ALCOHOLIC DRINKS 



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ALCOHOLIC DRINKS 



character. As long as there are "minds" that 

 have nothing higher and better in them than 

 "vacancy and despair" the craving for drink 

 will possess them. Recent studies, notably 

 those of Goddard, have thrown doubt upon 

 the commonly-accepted theory that alcoholism 

 is a prominent factor in causation of mental 

 defects, but these same researches emphasize 

 the fact that feeble-mindedness is a marked 

 factor in causation of alcoholism. For the 

 normal-minded it would seem as if the re- 

 sources of modern life, in art, science, litera- 

 ture, education, and even sport and athletics, 

 ought to be able to supply something better 

 than "vacancy and despair." 



Effects upon Labor. Laboratory experiments 

 have analyzed all manner of condition in con- 

 nection with work, both bodily and mental, 

 and have drawn aside the masks of deception 

 under which alcohol has been used. In set- 

 ting type; sending and receiving telegrams; 

 adding figures; memorizing words; shooting or 

 throwing at marks; performing feats of skill, 

 strength or endurance, or in doing fine me- 

 chanical work, the man under the influence of 

 even small doses of alcohol is slower, fatigues 

 more rapidly and does work poorer in quality 

 than when no alcohol is taken. The man him- 

 self feels that he is working more rapidly and 

 ly and doing better work than usual, but 

 this is because his judgment is dulled and his 

 sense of effort and feelings of fatigue are 

 paralyzed. The scientific tests and measure- 

 ments leave no room for doubt as to his self- 

 deception. 



Harrington Emerson has well said that "one 

 single idea may have greater value than all 

 thr labor of all the men, animals and engines 

 for a century." So the best part of life con- 

 sists in the flow, or "association," of thoughts 

 .r ideas. The influence of alcohol upon this 

 process has been studied carefully and it has 

 been found that even slight indulgence tends 

 to lessen the deeper, more important or rational 

 associations, and at the same time greatly in- 

 creases the superficial, trifling or nonsense as- 

 sociations. Men are thus again deceived, and 

 feel that they are thinking brilliantly and 

 rapidly, but when they view the results soberly, 

 find that their thinking was illogical and 

 trifling. The great Von Hclmholz left testi- 

 mony that ought to be studied by every young 

 person. The world owes to Von Helmhols 

 many of its most brilliant discoveries and 

 greatest ideas. He spent his life hunting for 

 hard problems and for ways of solving them, 



and such hunting is much more arduous than 

 any other; big ideas are the most elusive of 

 any kind of "big game." He says in describ- 

 ing his methods of work that even the slight- 

 est indulgence in alcohol completely banished 

 from his mind all traces of the ideas he was 

 seeking. 



Cause of Heat Prostrations. The man who 

 drinks, even in moderation, destroys safeguards 

 to health in heated summer weather. The 

 records of one hospital proved that ninety- 

 eight per cent of heat prostrations treated in 

 a week in its city were due to habitual in- 

 dulgence in alcoholic stimulants, and of those 

 forty-four per cent died. Following is an ex- 

 tract from a report of two physicians of that 

 hospital after a remarkable study of the effects 

 of drink on the patients: 



Beer and booze have two effects: They in- 

 crease the bodily supply of heat and they 

 lower the powers of resistance. The heat- 

 regulating center in the brain becomes de- 

 ranged and the almost inevitable result is pros- 

 tration. 



The normal temperature of the body is 98.6. 

 In cases of heat prostration it rises to 110, 112. 

 and even 114, considerably beyond the register 

 of our thermometers. We have had patients 

 whose skins felt like hot roast. 



It was hardly necessary to question many of 

 them because the external evidence of the use 

 of alcohol was so plain. A case of heat pros- 

 tration without an alcoholic breath seemed a 

 rarity. In fatal cases the use of a stomach 

 pump commonly revealed the fact that the vic- 

 tim had been drinking. 



And if it weren't for alcohol they probably 

 wouldn't have been here. If alcohol was taken 

 out of the world, I believe the number of canon 

 of all kinds at this hospital would be reduced 

 by half. 



Crowding Out the Drinkers. On account of 

 their now well-known impaired reliability and 

 lessened efficiency, habitual users of alcohol arc 

 being rapidly crowded out of many of thr 

 higher fields of employment. In fact, the krrn 

 competition of modern business and increase of 

 powerful, high-speed machinery is rapidly 

 "scrapping" everything alcoholic and throwing 

 everyone addicted to its use upon the rubbish 

 heap of humanity. It would seem that our 

 huge armies of the unemployed (and unem- 

 ployable) indicate this process going forward 

 with volcanic rapidity. This new "industrial 

 prohibition" may speedily bring about results 

 that social reformers, with the best of argu- 

 ments, have striven for in vain. Alcohol is 

 utcly a habit-forming dnig, which requires 

 progressively larger and larger doses to pro- 

 duce the desired effects. The old deception 



