Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume ICooley, Arnold James
Science
Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I
Cooley, Arnold James
Formulas, recipes, etc.; Industrial arts -- Dictionaries; Technology -- Dictionaries
The following results of an inquiry instituted in 1870 by the
Massachusetts Board of Health into the comparative sobriety of different
nations are gathered from an able paper which appeared in the ‘Medical
Times and Gazette’ of April 15th, 1872, by Dr Druitt, in which he dissects
and summarises the results in question. Dr Druitt writes:
“Highest in the scale of temperance come the Turks and Arabs; next the
Iberians, Levantines, Greeks, and Latin races; lower down the Japanese,
Scandinavians, Belgians, and the Irish Celt; lowest of all the so-called
Anglo-Saxon of either continent.”
Professor Levi contributes to our knowledge on this subject by giving the
following statistics:——In 1860 the committals for drunkenness in England
and Wales were 88,000, and in 1870 134,000, an increase of 50 per cent.
In Manchester the increase from 1860 to 1870 was 375 per cent., or
computed according to the increase of population 35·3 per cent. In London
drunkenness is in the proportion of 5·43 per 1000, in Leeds 7·40, in
Manchester 31·13, and in Liverpool 42·82. It must, however, be remembered
that these figures are based on mere committals, which greatly depend on
the activity of the police, and the noisy or quiet character of the
drunkard.
We quote the following from Dr Blyth’s work on ‘Hygiene,’ without,
however, attempting either to endorse or controvert what he says on the
subject.
“_Whether is Alcohol necessary or not._ All experience, both at home and
abroad, shows by facts that cannot be disputed that a person can do quite
as hard work without alcohol as with it; and probably as the limits
between moderation and excess are easily passed, and as the generality of
mankind, even without intending it, err on the latter side, the result is
that a comparison between total abstainers and even temperate men
generally terminates in favour of the former. It would appear that total
abstainers live longer, are better citizens, and can do more work than the
rest of mankind. The figures of the “United Kingdom Temperance and General
Provident Institution” go far to prove the above. This insurance society
is divided into two sections. One section consists of abstainers, the
other of persons selected as not known to be intemperate. The claims for
five years anticipated in the temperance section were £100,446, but the
actual claims were only £72,676. In the general section of the anticipated
claims were £196,352; the actual claims no less than £330,297. In war the
march of 2000 miles in his War of Independence by Cornwallis and his
troops (1783), the Maroon war of Jamaica, the 400 miles’ march of an
English army across the Desert from Komer, on the Red Sea, a march of 1000
miles in the Kaffir war, experiences at sieges, in action, in hot,
temperate, and cold climates, where abstinence was either forced through
circumstances or followed, shows to every unprejudiced mind that soldiers
endure more fatigue, are healthier, and fight better, without stimulants
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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