the first to be sacrificed to degrading influences among which none act more surely than alcohol. All history warns us that all the material wealth and high intellectuality will not prevent the moral and social bankruptcy of a nation of low spiritual ideals, that upon the strength and purity of these ideals depends the nation's progress, nay, more, its perpetuity. Teach the youth of today the truth about alcohol and kindred drugs, teach them to cherish the noblest in personal and national life, to keep themselves free from all that destroys or debases the highest capacities with which they are endowed, to find the joy of life in the use of these powers rather than at the low level of sense gratification, and by so much is national life enriched, and the race set a long way on its course of upward progress. And, further, if youth of this and succeeding generations are taught to realize the importance of an undrugged brain, it may be theirs to solve with clear brains and a quickened social and moral conscience, a problem unmastered by the civilizations of the past of how to detect and destroy in the germ influences which, quickened, allowed to mature, cause national decline. TEMPERANCE EDUCATION A HOPEFUL WORK OF PREVENTION The nations of tomorrow are already here. With us of today rests the responsibility for determining what shall be the future progress of these nations by the training or the neglect of our millions of children that at this moment are in the home or in the school-room. Temperance education of youth can not do all in solving the alcohol problem, but the problem can not be solved without that education. The key-note of current medical science is prophylaxis. Prevention is a rising note in nearly all the great struggles against social misery. The Past said, "Cure these ills." The Present cries, "Prevent them". Thus the temperance education of youth is linked with the great modern forward movements for humanity in the hopeful, constructive efforts of prevention. It works, not under the shadow of a drink-caused misery or a drink-wrecked life, but upon the beauty and strength and hope of youth. Its aim is not the survival of the unfit which at best are a social burden, but the preservation and strengthening of the fit. Its rewards are not the scarred and patched, though sometimes saved wrecks of life, but the power and courage and majesty of life trained to pursue unhampered by degenerating habits its own noble ends and the common weal. Tobacco's Effect on High School Pupils T BY E. R. WHITNEY Principal of High School, Binghamton, N. Y. HE hurtful effect of tobacco on scholarship has been noticed by many teachers. This is not a new story. The matter of a concrete illustration taken from the records of work done by smokers and non-smokers is new. In order to bring the topic before the students in a practical way, in a morning talk, two lists of 25 students each were prepared. The students were selected for these lists without regard to grade, scholarship, age, color, or any other condition than one. . One list consisted of 25 boys known to smoke. The other list consisted of 25 boys known not to smoke. The school records were then consulted and yielded the following results: If the non-smokers were to take only 4.36 subjects, the work of the smokers, their average standing would be 100.57 per cent. If the smokers were to attempt to do the work of the non-smokers, their average standing would be only 64.70 per cent. These results prove conclusively that the smoker (a) is more irregular in attendance, due to illness, and not being of sufficient resisting power to stand the work of the school, (b) is unable to carry the full quota of subjects in school; (c) is unable to do as good work in the subjects he does carry as does the non-smoker. (d) He barely passes the work undertaken, if he passes at all, more often not passing. He does a less quantity and a poorer quality of work. The weakening action of tobacco on a growing mind is clearly demonstrated. The partly grown boy needs all of his strength for intellectual development and for his studies if he would get the best from his school life.—American Education. SEPTEMBER Hamlin Garland Coolness, ripeness and repose, The smell of gathered grains and fruits, Alcohol and Protoplasm BY J. JAMES RIDGE, M. D., B. S., LONDON A LCOHOL is a product of cell-life. How the molecule of sugar is split up by yeast cells to produce alcohol and carbonic dioxide is a matter of dispute but for our purpose we may regard it [alcohol] as the toxine of yeast, having as definite an action on the cells and tissues of the body as the toxine of diptheria or tetanus. The production of alcohol in a fermenting fluid is gradual, and the first effect of the alcohol is to poison its own parents. The multiplication of yeast cells and so the production of alcohol ceases when fourteen per cent. of alcohol is produced. A similar interference with the natural growth of protoplasm occurs in the plant. realm .1 per cent. solution of alcohol considerably, and 1 per cent. greatly, checking the growth of cress seeds. It is always a matter of astonishment to me that as little as one drop of alcohol in a gill of water can exert an adverse influence on the growth of protoplasm. Geraniums watered occasionally with water containing 1 per cent. alcohol soon begin to droop and wither. I have watched the growth of common Chara [water plant related to the Algae under the influence of 1 per cent. of alcohol, [one drop in two ounces]. The chlorophyll loses its green color; this accounts for the pale color of the cress in the presence of alcohol. The same fact has been established for animal protoplasm. Sir B. W. Richardson found that medusae were killed by one in 4,000 of alcohol (one drop in eight ounces). I have observed a similar deleterious action of alcohol on Daphniae [water fleas] in proportion to the amount down to one drop in a quart of water. The effect on the development of eggs is very marked. The eggs of a blowfly kept moist with alcohol and water mature less quickly or not at all, and similar interference is noted with the development of frog's spawn, the small percentages of alcohol having an incredibly bad effect. Feré has noticed the same injurious influence of the vapor of alcohol on the development of hen's eggs. These facts are of immense importance, as we realize the great increase of drinking among women in recent years [in Great Britain]. In past centuries there have been may instances of drunken nations whose vitality does not seem to have been greatly interfered with. I attribute this to the fact that in those days the women, the mothers of the race, were A Effects of alcohol on cress seeds. Alcohol As a Relish BY E. L. TRANSEAU LCOHOL can not be denied a place among the promoters of digestion" writes a contributor to a recent journal, after a little preliminary firing at total abstainers, with whom he is apparently unacquainted, for he refers to their gatherings as "comparatively doleful", and their opinions on the question of the dietetic use of alcohol as a matter of feeling. Waiving such pleasantries of scientific discussion for the more important truth at issue, we are obliged to challenge at the outset, and that strictly on the grounds of evidence, the statement that alcohol "can not be denied a place among the promoters of digestion." To do this we need go no farther than the experiments of Prof. Chittenden (1896-8) although we are by no means confined to these. The writer quoted asserts that alcohol does not hinder the action of the gastric juice "unless it is taken in great concentration." Prof. Chittenden reported ten experiments upon the influence of wine on the action of the gastric fluid when the wine used constituted only one per cent. of the digesting mass. Four of the ten showed a slight increase over the results when no wine was used; one showed no difference; five showed a decrease. Computing the quantity of the digesting mass in the stomach at meal time as two pounds, as estimated by Sir William Roberts and adopted by Prof. Chittenden, and half a pint of wine as 25 per cent. of this stomach content, four-fifths of a tablespoonful of wine at a meal would furnish one per cent., the influence of which may be regarded as doubtful. Four-fifths of a wineglassful (3 per cent. of the stomach contents) averaged in ten experiments, 94.7 per cent. instead of the 100 per cent. of digestion secured without wine. With 1% wineglassfuls approximately equal to 7 per cent. of the stomach contents, digestive action was reduced to 91.2 per cent. with claret, and 77.1 per cent. with sherry. None of these proportions could be regarded as "great concentration." In experiments with beer, which boast the weakest concentration of alcohol, a proportion of 3 per cent., equivalent to less than half wineglassful at a meal, decreased the rate of digestion in all but two cases, while five per cent., the equivalent of four-fifths of a wineglassful, reduced it still more. EXPERIMENTS IN THE LIVING STOMACH The foregoing experiments were performed in test-tubes, the objection to which is that in them there is not the steady inflow of new fluid, as in the stomach, where the deleterious action of the alcohol would soon be overcome. The Chittenden experiments left no support for this objection, for the tests were extended to the living stomach by two series of experiments upon dogs. There were 12 experiments in which the dogs took only water with their meals and nineteen in which they took some form of alcoholic drink, five of which were weak alcoholic liquors. Digestion with these took half an hour longer than . when only water was taken. Furthermore, five of the water experiments and five of the alcohol experiments were marked by Prof. Chittenden as "strictly comparable" because "they were carried out in succession on the same day." In all but one of the pairs of "strictly comparable" experiments, digestion with alcoholic liquors took half an hour longer than in the corresponding ones with water, the one exception took fifteen minutes longer. One with weak alcoholic liquors belonged to the "strictly comparable" pairs, and this one took thirty minutes longer than its corresponding water experiment. Convincing as Prof. Chittenden's experiments necessarily are, they are by no means the only ones upon which the careful student bases the opinion that the evidence at hand is against the use of alcohol as a relish or promoter of digestion. Among the experimental results on this point are those of Gonzales Campo (New York Medical Journal, Aug. 22, 1903), showing that the use of alcohol considerably retarded the passage of the stomach contents; that, in whatever amounts used, while it stimulated the secretion, it hindered the motility; that it is highly prejudicial to digestion in health and still more so in hyperacidity. Dr. Chase, of Boston (Philadelphia Medical Journal, June 3, 1903), found peptic digestion, both in the stomach and in the testtubes, noticeably delayed by whiskey, and in a more marked degree by beer. And Prof. Cushny said in a recent lecture (British Journal of Inebriety, April 1909), “No drugis known that acts on the gastric secretion and digestion so strongly as the odor or taste of palatable food. Many alcoholic preparations may exercise an influence on the secretion in this way merely by their boquet and taste in the mouth. It is true that none of them have been shown to have an effect comparable to ordinary foods. The digestion by the gastric juice is somewhat accelerated by the presence of minute quantities of pure alcohol, but none of the ordinary alcoholic preparations have this effect, all tending to retard digestion to a greater or less extent. Concerning wine he says that with one or two glasses the effect on digestion is in no case very marked, the total amount of food actually absorbed remaining practically unchanged. Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Michigan, recently gave an account (Senate Document, No. 48), of a visit to the laboratory of Dr. Pawlow, in St. Petersburg, where commercial digestive preparation is obtained from the gastric juice of dogs. The dogs are given. the best possible sanitary care, and food to their liking, in return for which they are asked to furnish digestive aid for dyspeptic people. In spite of the good care and comfort, a dog sometimes becomes indisposed and fails to produce the usual amount of gastric juice. Dr. Kellogg asked if in such cases it would be thought well to give the dog a little alcohol to increase the secretion. The experimenter threw up his hands in surprise at the suggestion. He said that alcohol was never given to dogs because the activity created by it is not normal and in the end results in diminished secretion. In this last statement is really the crux of the whole matter, for if we admit, for the sake of argument, that defective digestion in one unaccustomed to wine, may, in some instances, improve temporarily by taking a little, it still remains that the prop tends further to increase, instead of to cure the weakness, so that while it may seem to the user to be indispensible, it is steadily causing chronic disorder. WITH this number, this publication known for fifteen years as the School Physiology Journal, appears with a new name and in a new dress. From its beginning, the columns of the JOURNAL have been devoted to popular presentation of the principal facts of healthful living and especially of the scientific facts about alcohol and other narcotics. These facts often thus given to the American public for the first time have been widely used and quoted by the temperance workers all over the United States and in many foreign countries, and their influence in widening accurate knowledge about alcohol can probably never be fully estimated. Public interest in this phase of the subject is increasing so rapidly, and there is such a growing demand for scientific temperance facts from social and temperance workers, teachers, clergymen, editors and other educators of public opionion, that it has been thought desirable to change the name of this publication to one that will more exactly define its purpose and scope. The educational department for teachers will be continued and strengthened. Several practical articles from experienced teachers are promised for the coming months, so that to public school hygiene and temperance instruction the SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE JOURNAL will continue to hold the same and, the editors hope, an even stronger relation than did the School Physiology Journal. Special attention will be given also to the general educational temperance work. "The time has come", Dr. Henry Smith Williams recently said, "for a great popular propoganda of the facts concerning alcohol." To this object the columns of the SCIENTIFIC TEM PERANCE JOURNAL will be devoted. There will be no effort to strain the truth to the limit to prove a case, but rather an endeavor to present the facts about alcohol as scientific research and experiment develop them, in popular form but with scientific accuracy, in their practical relations to twentieth century individual, social and national life. The campaigns for public health and social betterment now being waged must eventually take careful cognizance of the close inter-relation with them of alcoholic and other drug habits. This relation rests largely upon the scientific facts as to the nature and effects of these drugs, and a wider public knowledge of the truth can not help but hasten the forward movement toward sounder physical and social conditions. This initial number of the new JOURNAL goes not only to old subscribers but to many new readers whom we hope will become permanent readers. Subscription rates will be found on page 16a while the Publication department contains announcements of books necessary to all who would be well informed on the alcohol question, and which may be had at advantageous rates in connection with the SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE JOURNAL. As heretofore, all members of the Scientific Temperance Federation who pay an annual subscription of two dollars or more, will receive without further charge the SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE JOURNAL and also other publications issued by the Federation. S DRINKING AMONG CHILDREN BY THE EDITOR OME controversy was aroused a few weeks ago by the statements of Dr. T. Alexander McNicholl, of New York, that of 30,000 school children in that city whose conditions he had studied, 58 per cent. drink some form of alcoholic liquors occasionally or regularly. Newspapers misquoted the statements and punctured with ridicule the misquotation, and the investigator was subjected not only to misrepresentation but to abuse for his statements which he declared were supported by data in his possession. Without attempting to enter this particular controversy, it is worth while noticing that there is nothing impossible in the actual statement made by Dr. McNicholl in view of the cosmopolitan character of the population of New York. Elsewhere in our columns we quote the findings of a Hungarian Government Com mission which discovered that "there are hardly any schools in Hungary in which there is a pupil who is a total abstainer". A part of the pupils, of course, take alcohol only under exceptional circumstances such as "Sundays, holidays, baptisms, weddings, funerals, the vintage and harvest seasons,' -a fairly abundant list of opportunities for using drink, the result of which is that it is not at all uncommon for pupils to come to school in an intoxicated condition, while the results on health, mental ability, scholarship, and character were marked. In Vienna, Bayer found in one school of 591 pupils more than 60 per cent. who used alcoholic drinks, more or less regularly; 50 per cent. drank wine or beer from one to three times daily, and scholarship declined in proportion to the frequency of use. Another investigation showed that of 88,895 school boys in Vienna, 32.2 per cent. used beer; 18.3 per cent. wine; 4.1 per cent. spirits. Among 92,152 girls the corresponding percentages were 33.2 per cent. used beer, 12.1 per cent. wine; 3.2 per cent. spirits.1 At Munich, Hecker2 found that of 4,662 school children 55.3 per cent. were regular users of some alcoholic drinks. In Gerau, of 1,069 school children, there were only 12 who had not had some form of alcoholic beverage. Walther and Schau, teachers at Ulm found only 21 out of 3,699 children who had not used alcoholic drinks; 84 per cent. already took spirits. In Dresden, H. Heinicke found in one school no child who did not drink occasionally. Many children in Wurtburg brought a bottle of wine to school. Statistics by a school official (Ziegler) in Pforzheim (1906-7)3 concerning four successive Sundays showed that of about 6,300 school children, from 34 to 60 per cent. drank wine or beer. The average for the children of the first grade of school reached the astounding figure of nearly 50 per cent. In a paper read at the International Congress on Alcoholism in 1901, a government inspector was quoted as saying that in Bohemia "the flax workers, especially the women and children, use hot whiskey in which they put bread or cooked potatoes to help them keep warm. Soup flavored with spirits is given also to nursing infants to keep them asleep so that the mothers can work undisturbed." Granting that these are not general statistics covering entire cities or countries, they are gathered from a sufficiently wide number of sources to indicate that the habit of giving children alcoholic beverages is fairly common in the nationalities named-German, Hungarian, Bohemian, Austrian. It is well known that the custom is very general in some parts of France. In 1900 the United States had 145,000 foreign-born Hungarians, 276,000 Austrians, 157,000 Bohemians and 2,669,164 Germans. New York City alone had 439,921 of these four peoples who had come here from the land of their birth. This takes no account of those born here of foreign parentage. The number is probably much greater now owing to the enormous immigration of the years since 1900. Can we logically assume that on arriving at Ellis Island, they promptly or wholly abandoned the custom, where it existed, of giving their children beer or other alcoholic drink? There can be no doubt of the peril which such a custom, if perpetuated here, constitutes in the social and racial life of America. Nor need one look wholly to the foreign born for evidence of danger in this respect. The wine or cider of rural communities used in the homes by parents is in far too many cases given more or less to the children and lays the foundation of a deteriorating habit and appetite. The writer has been reliably informed of instances where cider is given children by parents "because it is good for them." several schools in a New England state, which perhaps is not exceeded in the percentage of native born population, school children have been found who drink both cider and beer, and high school boys were found who were habitual drinkers. In All scientific students are agreed as to the injury done to childhood by the beverage use of alcohol. If, as some keen social observers believe, much of our social misery is due to ignorance, it is high time plainly to teach not only these children in the schools the dangers of drink, but to place a clear warning before parents. Placards, posters, leaflets are being used to teach the homes how to care properly for the babies, how to avoid tuberculosis. A great work awaits doing in teaching the parents why under no circumstances should they give alcohol to their children, and why for the sake of their own health and the well being of their children they should themselves abstain. |