SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE. 345 



" Even the continued moderate use of alcoholic drinks is, as 

 has been said, almost certain to lead to some of the many forms 

 of disease which are ready to invade some portion of the body 

 that has had its processes of nutrition for a long time thus dis- 

 turbed. If we now add to this the constant imminent danger of 

 the growth of an already abnormal appetite for such drinks until 

 it leads to excess in their use, which is so revolting in its every 

 aspect, is there not enough to deter one from even a moderate 

 cultivation of this dangerous appetite ? 



" NARCOTICS. There are a number of other poisons whose use 

 the body at first endures, though with considerable protest, but 

 which finally have the effect to cultivate a demand for the poison 

 that generally ends seriously or fatally. 



" Among the most dangerous of these is morphia, which ap- 

 pears in many forms of medicine. The morphine habit is fully 

 as dangerous as the alcohol habit. 



" The tobacco habit, while it does not compare with those just 

 discussed in the seriousness of its results, is of no benefit, is of 

 great and useless expense, and is often the direct cause of a de- 

 rangement of the healthy actions of the body. Its use has been 

 demonstrated to be very dangerous to the young. It is a habit 

 easily avoided, and one that no one who has formed it would 

 advise you to form." 



As soon as this book with its associate (Primary Lessons in 

 Human Physiology) came into use, agitation was begun agaiost 

 it, not because of any defect in its science, not because its stand 

 was not strongly against the use of stimulants and narcotics, not 

 because of any lack of fitness in its methods, but because it was 

 not a book of " scientific temperance." 



At last, after some four years of agitation, an act was passed 

 in Indiana by which " scientific temperance " must be forced into 

 those books, or the books themselves taken out of the schools. 



I have not the text of the Indiana law at hand, but I under- 

 stand that it is based on a law lately enacted under like influ- 

 ences in the State of New York. The full text of the New York 

 law is as follows : 



" To amend the consolidated school law providing for the study 

 of the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics 

 in connection with physiology and hygiene in the public schools. 



" The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate 

 and Assembly, do enact as follows : 



" SECTION 1. Sections 19 and 20 of Article XV of the consoli- 

 dated law are amended to read as follows : 



"19. The nature of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics and 

 their effects on the human system shall be taught in connection 

 with the various divisions of physiology and hygiene as thor- 



VOL. XLVIII. 25 



