THE EFFECTS OF MODERATE DRINKING. 185 



are not only no tables of statistics as to its effects in existence, 

 but there are no means of acquiring them ; the statistics of the 

 effects of drunkenness, of which there are abundance of greater 

 or lesser value, being unfortunately of no service whatever in 

 solving the problem of the effects of moderate drinking either 

 on mind or body. 2. In no instance are the effects sufficiently 

 marked to necessitate any special form of treatment in a public 

 institution. 3. The deleterious influences on the bodily func- 

 tions are so insidious as in the early stages either totally to 

 escape detection, or, what is more common, to lead them to be 

 attributed to some entirely different cause. 4. The effects of 

 moderate drinking manifest themselves in such a variety of dif- 

 ferent forms, that, even when their true nature is recognized, 

 the general practitioner has not the opx)ortunity of seeing a suf- 

 ficient number of any one of them to admit of his drawing con- 

 clusions from them. 5. The men who have most experience of 

 the severer forms of functional disease directly traceable to the 

 effects of moderate drinking are, in general, merely those who, 

 like myself, make liver and kidney diseases a special study ; the 

 liver, kidneys, heart, and brain being those organs of the body 

 most affected by alcohol when indulged in within the limits of 

 what is called moderation. Notwithstanding this fact, it being 

 impossible for me, or even any one else specially engaged in the 

 treatment of liver and kidney diseases, to collect a sufficiently 

 large number of telling cases from which to deduce crucial data 

 of the deleterious effects of small quantities of alcoholic stimu- 

 lants habitually indulged in by temperate men, I purpose adopt- 

 ing the plan of drawing conclusions from the statistical data of 

 the effects of alcohol on the human constitution when it is 

 taken in the form of what is called " nipping " — that is to say, 

 small quantities only being taken at a time, but frequently in 

 the course of the day. Of these, fortunately, the registrar-gen- 

 eral's reports of our national mortality in different industries 

 furnish us with something approaching to reliable data. So I 

 shall make use of them, along with some German statistics of a 

 similar character, in illustrating the probable pathological effects 

 of moderate drinking on the human constitution. For when one 

 can not get what he wants, it is good policy to make use of what 

 he has got, on the principle that half a loaf is better than none. 

 6. Added to all these drawbacks to the formulation of reliable 

 conclusions regarding both the direct and indirect effects of 

 alcoholic stimulants, taken in small quantities at a time, upon 

 the vital functions, there is yet the other of reconciling different 

 minds with what is exactly meant by the term " moderate drink- 

 ing," seeing that a quantity which one would call moderate is 

 not at all unlikely to be by another designated immoderate 



