THE EFFECTS OF MODERATE DRINKING. 



187 



rates given in the reports of persons whO;, in the course of their 

 vocations, are exposed to the temptation of taking small quan- 

 tities of alcoholic stimulants between meal-times, with the re- 

 corded death-rates of those, at the same ages, whose trades and 

 modes of life do not so expose them. And the results are, I 

 think, perfectly conclusive. For they not only furnish us with 

 a comparative absolute average death-rate in the two sets of 

 cases, but, in no ambiguous language, point out the exact organs 

 of the body that are most affected by nipping, and give us the 

 relative proxDortions of the deleterious influence it has upon each 

 of them. 



First, then, as regards the influence of " nipping " on the liver 

 and kidneys — the two organs of the body not only more immedi- 

 ately affected, but most closely corelated, from the fact that 

 when the one is diseased the other has to perform its functions, 

 as best it can, vicariously. Seeing that the average proportion 

 of drunkards is about the same in all industries, when it 

 is considered on such a vast scale as over the whole nation's 

 strength, I scarcely think any one will doubt the trustworthiness 

 of the results as revealed in the subjoined tables : * 



Death-Rate of Men between the Ages of 25 and 65. 



The comparative death-rates of men of the same age engaged in 

 other industries, not exposed to the temptation of "nipping," 

 are, again, as follows : 



Death-rate of men not exposed to the temptations of" nipping." 



Gardeners and nurserymen 



Printers 



Farmers and graziers 



Drapers and warehousemen 



Liver diseases. Urinary diseases 



As an addendum to these most telling statistics, I think I can 

 not do better than quote what Baer says regarding the probabili- 

 ties of life in persons exposed to the temptations of " nipping " 

 compared with that of those not liable to be so tempted. The 

 following is extracted from his table of Prussian statistics,! and 

 I arrange them for the sake of easy comparison in two parallel 

 columns, showing the probable duration of life calculated at dif- 

 ferent ages : 



* "Supplement to the Forty-fifth Annual Report," 1885, p. 82. 

 f "Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," January 20, IBS'?. 



