ALCOHOL— ITS USE AND ABUSE 381 



ALCOHOI^ITS USE AND ABUSE^ 



By Professor GRAHAM LUSK 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



WHEN the writer was a former student in Munich about 1890, 

 there was a very great quantity of beer partaken of by the in- 

 habitants of the town, and also by the German people in general. The 

 " beer duel " consisted in draining a large jug of beer which was lifted 

 from the table at a given sign, and he who first brought the empty jug 

 back on the table was the winner of the duel. In fact, the writer has 

 heard pleasure measured in terms of glasses of beer partaken. For 

 example, such and such a holiday trip on the Ehine could not be in- 

 dulged in because it cost the equivalent of so and so many glasses of 

 beer. 



A considerable change in the manners of the people was noticed on 

 a visit to Germany in 1906. At a luncheon in Heidelberg, both lemon- 

 ade and white wine were placed on the table, and the white wine was 

 scarcely touched. This great change has been due to two factors. 

 There has been great development of what the Germans call "Sport." 

 The young men indulge in an out-of-door life to a very much greater 

 extent than formerly. Skiing among the Alps in the winter-time, for 

 example, is something which is the delight of many of the students, and 

 all this has tended to decrease on their part the quantity of alcohol con- 

 sumed. A second powerful influence is that of the Kaiser's edict that 

 his health can be drunk in water. As long as it was impossible to drink 

 the Kaiser's health in water without its being considered a dire and 

 fatal insult to His Majesty, just so long was it impossible for the devel- 

 opment of a temperance spirit. 



Besides these factors, the physiologist Bunge has for many years 

 railed at those who would partake of the excreta of yeast, and Friedrich 

 Miiller and Kraepelin of Munich have neither of them lost an oppor- 

 tunity before their medical classes to drive home the evils accompany- 

 ing excessive drinking. They have done this to the great trepidation 

 of the beer brewers of Munich. 



At a recent lecture in London, Dr. Mott has said that it was desir- 

 able to approach this subject in a scientific spirit and without prejudice, 

 and following him. Sir Clifford Albutt has called attention to the fact 

 that much of the literature of alcohol is of a rhetorical rather than of a 



' Annual address before the Alpha Omega Alpha Society of the Universitj 

 of Pennsylvania. 



