ih 
From a study of many family histories, one may question whether the 
white man, the European, is truly naturalized in this country. 
How the use of alcohol and opiates crops out in biographies, also the 
matter of race suicide, is an interesting subject. In the light of my study 
of people who drink it is not difficult for me to understand why a man like 
Poe drank. 
The family chart of Herbert Spencer is interesting (chart shown). He 
was a dust victim, and so were his parents; he was the single survivor out 
of nine children. He experimented more or less with narcotics and 
sedatives in his search for relief from symptoms of ill health. 
THE EVOLUTION OF DRINK AND NARCOMANIA. 
Hunting and Fishing Stage: 
“Home life’ very simple. 
Absence of fermented drink. 
Use of vegetable narcotics at ceremonials and festivals. 
Pastoral Stage: 
Nomadic tent life. 
Use of leather bottles and fermented milk, a weak alcoholic drink. 
No special desire for “‘stimulants”’ under simple life conditions or by outdoor people. 
Agricultural Stage: 
A fixed home implies domestication, the ability to live under indoor conditions for successive 
generations. 
Domestication means: 
Re-breathed air 
Soil pollution 
Water pollution 
Stored food 
Many “‘incurable ills” or ‘‘diseases’’ are preventable reactions. 
Invention of pottery and fermented drinks from fruit juices and grains, wine, cider, beer. 
Use of alcohol for relief from disagreeable symptoms. (‘‘Symptomatic treatment’? survives 
today). 
Additional use of various narcotics: Opium, henbane, hasheesh, ete. 
Attended by “‘ills of domestication.”’ 
Handicraft Stage: 
Town and city life means urbanization. 
Great increase in house and town ills. 
The “‘ills of civilization”’ are reactions, largely preventable. 
International commerce and introduction of cosmopolitan diseases, that is, specific diseases of 
definite etiology. 
The search for remedies or ‘‘cures’’ for ills and diseases incident to house and town life. 
Discovery of distilled spirits. 
Alcohol regarded as a panacea, first by physicians, then by the people. 
Names used: Aqua vitae, Au de vie. 
The role of religions, favorable or unfavorable to alcohol. 
Severe weeding out and adaptation of humanity to unsanitary city conditions. 
Tobacco (introduced into Europe about 1586) a factor of increasing importance in prevalence of 
ills and diseases and race suicide. 
7T—4966 
