morality has a 

 basis of its own in human nature, and that, even 



The first writer, as proposer of the subject, will have 

 the right of reply or Bununinu'-up at the end. The 

 present discussion will be continued and concluded in 

 the May number of the Review. — Editor Nineteenth 

 Century. 



