THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — MENTAL 331 



The evolution against alcohol appears to have pro- 

 ceeded on lines and under conditions very similar 

 to those under which the evolution against zymotic 

 diseases, particularly against tuberculosis, proceeded. 

 We have seen that in early times the environment 

 must have been very unfavourable to the tubercle 

 baciUus, but that with the advance of civilization it 

 must have grown increasingly favourable, till in the 

 most civilized communities it is, at the present day, 

 extremely favourable ; and that concurrently with the 

 change of environment favourable to the baciUus, but 

 unfavourable to the races attacked, these races under- 

 went a protective evolution, which has proceeded so far 

 that they are now able to persist under conditions so 

 favourable to the bacillus and unfavourable to them- 

 selves, that races which have not undergone the same 

 evolution perish under like conditions. Similarly in 

 early times the conditions must have been very " un- 

 favourable " to alcohol. It must have been very scanty 

 as to quantity and dilute as to quality. 



" The ancient wines were of various kinds, some being 

 the pure and unfermented juice of the grape, preserved 

 either by sulphuring or inspissation ; others sour, in 

 which some or all of the alcohol had undergone acetous 

 fermentation. But even the most alcoholic wine did 

 not contain more than 15 per cent, of alcohol, and many 

 contained much less. There was no such practice as 

 'fortification,' at all events not with alcohol, though 

 there is evidence that some other drugs were sometimes 

 added to increase the intoxicating quality. All, or 

 almost all, the intoxication of which we read in clas- 

 sical and Biblical history was produced by what we now 

 call ' natural wine,' or by a kind of beer made from 

 malted grain, or by a few other alcoholic drinks (such 

 as mead from honey, &c.), which are of minor import- 

 ance." — J. J. Ridge, Alcohol and Public Health, p. 3. 



