CHAPTER XXIV 

 ALCOHOL AND WARM WEATHER 



Probably somebody will say, "Well, then, if alcohol 

 does n't keep people warm in cold countries, it must be 

 just what they need when they are too hot and want to 

 cool off in warm countries." 



But it seems that alcohol puts the heat machinery 

 out of order even faster in India and Africa, where it is 

 warm, than it does in Greenland, where it is cold. 



Dr. Parkes was a famous English doctor. He was also 

 a teacher in an army medical school, and he wanted the 

 soldiers to be so healthy and so vigorous that they would 

 always win in whatever battle they were fighting. He 

 knew that so far as the health is concerned, it makes just 

 as much difference what a soldier eats and what he drinks 

 as what anybody else eats and drinks ; and he knew that 

 when soldiers are marching in terrible heat, and when the 

 days are so warm that brave men lose their courage and 

 their strength, they ought to have anything in the world 

 that will help them. He therefore tried to find out what 

 things did the soldiers most harm, and what things helped 

 them the most. He studied the English soldiers in India, 



and he saw that many of them took alcoholic drinks. 



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