EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO 407 



prevents the removal of body waste. It makes the 

 drinker liable to lung diseases, such as consumption and 

 pneumonia. Because of these facts insurance companies 

 do not insure the lives of heavy drinkers at all. In 

 making out its rates, and the conditions under which it 

 will insure persons, an insurance company does not deal 

 with a few individuals, but with thousands of cases. You 

 may know a man who has drunk whisky, and lived to old 

 age. His case, by itself, proves nothing. But the in- 

 surance companies have kept records, now, for more than 

 half a century, and they know how alcohol affects men. 

 Their verdict is that the death rate among drinkers, even 

 moderate drinkers, is from 25 to 40 per cent higher than 

 among men who do not use alcohol. 



Alcohol works injury, not only to certain organs, such 

 as those of digestion, but it attacks the whole body; it 

 does so through the most delicate organs of the body: 

 those of the nervous system. Alcohol injures the nerve 

 cells ; in the steady drinker it causes them to break down, 

 and to become useless. Muscles that were under control 

 become uncertain, and the hands tremble. The user 

 of alcohol takes a drink to "steady" his nerves, but he 

 can steady them for only a little time. He thus develops 

 a habit that requires the constant use of alcohol, and the 

 alcohol injures his body more and more. In losing their 

 self control with regard to alcohol, many drinkers lose 

 their honesty and their abhorrence of crime. It has been 

 found true again and again that criminals drink strong 

 liquor to nerve themselves for horrible acts. 



People sometimes say that the drinker injures only 

 himself, but this is not true. His friends and his family 



