THE DEATH-RATE FROM ALCOHOL 63 



alcohol has not altogether vanished. The ladies, 

 who preside over the cottage homes of England, 

 have unbounded faith in porter and stout as aids in 

 nursing. Connoisseurs and experienced drinkers 

 dwell with delight on the merits of favourite liquors 

 " in a barrel of which no headache lurks." Fashion- 

 able physicians still display a conflicting knowledge 

 of the diverse and conflicting properties of expen- 

 sive wines and spirits — solutions of alcohol differing 

 chiefly in strength, colour, and flavour. They tell 

 us that the virtues of these particular solutions 

 reside in their special "ethers." But no medical 

 enthusiast has thought it worth while to separate 

 the ethers for medicinal use — as morphia has been 

 separated from opium, or quinine from Peruvian 

 bark. Until very recently, physicians often pre- 

 scribed amazing, I had almost said fatal, quantities 

 of alcohol. But to-day a more modern school deny 

 all virtue to alcohol. In point of fact, it is a moot 

 question whether alcohol is ever beneficial, especially 

 to healthy people, to the winners in life's race, the 

 fittest, to those who hand on their character to 

 posterity. No one, however, denies that it is often 

 very harmful. We have all known men of whom 

 it is said that they have drunk or are drinking 

 themselves to death. There can be no shadow of 

 doubt that an enormous human mortality is due to 

 alcohol. 



