In tropical climates the effects of alcohol are most pernicious. According to Dr. Hueppe, it is the greatest enemy to the European. From the official report of the British Commissioner General for Central Africa, in 1894, “the use of beer, wine, and spirits is more destructive to our tropical colonies than all the bacilli and plasmodia;” and according to the great African explorer, Emin Pasha, the tropics offer no dangers to the health of such as can abstain from large amounts of stimulants. It is very likely that what atrocities have been credited to Europeans in Africa were due to alcohol. From the foregoing facts it is clear that large quantities of alcohol are most injurious, but there is no scientific evidence to prove, with exactitude, that small doses are harmful. Some experiments in this direction have been made by Laitinen,[315] but they were performed on rabbits and guinea-pigs, to which he gave very small doses (only 0.1 centimeter per kilo bodyweight). He found that the hæmolytic ability of the blood was impaired, and that there was a greater mortality among their young than among the young of those kept on water. Laitinen, himself, did not dare to draw conclusions from these experiments; nor can we, for there is a great difference between a man and a rabbit. But if an inference may be deduced from such, we can apply it to children, for, as is well known, the effects of drugs on small animals offer better comparisons for children than for adults. For this purpose, however, we need not refer to the experiments of Laitinen, for Dr. Maurice Kende has lately experimented on 20 children between 6 and 15 years of age, who, after very small quantities of wine, exhibited an impairment of their mental faculties. Footnote 315: International Congress of Anti-Alcoholics, Stockholm, 1902. Dr. Hercod has also shown that out of 591 Viennese school children, the best certificates for scholarship were gained by those who took no alcoholic drinks; instructional results were not quite so satisfactory in those who occasionally did so; but the worst scholars of all were those who took alcohol two or three times a day. According to Viennese life, beer is generally meant by the term “alcohol,” and, in a much less degree, wine.