Copyright 1911, by Moderate Drinking and the Death Rate Facts from the Life Insurance Companies Diagonal lines represent actual deaths of Moderate Drinkers. Vertical lines represent actual deaths of Abstainers. Chart No. 8. Scientific Temperance Federation, 23 Trull St., Boston Scientific Temperance Federation, 23 Trull St., Boston REMARKABLE SPECIAL OFFERS We have made arrangements with three publishers to make the following special offer PICTORIAL REVIEW, for the next thirty days. PICTORIAL REVIEW The fashion pages of this magazine have won for it a cir- ALCOHOL AND THE HUMAN BODY By Horsley and Sturge. Recognized as the most complete, reliable, interesting and valuable book on Alcohol and Human life, health, efficiency, morality, and heredity, yet published. 370 pages; 16 beautiful plates; 21 diagrams. SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE JOURNAL Packed full every month of readable, up-to-date, carefully stated facts about alcoholic drinks and narcotics gathered from scientists and scientific papers all over the world. Specially helpful to teachers and church, S. S. and social workers. BOTH for a DOLLAR BILL Send for other special club rates of the JOURNAL with magazines and helpful books. Its Send Your Order at Once-NOW SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE JOURNAL, Boston, Mass. Before You Forget it-to W BY JOHN M. CONNOLLY, A. M., M. D. Assistant in Physiological and Pathological Chemistry, Harvard Medical School. HEN we come to consider why alcohol has been used and is used today as a medicine, self-prescribed by many a layman, advised by many a physician, we find that it is used chiefly, either as a stimulant to the heart and circulation or as a stimulant to the digestion, or as a nerve stimulant and general tonic. Of these the last is the most important. cological phenomena of the first stages of alcoholic intoxication, should use the term "stimulant" with reference to an agent so potent to produce emotional and intellectual effects which at first sight, may well appear to be the results of a true stimulation of the cerebral faculties. The power of alcohol to act upon the brain and nervous system is, among all its properties, the most familiar. "The best bred man, indulging in wine with what is considered permissible moderation, no more escapes the minor psychical changes induced by it, than does its meaner slave fail of its sense-destroy ing power when he drinks until he 'remembers his misery no more.' One need be skilled neither in psychology nor in pharmacology to note these effects of alcohol: "In the majority of cases the first effects elicited are feelings of good-fellowship, well-being and liveliness, with increased confidence in the mental and physical powers. This is often followed by some excitement, marked by loquacity, laughter, and exaggerated movements of all kinds. The face is flushed, the eyes bright, and the pulse and respiration are accelerated; the individual may become more brilliant in conversation, more witty, more social, more generous in sentiment." It is not surprising that the uncritical observer, beholding these physiological and psy *Extract from an address read at the Annual Convention of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, Archdiocese of Boston. NOT STIMULATION BUT PARALYSIS But when these effects are more closely investigated it becomes apparent that not all of the cerebral functions are facilitated by alcohol. We notice that while the individual is more witty, he is not so careful in his statements and has not that consideration for his position and that of others which he ordinarily manifests. He loses his self-restraint and thereby often proves more entertaining and social than in ordinary life, but he also loses his sense of responsibility and his power of discriminating between the trivial and the important, or between the merely plausible and the actually proved. His feeling of increased physical power proves on careful tests, to be erroneous; his increased mental energy proves illusory. Over and over again it has been shown that the supposed effect of alcohol in increasing the ability to do work and increasing the resistance to fatigue, is really contrary to practical experience. Time is wanting to detail more fully the results of the many investigations that have been made upon this phase of the question. Suffice it to say that these experiments and many others on men and on animals, establish beyond all question the fact that on the brain and nervous system alcohol is not a stimulant. The increased vivacity, the slight excitement |