Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/329

Rh There is no other possible cause for such an increase, and the chronic poisonous action of alcohol is established beyond a doubt.

"CHAPTER VI.—MORTALITY AND SICKNESS FROM ALCOHOL 77. Several attempts have been made to estimate the mortality due to alcohol. It is, of course, impossible to make an exact computation. There are so many ways in which alcohol affects the health and life of those that take it, and, indirectly, the life and health of others, both abstainers and non-abstainers. It is useless to look to the returns of the Registrar-General for this purpose. Comparatively seldom does the certificate attribute the death to its primary cause, even when there is no complication. But in a large number of instances the death which is certified as due to pneumonia or nephritis is as truly the result of alcohol as any inflammation arising from arsenic. Nevertheless, the deaths attributed to intemperance show a serious increase, being, in 1889, 54 per million persons living; in 1886, 49; in 1881, 47; in 1876, 46; in 1871, 32; and in 1866, 44. The deaths from cirrhosis of the liver increased from 2570 in 1876 to 8300 in 1889, the proportion of females slightly increasing as compared with males, being as 101 in 1889 to 98 in 1876.

"78. Dr. Norman Kerr, from the result of his own practice and that of twelve other medical men, estimated the direct and indirect mortality from intemperance at 128.000 per annum. He has since estimated the direct mortality at 40,000, and the indirect at 80,000. Dr. Morton, in conjunction with nineteen medical friends, arrived at the conclusion that the deaths in England and Wales, wholly or partly due to alcohol, were 39,287, equal to 52,640 for the United Kingdom. As a result of his inquiry, the Harveian Society of London instituted an investigation, and found that in London, of 10.000 persons dying over twenty-four years of age, the result was as follows:—