364 BODY CONTROL AND HABIT FORMATION 



lowered resistance is shown in increased liability to contract 

 disease and increased severity of the disease. We have already 

 alluded to the findings of insurance companies with reference to 

 the length of life — the abstainers from alcohol have a much 

 better chance of a longer life and much less likelihood of infection 

 by disease germs. 



Use of Alcohol in the Treatment of Disease. — In the London 

 Temperance Hospital alcohol was prescribed seventy-five times 

 in thirty-three years. The death rate in this hospital has 

 been lower than that of most general hospitals. Sir William 

 Collins, after serving nineteen years as surgeon in this hospital, 

 said : — 



" In my experience, speaking as a surgeon, the use of alcohol is 

 not essential for successful surgery. ... At the . London Tem- 

 perance Hospital, where alcohol is very rarely prescribed, the mor- 

 tality in amputation cases and in operation cases generally is re- 

 markably low. Total abstainers are better subjects for operation, 

 and recover more rapidly from accidents, than those who habitu- 

 ally take stimulants." 



In a paper read at the International Congress on Tuberculosis, in 

 New York, 1906, Dr. Crothers remarked that alcohol as a remedy 

 or a preventive medicine in the treatment of tuberculosis is a most 

 dangerous drug, and that all preparations of sirups containing 

 spirits increase, rather than diminish, the disease. 



Dr. Kellogg says : " The paralyzing influence of alcohol upon 

 the white cells of the blood — a fact which is attested by all 

 investigators — ■ is alone sufficient to condemn the use of this drug 

 in acute or chronic infections of any sort." 



The Effect of Alcohol upon Intellectual Ability. — With regard 

 to the supposed quickening of the mental processes Horsley and 

 Sturge, in their recent book, Alcohol and the Human Body, say : 

 " Kraepelin found that the simple reaction period, by which is 

 meant the time occupied in making a mere response to a signal, as, 

 for instanc'e, to the sudden appearance of a flag, was, after the in- 

 gestion of a small quantity of alcohol (J to | ounce), slightly accel- 

 erated ; that there was, in fact, a slight shortening of the time, as 

 though the brain were enabled to operate more quickly than be- 



