r liquor in small amounts and without
it entirely, and it was invariably found that the liquor was a handicap,
but that, also invariably, the workmen _thought_ they could work harder
by its aid! Alcohol numbs the sense of fatigue and so deceives the user.
It is not a stimulant but a narcotic. The habit of taking a cocktail
before meals is doubly harmful, because it is often taken on an empty
stomach and because it poisons the system more quickly than when mixed
with food and retained in the intestines.

[Sidenote: Alcohol and Infectious Diseases]

It is well known that people who indulge in alcohol show less resistance
to infectious diseases than abstemious individuals. The paralysis of the
white blood-corpuscles is one of the strong arguments against the use of
alcohol. The experience of life insurance companies in England and
America has clearly shown that even the "moderate" use of alcoholic
beverages shortens human life. (See "Alcohol" in SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.)

Dr. Stockard has also shown in mice, on which he has experimented, that
the effect of alcohol on the germ-plasm is distinctly injurious. It is a
fair inference that the use of alcohol by parents tends to damage their
offspring.

[Sidenote: Tobacco]

The evils of tobacco have not been so much studied and are not so well
understood as those of alcohol. But every athletic trainer observes that
the use of tobacco lessens physical fitness. The ordinary smoker is
unconscious of this and often denies it. He sometimes says, "I'll stop
smoking when I find it hurting me; it doesn't hurt me now." The
delusive impression that one is well may continue long after something
has been lost from the fitness of the body, just as the teeth do not
ache until the decay has gone far enough to reach the nerve.

At Yale and at Amherst it has been found, by actual measurement, that
students not using tobacco during the college course had gained over the
users of tobacco in weight, height, growth of chest, and lung capacity.

Prof. Pack, of the University of Utah, finds that tobacco-using athletes
are distinctly inferior to those who abstain. Prof. Lombard, of the
University of Michigan, finds that tobacco lessens the power of the
voluntary muscles, presumably because of the depressing effect on the
central nervous system. There is also much experimental evidence to show
that tobacco in animals induces arterial changes. The present
well-marked upward trend of mortality from dise