Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/207

Rh it an invariable rule to impress upon all patients laboring under diseases of the circulatory system, who desire to minimize the effects of their complaints and ward off as long as is possible the inevitably fatal termination, to pay strict attention to what I call the following three golden rules: 1. Take exercise, without fatigue; 2, nutrition, without stimulation; and, 3, amusement, without excitement.

As the consideration of the effects of alcohol on the brain, when taken in excess, lies entirely outside of the scope and purport of this essay, I at once proceed to call attention to the as yet but imperfectly known subject of the influence of small quantities of alcohol on brain-diseases. And it being my desire to make the effects of moderate drinking as strikingly apparent as is possible, as there are no statistics of the effects of it forthcoming, I fall back upon the data furnished in the registrar-general's reports regarding the comparative ratio of mortality from diseases of the nervous system occurring among men between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-five in different industries. For they tell so startling a tale of the baneful effects of taking small quantities of alcoholic stimulants frequently during the day, that no one accustomed to analyze results deducible from collateral evidence can fail to appreciate their intrinsic value in the elucidation of the point in hand. The registrar-general's report tells us that the relative mortality is as follows:

The above figures speak to the reflecting mind in no ambiguous language, so that I need make no comment upon them save to call special attention to the fact of diseases of the nervous system being so much more common among drapers and warehousemen than among the equally indoor occupation of printers: the only tentative explanation which I dare venture to adduce from this fact Toeing that, as it is worry, little fidgeting mental worries, that conduce more than mental work (not excessive) to shatter the nerves, the high percentage of diseases of the nervous system met with among drapers and warehousemen is possibly due to their being more liable to be mentally harassed in the