CHAPTER XVIII.ALCOHOL.
Alcohol does not exist in nature. It is a fluid made by fermentation, or the rotting of vegetables and their juices. Beer, cider, and wine are produced by the decay of a sweet liquid taken from grain or fruits. Alcohol is that element in malt and spirituous liquors which produces intoxication.
Alcohol is indigestible and lessens the muscular power. No person training for any severe contest would dare swallow adrop of it. Its great danger lies in its attractiveness. It makes one at first feel in high spirits, reckless of right and wrong, and it destroys his judgment and sense. You all know that an intoxicated person talks like an idiot.
Alcohol destroys the nerves, ruins the stomach, weakens the muscles, affects the heart, bloats the body, kills the liver, causes insanity, and makes men descend lower than the beast of the field. It turns wise men into fools; peaceable persons into brawlers; good citizens into wicked and dangerous ones; and is the direct cause of more than three fourths of all the crimes in the country.
COST OF ALCOHOL.
The total cost of alcoholic drinks each year is eight times that spent for education. The saloon-keepers outnumber the ministers of the gospel four to one. Sixty thousand people die annually from alcohol.
Those who use alcohol are very liable to disease. In Russia the cholera swept off one year every drinking person in a certain town before it affected a single temperate one. In New Orleans, five thousand drinking men died one season from yellow fever before it touched a sober one. In 1832, in Park Hospital,New York, out of 204 cases of cholera, only six were men of temperate habits; these all recovered, while 122 of the others died.
Sir John Ross, the famous Arctic explorer, never used alcohol or tobacco. On one of his voyages, when a youth, every one of the crew that was a drinker, died; but he himself was not sick a single hour. When exploring the frozen regions, he was an old man, the oldest of his crew being twenty years younger than he. His men used tobacco and spirits, but he went without either; and with his advanced years, stood the rigors and hardships better than any of them.
At a recent meeting of surgeons and officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad Companyto arrange for medical and surgical supplies to be placed on trains and at each station on the road, the question of adding alcoholic stimulants to the supplies was at once rejected; some of the surgeons claiming that in case of shock from injury, it was worthless.
Intoxication leads a person to do that which he would not do when sober if he dared. It therefore takes away the self-restraint that is the safeguard of society.
One of the greatest mistakes of the young is the belief that a person can drink a little beer, cider, wine or liquornow and then, without danger to himself. No one ever began drinking with the belief that he would die a drunkard; he meant to drink when he felt like it with his friends, but was sure he could stop when he chose.
Even if a person were able to keep to a moderate use of alcohol all his life, his brain and nervous system would become diseased. When epidemics visit any place, the first persons to die, as I have shown, are those accustomed to drink liquor.
Poisonous as is alcohol to the body, it is more fatal to the mind and heart. It clouds the brain, dwarfs and blots outthe good impulses, and increases the power of the passions and the baser side of our nature.
The world is full of moral and mental wrecks caused by alcohol. You see them about you; the most wretched drunkard on which you ever looked was once a bright, hopeful boy like you. He could not have been made to believe he would ever fall so low.
Your only safety is to resolve never to touch alcohol in any form. Not only that, but it is your duty to do all you can to keep others from injuring themselves by its use.
Does alcohol exist in nature? What is alcohol? How are beer, cider, and wine produced? What element is alcohol?
What is said of alcohol? In what lies its great danger? What are its effects at first?
Show some of the evil effects of alcohol. Of what is it the direct cause?
Compare the cost of alcoholic drinks and the sums spent for education. How do the number of saloon-keepers compare with that of the ministers of the gospel? How many people does it kill annually?
To what are drinkers of alcohol liable? Illustrate this statement by what occurred in Russia. In New Orleans. In New York.
Prove the advantages of leaving tobacco and spirits alone by some facts respecting Sir John Ross.
What action was taken recently by the surgeons and officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company?
What does intoxication lead a person to do? What does it therefore take away?
What is one of the greatest mistakes of the young?
Suppose a person really could restrain himself to a moderate use of alcohol?
How does alcohol affect the mind and heart?
What is said of the most wretched drunkard in the land?
What is the only safety? What is the duty of every one?
SKELETON.
SKELETON.
SKELETON.