Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/376

344 question of temperance was treated. In other words, the reasons for temperate living were stated as truths of science in the proper relation to other truths. But, as events have proved, this statement did not contain the essence of "scientific temperance." It is as sign of condemnation of the series adopted by us that the State of Indiana appears in black on the white charts of the "National Woman's Christian Temperance Union."

Let us, therefore, examine the teachings which are thus placed under ban. On pages 289, 390, and 291 (Advanced Lessons in Human Physiology: Indiana State Series), we read:

"—The most serious and widespread derangement of the natural tastes is that caused by alcoholic drinks. Alcohol has been demonstrated to be a poison. Its continued use, even in what are called moderate quantities, will pave the way for many diseases, some of which are sure to overtake those who have the habit of using drinks with alcohol in them.

"Examples of the effects of the excessive use of alcoholic drinks are numerous and revolting enough in most communities to make the strongest of appeals against their use.

"When it is seen that by the means of alcohol an intelligent man may act without reason; that a kind-hearted man may become brutal to his most loved friends; that it may cause an honorable man to become a dishonorable one; that it may make a noble nature become one with the most depraved of tastes; when its use has over and over again been the cause of bitter disappointments, of intense suffering, and of crime, it would seem that vastly stronger reasons existed against its use than that of the mere fact that some slight changes in the tissues occur which might possibly be demonstrated. It is to avoid these most serious results that the use of alcohol is to be shunned, and not simply to avoid a differently shaped liver.

"The physiological effects of poison are generally much greater than the visible changes which they produce in the tissues would lead us to expect. Indeed, such effects can seldom be detected by the changes seen in the tissue cells.

"Strychnine produces powerful spasms, which end in death. It acts, it is said, on the spinal cord, but it would be hard to show any changes that it produces in the cells. And a knowledge of the changes it produces in the cells could not make us fear the poison any more than we do who know that it results in suffering and death.

"—The most serious results so well known are, of course, from the effects of excessive use. But in the moderate use of these drinks there is constant danger, as has been demonstrated a countless number of times, that the 'moderate' may grow into the immoderate use.