412 PRACTICAL HYGIENE 



persuasion, the good example of abstainers, and legal re- 

 strictions must be pitted against the forces that make for 

 its continuance. Such a struggle is now in progress in all 

 civilized countries relative to the use of alcoholic beverages. 1 



How the Use of Alcohol became a Social Custom. The 

 general use of alcohol as a beverage may be accounted for 

 by three facts. Alcohol is a habit-forming drug ; it has a 

 stimulating effect which many have found agreeable ; and 

 being a product of the fermentation of fruit juices and 

 other liquids containing sugar, it is easily obtained. 

 Through the operation of these causes the human family 

 became habituated very early to the use of alcohol. The 

 "wine" of primitive man, however, did little harm as com- 

 pared with the alcoholic liquors of modern times. It was 

 a weak solution and on account of the crude methods of 

 manufacture and storage could only be produced in limited 

 quantities. Perhaps the worst effect of its early use was 

 the establishment of a general belief in its power to benefit, 

 since this laid the foundation for excess in its use when the 

 developments of a later period made it possible. 



During the eleventh century the method of making alco- 

 holic drinks from starch-producing substances, such as 

 wheat, barley, and potatoes, became quite generally known, 

 and also the method of concentrating them by distillation. 



1 Alcoholic beverages include all the various kinds of drinks that owe their 

 stimulating properties to a substance, ethyl alcohol (C^HsOH), which is made 

 from sugar by the process of fermentation. They include malt liquors, such as 

 beer and ale, which contain from three to eight per cent of alcohol ; wines, such as 

 claret, hock, sherry, and champagne, which contain from five to twenty per cent of 

 alcohol ; and distilled liquors, such as brandy, whisky, rum, and gin, which contain 

 from thirty to sixty-five per cent of alcohol. Alcoholic beverages all contain con- 

 stituents other than alcohol, these varying with the materials from which they are 

 made and with the processes of manufacture. The distilled liquors are so called 

 from the fact that their alcohol has been separated from the fermenting substances 

 by distillation. 



