Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - Martha Meir Allen (readict books txt) 📗
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“Beer-drinker’s heart is a term well-known to the physicians of our large hospitals, and indicates a special condition of unhealthy enlargement of the heart due to dilatation, accompanied by some increase of tissue and of fat. Doctors Bauer and Bollinger found that in Munich one in every sixteen of the hospital patients died from this disorder. It is common in Germany—the land of beer-drinking—and proves incontestably that the habit of drinking even such a mild alcoholic beverage as lager-beer is one that is undesirable and unwise.”—From “Alcohol and the Human Body,” by Sir Victor Horsley, M. D., London.
“Nothing is more erroneous from the physician’s standpoint, than to think of diminishing the destructive effects of alcoholism by substituting beer for other alcoholic drinks, or that the victims of drink are found only in those countries where whisky helps the people of a low grade of culture to forget their poverty and misery.”—Prof. Strumpel, Breslau, Germany.
“The result of extolling beer as the mightiest enemy of whisky and brandy has been that the consumption of the distilled liquors has changed very little, while to these liquors has been added beer, the use of which has led to a great and still increasing beer alcoholism. * * *
“The beer drinker who is not at all a drunkard in the popular sense, is very frequently the victim of chronic inflammation of the kidneys. * * * An enlarged and fatty condition of the liver, marked by a dull pain in the region of the organ, often follows from the habitual use of beer. The death-rate from liver diseases among brewers of beer in England is more than double that in all other occupations. * * * Beer-drinkers have a marked tendency to enlargement of the stomach, and to chronic diarrhoea. Beer causes also inflammation of the nerves. This is often announced by ‘rheumatic’ pains in the legs. * * * Beer alcoholism, as well as alcoholism in general, lowers the resistance of the body to all diseases by injuring most of the organs. And herein lies the chief danger in the general wide-spread use of beer. The drinker is especially open to attacks of infectious disease. * * * The brutalizing effect of beer-alcoholism is shown most clearly by the fact that in Germany crimes of personal violence, particularly dangerous bodily injuries, occur most frequently in Bavaria where there is the highest consumption of beer.”—Dr. Hugo Hoppe, Nerve Specialist, Konigsberg, Germany.
“The life insurance companies make a business of estimating men’s lives, and can only make money by making correct estimates of whatever influences life. Now they expect a man otherwise healthy, who is addicted to beer-drinking, will have his life shortened from 40 to 60 per cent. For instance if he is twenty years old and does not drink beer he may reasonably expect to live until he is 61. If he is a beer-drinker he will probably not live to be over 35. If he is 30 years old when he begins to drink beer he will probably drop off somewhere between 40 and 45 instead of living to 64 as he should. There is no sentiment, prejudice or assertion about these figures. They are simply cold-blooded business facts, derived from experience, and the companies invest their money on them just the same as a man pays so many dollars for so many feet of ground or bushels of wheat.”—Dr. S. S. Thorn, Toledo, Ohio, in U. S. Senate Document, published in 1901.
“Fatty degeneration of various organs is frequently witnessed in beer-drinkers. Diabetes mellitus is frequently due to beer-drinking, and is made much worse by its continuance. In Germany more than half of the cases in the inebriate asylums enter from beer-drinking. In Bavaria, the women are not able properly to suckle their children because of the universal consumption of their favorite national drink. Indeed, so grave are the evils caused by beer-drinking that the fight against beer should now be conducted as strenuously as that against stronger liquors.”—Dr. Legrain, Paris, France.
DRUG DRINKS.In the report of the President’s Homes Commission, Senate Document 644, may be found a list of soft drinks examined by the Bureau of Chemistry. The report says:—
“Attention is directed to the danger of soft drinks containing caffeine, and extract of coca leaf, the active principle of the latter being cocaine. * * * We have seen how the opium habit may be acquired by the use of the various proprietary or secret preparations, and so the cocaine habit may be developed by the use of these much lauded soft drinks. * * * No wonder that insanity and diseases of the nervous system are on the increase.”
The following is a list of drinks examined by the Bureau of Chemistry. Investigation showed that these contained both caffeine and extract of coca leaf:
Afri Cola, Ala Cola, Cafe Coca, Carre Cola, Celery Cola, Chan Ola, Chera Cola, Coca Beta, Coca Cola, Pilsbury’s Coke, Cola Coke, Cream Cola, Dope, Four Kola, Hayo Kola, Heck’s Cola, Kaye Ola, Koca Nola, Koke, Kola Ade, Kola Kola, Kola Phos, Koloko, Kos Kola, Lime Cola, Lima Ola, Mellow Nip, Nerv Ola, Revive Ola, Rocola, Rye Ola, Standard Cola, Toka Tona, Tokola, Vim-O, French Wine of Coca, Wise Ola.
The manufacturers of some of those listed claim that their coca extract is prepared from a decocainized coca leaf, the refuse product discarded in the manufacture of cocaine. The Coca Cola company claims that their coca extract is now without cocaine, and most of the recent analyses show this to be true, yet the Pure Food Commissioner of North Dakota says in his report for 1907 that Coca Cola as examined by him, “Gave a reaction for cocaine.” It is easy to see that so long as even refuse coca leaves are used some cocaine may at times be in the product.
As cocaine is the most destructive drug known to humanity its presence in any of the so-called temperance drinks is a frightful evil calling for speedy legislation. It is practically impossible to cure a person of the cocaine habit. This drug causes insomnia, dyspepsia, chronic palpitations, and complete paralysis of will-power, with a tendency to criminal acts. When a person becomes habituated to its use he suffers torments when not under its influence. The real cocaine fiend will rob or kill to get the drug. What can be thought of men, who knowing the deadly nature of this drug, will hide it away in a drink sold as harmless to children and women who would never touch beer or wines? It is placed in the drink to form a craving for that drink and thus create a demand that will enrich the conscienceless manufacturers.
The following preparations were found to contain caffeine, but there was no evidence to the effect that coca leaf in any form had been used in their manufacture:
Calcycine, Celery Cocoa, Citro Cola, Deep Rock Ginger Ale, Fosko, Heck’s Star Pepsin, Koke, Koke Ola, Kalafra, Kumfort, Lime Juice and Kola, Lon Kola, Meg-O, Mexicola, Pau Pau Cola, Pedro, Pepsi Cola, Speed Ball, To-Ko, Vril.
The report says that the following list were not examined but from their names, and from the evidence submitted, they contain either caffeine or coca leaf extract, or both: Charcola, Cherry Kola, Cola Soda, Cola Ginger, Field’s Coca, Imported French Cola, Jacob’s Kola, Koko Ale, Kola Cream, Kola Pepsin Celery Wine Tonic, Kola Vena, Loco Kola, Mintola, Mate, Pikmeup, Ro-Cola, Schelhorn’s Coca, Vine Cola, Viz.
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, says that the sale of all such drinks should be prohibited.
Caffeine is a drug much used in headache remedies. It is derived from the kola nut, and from tea and coffee. It is also made artificially from uric acid occurring in the guano or bird manure deposits of South America. This bird manure product is said to be used in some of the drinks while in others caffeine obtained from refuse tea sweepings is used. The sales-manager of the Coca Cola Company says the caffeine in their product is made from tea. It is claimed by the manufacturers of caffeine drinks that they are as harmless as tea or coffee. But physicians advise against the use of tea and coffee for children and for delicate, nervous people, and every intelligent person knows that these drinks should not be indulged in immoderately. The secret caffeine drinks at the soda-fountain are not warned against because few people know of what they are made. So it frequently happens that children whose parents do not permit them to drink tea and coffee are taking caffeine in a much more injurious form at the drug stores.
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, says: “When caffeine is separated from tea and coffee, and used as a separate drug, it exerts a much more specific action upon the system than when in natural combination. Its general effect is to induce that unhappy state described as nervousness, with deranged digestion and impaired health.” Dr. H. H. Rusby, Dean of the College of Pharmacy, of Columbia University, New York City, a high authority, says: “Caffeine is a genuine poison, both acute and chronic. Taken in the form of a beverage it tends to the formation of a drug habit, quite as characteristic, though not so effective, as ordinary narcotics. Permanent disorders of the cardiac function, and of the cerebral circulation, result from its continued use.”
The Druggists Circular, for May, 1908, contained a query from a druggist as to a good formula for a kola nut soda syrup. The answer was in part as follows: “There are two kinds of druggists. One kind puts any and every kind of stuff into stock, and passes it out to his customers, young and old, ignorant or learned, foolish or wise, his only desire being to get a profit. The other kind of druggist refuses to stock some things at all. Kola drinks owe their vogue to the caffeine which they contain. Caffeine is a poison which is cumulative in its effects, and an excess of which has not infrequently caused death. We believe you would better be on record as discouraging rather than encouraging the growth of the caffeine habit, especially among young people, who constitute a large part of the soda-water trade.”
The London Lancet of January 25, 1908, reports the results of experiments made in Paris with kola given to horses to determine its action in relieving fatigue. It apparently diminished fatigue, but the horses receiving it lost more weight than those to whom it was not given. The experimenter said this showed that kola (caffeine) like alcohol, can give the tissues a lash with a whip, but that such energy, artificially produced, is at the expense of the organism. So, when people see the alluring advertisements of caffeine drinks which “relieve fatigue,” let them beware of the relief which carries with it injury to the body.
Of the most widely advertised of these caffeine drinks the government report says: “The prevalence of the ‘Coca Cola fiend’ is becoming a matter of great importance and concern.” (See volume on Social Betterment of Senate Document 644, page 268.) M. M. A.
SPECIAL MEDICAL DIRECTIONS FOR WOMEN.“In the treatment of diseases of women, alcohol has been considered a very important remedy. Because it affords relief from pain, many resort to its use during painful menstruation. Each month either whisky, or some medicine containing a liberal supply of alcohol, is considered a necessity.
“The alcohol habit is not infrequently formed in this way. I have
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