37 



except under special circumstances, were not so well if they took any form or 

 alcohol as they were if they took none ; and that conviction was so impressed 

 on his mind that at ordinary dinner parties, especially of young men, it was 

 simply painful to him that custom, mere custom,— these poor youths being 

 really ignorant on the question — made it necessary for them to drink a 

 quantity of beer or wine which, he thought, as far as it affected them at all, 



was injurious to them But as for the old opinion that people in 



health, and living in ordinary conditions, could not live or work without 

 wine, it was an opinion no careful or thoughtful physician thought of main- 

 taining.' — Dr. Acland, F.R.S., President of the 3'ledical Council. 



' 1 had learned purely by experimental observation that, in its action on 

 the living body, this chemical substance, alcohol, deranges the constitution of 

 the blood ; unduly excites the heart and respiration ; paralyzes the minute 

 blood-vessels ; increases and decreases, according to the degree of its applica- 

 tion, the functions of the digestive organs, of the liver, and of the kidneys ; 

 disturbs- the regularity of nervous action ; lowers the animal temperature, and 

 lessens the muscular power. Such, independently of any prejudice of party or 

 influence of sentiment, are the unanswerable teachings of the sternest of all 

 evidences, the evidences of experiment ; of natural fact revealed to man by 

 experimental testing of natural phenomena.' — B. W. Eic/iurdson, M.A., M.D., 

 F.R.S. : Paper read at the Oxford Medical Conference. 



We cannot prove the safety of moderate drinking by citing the evidence 

 of those who live to old age in spite of it ; but we can prove the deadly 

 influence which it has upon the human body by the distinct evidence afforded 

 by the mortuary of any general hospital, which tells us by unmistakable testi- 

 mony that the person who habitually uses alcohol, as at present supplied, saps 

 the foundation of his health and shortens his life ; and that its admmistration 

 to our children tends to produce a race of individuals who are naturally weak 

 both in mind and body, and who have shorter lives than their fathers. If the 

 use of alcohol as a diet were abolished for all persons under 50 our grand- 

 children would find the length of life much beyond that which is settled by 

 Dr. Farr as the average to which men now live. — Dr. Alfred Carpenter. 



' Habitual, or, as it is usually called moderate drinking, 4b a thing which 

 people should avoid if they wished to have a sound mind in a sound body. 

 That is the reason why I myself touch nothing but water. — Sir H. Thompson. 



' If there were no such thing as alcohol, half the sin and a great deal of 

 the misery of the world would not be known.' — Dr. Parkes. 



We cannot regard alcoholic liquors, as contributing to the nutrition 

 of muscular tissues ; except in so far as they may contain albuminous matters 

 in addition to the alcohol, which is the case in a slight degree in ' malt 

 liquors.' But these matters would have the same nutritive power, if they 

 were taken in the form of solid food ; and the proportion in which they exist 

 in any kind of malt liquor is so small, that they may be fairly disregarded in 

 any discussion on its nutritive value.' — Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S. 



PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE. 



Db, Beddoes says: " There are an infinite number of facts which show 

 that the organization of children is, in general, most apt to suffer from many 

 classes of violent agents. Medical practitioners, much conversant among the 

 poor, find them perpetually stunting the growth and destroying the constitution 

 of their children by their ill-judged kindness in sharing with them those 

 distilled liquors, which they swallow with so much avidity themselves. 

 Among the causes so fatal to the health of the higher classes, the allowance of 

 wine that is served out to children, short as it may appear, deserved to be 

 considered as not the least considerable." 



The Lord Bishop of Carlisle, at an annual meeting in Lambeth 

 Palace Library, April 19th, 1880, speaking of the recommendations of the 

 Committee of the House of Lords on intemperance, said : " I wish to put in a 

 strong expression of our opinion upon the part of that committee, that it would 

 be a very desirable thing to introduce some teaching upon the hygiene of the 

 subject into our elementary schools. This is one of the points upon which* I 



