THE ALCOHOL MOTIVE 255 



If next we consider the contributions of recent science to the use 

 of alcohol in its relation to human health and longevity, we are again 

 met with disappointment in our quest for the explanation of its use. 

 Alcohol was formerly very freely used by physicans in both surgery and 

 medicine, but faith in its therapeutic powers has now been almost 

 wholly lost. The figures given by Horsley showing the decrease in the 

 use of alcohol in English hospitals and asylums during the last twenty 

 years are exceedingly striking. In surgery alcohol has been replaced by 

 antiseptics and in medicine by milk and eggs. Alcohol has now come 

 to be regarded by physicians not as a cure for disease, but as a prolific 

 cause of it. As an excretory product of the yeast plant, its action upon 

 higher organisms is that of a toxin. Its regular moderate use renders 

 the individual less resistant to disease and its excessive use brings a 

 long list of diseases in its train. 



The influence of alcohol upon longevity has now been studied with 

 some thoroughness by physicians and actuaries and some definite results 

 have been gained, although here much work needs to be done. The 

 results show at any rate that alcohol does not increase longevity and 

 hence we have here again no clue to the world-wide desire for it. 

 Eobert Mackenzie Moore, actuary of the United Kingdom Temperance 

 and General Provident Institute, in a recent report based upon sixty 

 years' experience of that company in the insurance of the lives of 

 abstainers and non-abstainers (the latter being moderate drinkers and 

 good risks and belonging to the same class and following the same 

 occupations as the former), found that in respect to longevity the 

 abstainers showed a marked superiority over the non-abstainers through- 

 out the whole period of life for every class of policies and for both sexes, 

 however tested. For instance, at the age of 30 the expectation of life 

 for the non-abstainers is 35.1 years; for the abstainers, 38.8 years, a 

 difference of nearly 11 per cent. At the age of 40, the percentage of 

 difference is the same. Another very thorough and impartial investi- 

 gation has been made by Mr. Edward B. Phelps on the mortality due 

 to alcohol. It is based on the testimony of the medical directors of 

 three prominent life-insurance companies of America. Mr. Phelps's 

 conclusion is that 8 per cent, of all deaths of adults in the United 

 States are due to alcohol. 



If we turn finally to the social relations of men in our search for 

 an explanation for the universal desire for alcohol, our reward is even 

 less. Alcohol indeed encourages sociability, but it would be hard to 

 show that this in itself is a benefit proportional to the desire for it, 

 and we find in connection with its use a long list of social evils, such 

 as poverty, crime and racial degeneracy. These evils are connected for 

 the most part with the excessive use of alcohol and consequently they 

 interest us only indirectly here; but it would appear to be one more 

 disadvantage to be attributed to alcohol that its moderate use is apt to 



