We find in drunkards that the blood vessels get into the same state as the wine bottles from the deposit of earthy matter which has no business to be deposited, and forms the 'beeswing' or crust in the blood vessels of the drunkard, in his eye and in all of the tissues of the body." Alcohol had been found to prevent the elimination of waste, thus the body is loaded with worn and decaying tissues, leaving the system an inviting field for all sorts of diseases. Life insurance companies, influenced by business interests wholly, make a distinction between liquor users and non-users. Nelson, a distinguished actuary of England, employed as an expert by life insurance companies, found after investigating over 7,000 cases, none of which were drunkards, that between the ages of 15 and 20 the proportion of deaths in total abstainers to those in moderate drinkers is as 10 to 18; between the ages of 25 and 30, as 10 to 31; between 30 and 40 as 10 is to 40.
With reference to the effect on the offspring of drinking parents, the medical profession had accepted the teaching of the French specialist, Dr.
Jaccound, that "of the children of drinkers some of them become imbeciles and idiots; others are feeble in mind, exhibit moral perversion, and sink by degrees into complete degeneration; still others are epileptics, deaf and dumb, scrofulous, etc.," and of the English teacher, Dr. Kerr, that "long continued habitual indulgence in intoxicating drink to an extent far short of intoxication is not only sufficient to originate and hand down a morbid tendency, but is much more likely to do so than even repeated drunken outbreaks with intervals of sobriety between."
Thus the men who have been of the greatest honor to the profession in every land were a unit in opposing the use of alcohol in health or disease and in holding that if people are determined to use it there is less danger in health, as then the system is in better condition to throw off its evil effects.
PROGRESS DURING THE PAST YEAR.
Now as to the progress made during the past year. In June, 1901, the American Medical Association met in St. Paul. The branch of it giving special study to the temperance question held several sessions, about one hundred of the most distinguished physicians in the country attending. Much time was given to considering Dr. Atwater's teaching to the effect that he had proved alcohol to be a food. During the previous year he had published the details of his experiments, and at the convention it was shown that his own experiments upset his conclusions. It had been held that except in rare instances alcohol taken into the system passed away from it as alcohol without change. Dr. Atwater's experiments strengthened somewhat the position of those who held that change is not infrequent, but he concluded that the portion broken up while in the body served as a food. A closer examination of his own experiments showed that the portion oxidized had gone to form other compounds in the system which were possibly more harmful than if it had all passed off unchanged. Dr. Max Kassowitz, professor in the University of Vienna, said, after Dr. Atwater's statement had been published: "For the animal and human organism, alcohol is not both a food and a poison, but a poison only, which like other poisons is an irritant when taken in small doses while in larger ones it produces paralysis." In connection with the fact that alcohol is simply a poison, it may be worth stating, that the original meaning of the word "intoxicated" was "poisoned." After reading Dr. Atwater, the Russian Commission for the study of alcoholism, after two years' work, said: "The claim that alcohol is a food in any proper sense of the term is not sufficiently proved." In the St. Paul convention spoken of, politics obtained a foothold, and some weak resolutions in favor of the army canteen were adopted but not even the champions of the canteen were willing to subscribe to the statement that alcohol is ever a real food.
Just previous to our last convention much noise was made through the daily press concerning a finding of some English scientist to the effect that an acquired tendency cannot be transmitted to offspring. We were told that this would upset the theory that children inherit a craving for intoxicants from intemperate parents, and "the moralists and reformers would have to readjust this logic on these points." In the annual report of the president of the Union a year ago, attention was drawn to the fact that those who indulge in this sort of sophistry have not read what the teachings of temperance workers have been on the subject. Such was not the opinion of the scientists making the report, for it says "Children of drunkards are liable to be mentally and physically weak and tend to become paupers, criminals, epileptics and drunkards." It will be seen from what has been said that this is the position we have held all along.
Dr. Davis, the dean of American physicians opposing the use of alcohol, has published during the year a number of articles showing the impossibility of alcohol's being of service as a medicine, and has dwelt especially upon its harmful effects in fevers, diseases in which it is still much prescribed. The two influential temperance societies composed of American physicians have, during the past year, kept up the agitation against alcohol as a medicine, and good is coming from it, as gradually medical journals are giving more and more space to the question. The following international manifesto has been issued by the leading physicians of the world:
INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL MANIFESTO.
