520 BIOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS 



persons who died of the disease, 21.8 were drinkers, and only 9.9 

 were abstainers. Or to put it still another way, if you do not use 

 alcohol, your chance of recovery is twice as good as though you 

 drank. 



Not only in special diseases but in general health, the insurance 

 figures show the harm of alcohol. The lives of " light drinkers " 

 are shortened an average of four years, and that of " regular 

 drinkers " six and a half years. In general, the death rate shows 

 a margin of 26 per cent in favor of the non-user of alcohol. Not 

 only is the life shortened, but the user of alcohol is ill 2.7 times 

 as often as the abstainer, and his illnesses last 2.5 times as long; 

 this causes not only discomfort but loss of work and money. 



We have spent much time studying the prevention of typhoid 

 and smallpox and yet alcohol kills more people than typhoid and 

 fifteen times as many as smallpox, in this country every year. 

 Perhaps the most awful item in this catalog of the effects of al- 

 cohol on the human organism is the fact that, throughout the 

 United States, 26 per cent of the inmates of our insane hospitals 

 owe their condition to the use of alcohol, either by themselves or 

 their parents. 



Mr. Arthur Hunter, the chief actuary of the New York Life 

 Insurance Company, and President of the Actuaries Society of 

 America, from whose reports many of these facts have been taken, 

 sums up the case as follows: 



" In my judgment, it has been proven, beyond peradventure of 

 a doubt, that total abstinence is of value to humanity; it is certain 

 that abstainers live longer than persons who use alcoholic 

 beverages." 



Alcohol is not a Medicine. In this connection it is well to re- 

 member that alcoholic beverages are no longer credited with any 

 medicinal value, as shown by the following resolution, adopted by 

 the American Medical Association, June, 1917. 



" Whereas, we believe that the use of alcohol as a beverage is 

 detrimental to the human economy; and 



" Whereas, its use in therapeutics, as a tonic, or a stimulant, or 

 a food, has no scientific basis; therefore be it 



