HYGIENE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 329 



give his competitors an advantage and lead to his own 

 ruin. In the professions it is no less true that no man 

 should dare run the risk of befogging his judgment. A 

 physician known to be a tippler will lose the best prac- 

 tice ; the lawyer whose legal advice is sometimes cloudy, 

 because of a trifle too much alcohol in his morning dram, 

 will not command the confidence of those wishing counsel. 



A man seeking employment is likely to be met at every 

 turn by questions as to his habits respecting beverages 

 containing alcohol and his use of tobacco. Several of the 

 great railroad corporations employ only total abstainers 

 in any capacity. Purely from pecuniary considerations 

 they cannot afford to run the risk of accident upon their 

 roads, involving destruction of the property of the road, 

 with also many thousands of dollars to pay for life and 

 limb destroyed, because perhaps a brakeman, having 

 taken a " drop too much," was a little uncertain in his 

 vision and did not grasp as quickly as usual the meaning 

 of the signals ; or because a telegraph operator had fud- 

 dled his brain with beer and had forgotten to send the 

 dispatch which would have prevented a frightful wreck. 

 So in respect to positions in the great commercial houses 

 where trustworthiness, alertness, stability of character, 

 are required ; it is those who drink neither brandy nor 

 beer who stand the best chance, other things being equal, 

 of securing desirable positions. In practically every walk 

 of life a man is handicapped in the race if he is believed 

 to be a drinking man. 



All these facts clearly indicate the opinion of the world 

 in general that, considered merely as a piece of mecha- 

 nism for accomplishing various sorts of work, a man 

 who takes no alcohol into his machine is worth more than 

 one who does ; so that a man who drinks thereby deliber- 



