That children are susceptible to alcohol, as to all poisons in general, has been already mentioned in Chapter X; so it is not surprising if only small quantities should unfavorably affect their mental faculties. We have also previously insisted upon the necessity of considering it a crime, meriting a heavy punishment, to give alcohol to children. But we again repeat that there is not sufficient strictly scientific evidence, as yet, to prove that small quantities of alcohol (especially beer or wine, and possibly whiskey) are deleterious to the majority of adults; those who cannot stand even small quantities will be best without any; but we fail to see why a working man, when he comes from his daily labor, should be forbidden to take his glass of beer. It is certainly not the temperate users of stimulants, the hard workers, that should be persecuted by anti-alcoholics, but the intemperate users, who are a real curse to humanity. If those fanatics will limit their action in this useful direction only, every physician will be only too anxious to support them; but instead of this, like Don Quixote against the windmills, they forbid the use of alcohol entirely to persons who simply cannot exist without it; in fact, they might just as reasonably forbid them to eat, drink, or sleep! We firmly believe that the best course is to discover the cause which compels such people to drink so much that they cannot discontinue the habit, and by finding the cause we shall ascertain the origin of the disease and can then treat it rationally, as we will endeavor to show in the succeeding chapter. Physicians, and not clergymen, are best qualified to fight the alcoholic habit, just as they are best qualified to fight all other diseases. That alcohol in small quantities cannot be such a poison as claimed by these faddists, is also shown by the great number of moderate drinkers who live to be much above 100 years old. At the present time there are also within our knowledge several persons over 100 years old who take every day a certain amount of alcohol. Thus an old general in Berlin, who reached his 103d birthday last December, is accustomed to go, every day, to a beer house to have his glass of beer. Mrs. Andie Campbell, of Springburn, near Glasgow, who attained her 103d birthday in January, 1908, attributes, as the newspapers stated, her old age to the moderate use of whiskey, which she has been accustomed to drink all her life. According to the report of the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association, most of the 51 centenarians, whose cases were investigated, were total abstainers, but 5 were very fond of alcohol. One of them, Peggy Walsh, who is said to have attained 127 years, was in the habit of taking daily before dinner an ounce of whiskey in water.[316] Thus it seems conclusive that the use of moderate quantities of alcohol does not seriously impair our chances for living to a good old age. Footnote 316: