HEALTH AND DISEASE 423 



Cross Hospital, New York City, where no alcohol is prescribed, one out 

 of one hundred and four patients die." 



Dr. S. A. Knopf says: "Alcohol does not cure tuberculosis! Used 

 in excess and injudiciously administered, it surely retards recovery." 



Dr. Legrain, senior physician to the asylum Ville Evrard, Paris, de- 

 clares : " The systematic treatment of chronic tuberculosis by alcohol 

 is apparently a physiological absurdity." 



Professor Guttstadt of Berlin publishes statistics showing that 

 in Prussia of every 1000 deaths of men over twenty-five years, 161 

 are from tuberculosis. Of every 1000 deaths among bartenders, 

 556 are from tuberculosis ; among brewery employees, 345 ; school- 

 teachers, 143 ; physicians, 113 ; clergy, 76. The 55th annual report 

 of the British Registrar General gives the average death rate of 

 England as 13 per thousand, but among brewers it is 41 per thou- 

 sand, only four occupations showing a higher rate. 



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

 York, 1906, Dr. Crothers remarked that alcohol as a remedy or a pre- 

 ventive 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 grave significance of the effects of alcohol 

 upon living cells can be fully appreciated only when we keep in mind the 

 fact that phagocytosis is the chief means of bodily defense against 

 bacterial disease. It is only through leucocytosis the migration of 

 leucocytes, and their activity in attacking and destroying bacteria 

 that recovery from any infectious disease is possible. 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." 



Experience of Insurance Companies. -- The United Kingdom 

 Temperance and General Provident Institution of London insures 

 in two departments, a general section and one for total abstainers. 

 During the sixty years from 1841 to 1901 there were 31,776 whole- 

 life policies in the general or nonabstaining section. These passed 

 through 446,943 years of life, and there were 8947 deaths. In 

 the abstaining section there were 29,094 whole-life policies, passing 

 through 398,010 years of life, with 5124 deaths. If the death rate 

 in the abstaining section had equaled that in the general section, 

 there would have been 6959 deaths instead of 5124, or the mortality 



