Alcoholic beverage consumption

“ The beer and spirit statistics of the country and their contributions to the national revenue do not, however, permit us to indulge in the belief that this large consumption of harmless drinks is due to their displacing the use of intoxicants—the increasing sale of non-alcoholic beverages cannot in fact be taken as an index of the growing sobriety of a nation ”

“ Wines are also made from other fruits and vegetables, such as oranges, currants, tomatoes, and rhubarb, but the alcohol which they contain is of the same nature in all cases, whether the fermented liquor has been manufactured in great quantities, by large presses, or by a simple domestic process for home consumption. It is important to remember this fact, as many people do not associate alcohol with such beverages as domestic wines and home-brewed ales, whereas it is always present with the same treacherous qualities which attach to it everywhere. ”

“ The yearly per capita consumption of alcoholic liquors, which rose from 8.79 gallons in 1880 to 17.76 in 1900 and 22.79 in 1911, fell in 1912 to 21.98. It is to be devoutly hoped that the tide will ebb as rapidly as it rose. What should be our attitude toward the use of alcoholic liquors by others? ”

“ With the introduction of light beer there has been not only less intemperance, but a reduction in the number of the cases of organic disease of the heart, liver, and stomach caused by alcohol. While temperance in the matter of alcoholic drinks is becoming a characteristic feature of Americans, intemperance in the quantity of food taken is almost the rule. ”

“ This is found to be true not only of those who use whiskey and other strong liquors, but also of those who use fermented drinks, as wine and beer. Beer drinkers are much more likely to suffer from disease than those who are strictly temperate. It is often noticed by physicians that when a beer-drinker becomes sick or meets with an accident, he does not recover so readily as one who uses no kind of alcoholic drinks. ”

“ In fact, it is believed by most authorities that often more harm than good is done by using alcoholic beverages as a medical stimulant or as a carrier for some drug. As these drinks are harmful in this respect, so are they detrimental to health when they are taken merely as beverages. ”

“ Are we to knock the heads out of all our wine-casks, join the temperance society, and denounce all men who do not follow our example? Taking together all that science and observation teach and indicate, we have one certainty: That, to a person in good health and of good life, alcoholic liquors are not necessary, but are always in some degree hurtful. This truth becomes so clear, after a few weeks' investigation, that I advise every person who means to keep on drinking such liquors not to look into the facts ”

“ Not many years ago a vast majority of medical men unhesitatingly affirmed, on scientific grounds, that the use of alcoholic drinks is beneficial and even necessary, and much ridicule was lavished on those who, relying upon personal taste and practical experience, took the contrary view. ”

“ It is stoutly maintained in certain social circles that the daily presence of wine upon the family table is more likely than its absence to promote temperance there. This theory does not commend itself to most of us, and our position is strengthened by the facts recently proclaimed by science, which go to prove that not only do drunkards abound among the families which serve wine upon their tables, but that the use of any alcoholic beverage lowers [96] efficiency and is distinctly injurious to health, in spite of exceptions. ”

“ There is some water in the food we eat, but not enough to supply the wants of the body.
Some persons think that the body needs beer or wine to keep it in good order. These liquids, as well as whisky, brandy, and rum, are called alcoholic drinks. The latest experiments and studies show that the body never needs alcoholic drinks to keep it in the best of health. These drinks sometimes make the body sick, and if much alcohol is taken at one time, the person becomes dizzy, staggers, and may fall down and go to sleep. ”

“ In old age its use is almost essential, but always in moderation, individual temperament modifying every rule, and making the best knowledge an imperative need. A little alcoholic drink increases a delicate appetite: a great deal diminishes or takes it away entirely, and also hinders and in many cases stops digestion altogether. In its constant over-use the membranes of the stomach are gradually destroyed, and every organ in the body suffers. In ales and beers there is not only alcohol, but much nitrogenous and sugary matter, very fattening in its nature. ”

“ Hence, supposing two meals are taken daily, the beer-drinker daily imbibes 30 grammes less of alcohol than the wine-drinker; and this difference amounts in the course of the year to nearly 11 kilogrammes, or 14 litres (equivalent to 24 lbs. or 3 gallons) , of anhydrous alcohol.”
Examples without number might be collected of men who habitually used alcoholic drinks sometimes in moderation, sometimes, in what we, in these latter days, should certainly consider excess, and who yet lived in health and usefulness to the extreme boundary of human life. ”

“ Alcoholic beverages are to be avoided, and more especially those which are rich in extractives as well as in alcohol. For this latter reason, beer and champagne are harmful, whilst spirits and liqueurs are to be condemned on account of the high percentage of alcohol they contain. ”

“ In France an ingenious method of influencing the sale of alcohol has lately been adopted, in the interests of public health, which has proved completely successful. The French national drink is light wine, which may be procured in abundance, of excellent and wholesome quality and very cheaply, provided it is not heavily taxed. But of recent years there has been a tendency in France to consume in large quantity the heavy alcoholic spirits, often of a specially deleterious kind. ”

“ It is also certain that hundreds make use of alcoholic liquors who have no necessity for them, and who would be better without them. Those who require them most are men who lead a studious sedentary life; and it is such men, also, who suffer most from excess in the use of alcoholic liquors. ”

“ While it is true that the former claim is in a measure correct, it is a fact well understood by those who have given the matter study that they are perhaps the most unwholesome of all alcoholic beverages. Those in the habit of using them are almost universally under the impression that they are harmless, and as the taste for them is easily cultivated, those who once acquire the habit are very apt to take them in greater or less quantities daily. ”

“ In this Act:
"Alcoholic beverage" means a spirit under the law on spirits, but not includes medicines, psychoactive substances or harmful drugs under the laws concerned;
"Alcoholic" means a person who consumes an alcoholic beverage in a manner increasing the amount thereof time by and time, to the extent detrimental to his own physical or mental health and causing him to incur the alcohol withdrawal syndrome once he ceases to so consume ”

“ Consumption of alcoholic beverages is common enough in typical families so that early exposure to it is considered natural, but its use by young people became excessive enough to be considered a national problem in the mid-1960s. According to a survey published in 1971, more than 50 percent of the students in Sofia secondary schools consumed alcohol regularly. ”

“ If our theory of immunity is correct we should expect to find that the older beverages, such as beer and wine, which have been used for thousands of years, are less productive of alcoholic insanity, for example, than the spirituous liquors which are recent innovations. ”

“ De-natured Alcohol and De-naturing Formulæ
The uses of alcohol are very numerous and varied, the principal being, of course, for the production of all alcoholic liquors such as brandy, gin, rum, whiskey, liquors, etc.; that distilled from grain is almost entirely consumed in the manufacture of whiskey, gin, and British brandy. In the arts, strong alcohol is employed by the perfumers and makers of essences for dissolving essential oils, soaps, etc., and for extracting the odor of flowers and plants ”

“ I believe, in fact, that even the abuse of wine, supposing it to be pure from all addition of alcohol, is not so injurious as even the moderate use of alcoholic drinks; but, with wine the drinker will obtain the excitation he seeks only by drinking considerable quantities, while a small portion of alcohol suffices for producing, at less expense, the desired effect. ”

“ We said nothing about the number who drink, nor did we refer to the quantity of spirits or beer which may be taken with impunity by the individual or that may be distributed and consumed by the community at large, these considerations being in our opinion quite beside the question. The fact should be sufficiently obvious that the principal evil connected with the use of alcoholic liquors lies in that excess which is commonly known as drunkenness, the marked tendency toward which is one of the most characteristic features of the drinking habit. ”

“ They suffer ultimately from physical ailments, which surely follow the prolonged contact of alcoholic poison with the delicate structures of the body, many of a painful character, and shorten the term of their natural lives; but still they are able to drink without an increase of appetite so great as to reach an overmastering degree. They do not become abandoned drunkards.
NO MAN SAFE WHO DRINKS.
But no man who begins the use of alcohol in any form can tell what, in the end, is going to be its effect on his body or mind. ”

“ Nothing is more false than the belief that the progressive dislodgement of other alcoholic drinks by beer will diminish the destructive influences of alcoholism. * * * It has been conclusively established by thousandfold experiments that soldiers in all climates, in heat, cold and rain, endure best the most fatiguing marches when they are absolutely deprived of alcoholic drinks.”—Prof. ”

“ And may we not ask how it is that, if the use of alcohol in moderation be pernicious, the inherited effects of it have not during these vast periods of time during which it has been used, made themselves apparent in a marked degeneracy of the race, since we know that these results will make themselves very conspicuous indeed in two generations of persons who are habitually intemperate?
We are told that it is unnatural to make use of alcoholic drinks, and we are lectured about what man in his natural state would do, or {431} not do. ”

“ The argument to the effect that alcohol must be useless, because chemists have as yet been unable to trace the exact form and manner in which it acts upon the human economy, would seem to be fallacious in the face of the experience, which shows that it does act, and act {432} beneficially, when taken in a suitable form and in suitable quantity. Experience shows, and instances by the hundred could be given, from the works of medical men, that life can be sustained for long periods of time solely upon alcoholic drinks. ”

“ This is exactly what they are doing when coca, and the so-called food wines are placed in their hands as medicine. They like the pleasant taste, there is the call of habit and appetite, and so there arises the greatest possible danger of a general liking for alcoholic liquors being set up. The ailing man or woman of set years is in similar danger, for they are having recourse to alcohol when their powers of mind and body are to some extent exhausted, and they are thus less able to resist the fascination for alcohol that may so quickly be brought into existence. ”

“ Meantime, the general rule is established by an incredible amount of experience and testimony, that alcoholic drinks, in no cases, are needed by those in health, and that the indulgence in drinking them awakens a gnawing thirst and longing for them, that leads the vast majority of those who use them, to disease, debility, poverty, folly, crime, and death. ”

“ The southern nations of Europe using wine daily and knowing well the process of distillation to help them to make stronger drink for many hundreds of years, now exhibit much less tendency to over-indulgence in strong drink than the northern nations whose ancestors have only in comparatively recent times been subjected to the temptation of craving for strong alcoholic liquors. The attitude of any nation toward alcohol is a function of the length of time that nation has had a chance to procure strong drink easily. ”

“ Effects of Alcoholic Beverages upon the Human System. One of the most common alcoholic beverages is wine, made from the juice of grapes. As the juice flows from the crushed fruit the ferments are washed from the skins and stems into the vat. Here they bud and multiply rapidly, producing alcohol. In a few hours the juice that was sweet and wholesome while in the grape is changed to a poisonous liquid, capable of injuring whoever drinks it. One of the gravest dangers of wine-drinking is the power which the alcohol in it has to create a thirst which demands more alcohol. ”

“ To young men who are drifting easily into the dangerous drinking habits of society, we earnestly commend the chapters in which will be found the medical testimony against alcohol, and also the one on "The Growth and Power of Appetite." They will see that it is impossible for a man to use alcoholic drinks regularly without laying the foundation for both physical and mental diseases, and, at the same time, lessening his power to make the best of himself in his life-work ”

“ Alcoholic liquors are, to my mind, not only not valuable, but distinctly disadvantageous, in the treatment of disease, except in rare instances, as for example in the initial chill of some acute infectious disease. ”