92 



Certainly lie was always "steaming up." constantly smoking and many 

 times a day taking a drink. He did not give me an opportunity to study 

 him fully but I found he had a blood pressure of over 200 mm., nearly 

 twice the pressure an open air or pure air man carries. To such men alco- 

 hol gives relief; their drinking must be looked upon as "relief drinking." 

 When he came to understand the danger from a high blood pressure he 

 wanted to know what to do. The proper thing is to reduce hours indoors, 

 offset bad air influences as much as possible by good air influences. But 

 he was the sort of man who took something rather than do something. 

 Is there any drug that will keep down the pressure that can be taken in 

 place of alcohol? Why yes, a host of them. The question here arises: 

 To what extent shall a physician recommend the substitution of one drug 

 for another? Is any drug at all harmless? To depress the bodily activ- 

 ity, to depress the blood pressure artificially is not good medical treat- 

 ment. 



In connection with this business man should lie mentioned his wife. 

 She had chronic ill health when she first came to me. She was "low 

 pressure," "could not keep up steam" in fighting off infection. She now 

 lives up to good air advice and has reduced her ills, her reactions, her 

 symptoms, to a minimum. There are perhaps seventy-five annual "ex- 

 posures," as by going to church, shopping, theater in summer, etc. If 

 the average length is two hours, there would be about 150 hours of more 

 or less polluted air inhalation in a year. 



The husband stays at home Sundays in good air. but his eight hours 

 of weekday exposure amount to at least 2,400 hours a year, out of a total 

 of S.760 hours, 



Mr. B. is a mechanic, almost a "mere laborer," who works with his 

 hands ; little mentality is required. He lives in the heart of the city 

 over a store where rent is cheap. He works in a dirty shop. He gets bad 

 air, air contaminated by infection, twenty-four hours a day for seven days 

 a week and for nearly the whole year, the only time he gets good, air is 

 when four times a year he and his family visit "the old folks on tthe 

 farm." This man is "always thirsty;" he "always needs something to cut 

 the phlegm." Many patent medicines full of alcohol serve the same pur- 

 pose as alcohol in the form of whiskey, brandy, gin. etc. His only ob- 

 jection to beer is "It takes too much to get relief." Such a man will 

 scarcely listen to a physician who tries conscientiously to help him. The 



