ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS. 115 



of extremely tight dressing. No woman can persevere in the prac- 

 tice and escape it, as a surgical examination, were they disposed to 

 submit to it, would immediately show. When tight dresses have 

 been applied to girls before the bones have attained solidity a com- 

 mon practice with too many young girls a lateral or "sideways " 

 curvature of the spine is the speedy and inevitable result. And 

 nothing is done to counteract this evil, no robust exercise, no health- 

 giving work. Six hours a day in the school-room, two hours more 

 for home study, and as much as they please for novel reading, 

 thrumming the piano, embroidery, etc., make up the day of our 

 young girls, from ten to sixteen years of age. Their parents do not 

 require them to assist in domestic employments, because work is 

 vulgar and unfashionable, and would soil the delicate whiteness and 

 harden the soft texture of their pink and lily hands. 



ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS. 



Alcoholic Liquor as a Cause of Disease Those who 

 die from the direct effect of intoxicating liquors that is, of delirium 

 tremens or drunkenness comprise but a small portion of those 

 who go down to their graves from this cause, for it is a fact well 

 known to the medical profession that those who use stimulating 

 liquors are far more liable to be attacked with any prevailing disease, 

 and the fatality is also much greater in such cases, than with those 

 of temperate habits. As a general rule, throughout the world, the 

 first victims of cholera are drawn from those who use stimulants. 

 The same is true in cases of sunstroke, chronic inflammation of the 

 stomach, headache, diseases of the liver, jaundice, dropsy, impotency, 

 gout, colic, peevish irritability, febrile diseases, epilepsy, apoplexy, 

 loss of memory and mania. These are some of the diseases that 

 afflict the rum-drinker, and the habit is one of the most prolific 

 causes known of lunacy. In England, Lord Shaftesbury, chairman 

 of the commission on lunacy, stated in a parliamentary report that six 

 out of every ten of the lunatics in their asylums are made so by the 

 use of alcohol. 



Adulterated Liquors in this country count their victims 

 by the thousand. Wines, said to be the least injurious of the stimu- 

 lants, contain the adulterants in a very great degree. Many of them 

 contain but little of the juice of the grape and some of them none 

 at all. They are manufactured from dye-stuff, drugs and alcohol, 

 with that most dangerous article, lead, added, to render them clear 

 and prevent their becoming sour. Hence their use in any quantity 

 can only be injurious to health and destructive to life. 



Alcoholic Liquors not Essential in Medicine Dr. 

 John Ellis, of New York, says: "1 can say that, after devoting 

 over eighteen years to the study and practice of medicine, I have 

 never seen eighteen cases in which the use of alcoholic drinks have 



O 



