A Fair Test | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 5, 1883

A Fair Test.

FAIR tests of the value of total abstinence from alcoholic drinks is much to be desired. An English life insurance company has furnished one of great value. It has a temperance section and a general section. Into the first it admits only persons who have been total abstainers for some years. This test is not applied in the general section. For the twelve years, 1868-1880, the expected deaths in the general section (according to the rules in use for ascertaining the expectations of life) were 3,743, and the actual deaths were 3,744. In the temperance section, according to the same rules, the expected deaths were 2,184, and the actual deaths only 1,566—that is to say 618 less than the deaths to be expected under the general rules. This shows a saving of life equal to nearly thirty per cent. for the whole period. This seems to us to present a very fair test of the value of total abstinence. To be sure, no one would question the destructive power of excessive drinking; but the general section is not made up of excessive drinkers. Men of such habits are excluded from the general section. It is, therefore, a comparison between total abstinence and what is called moderate drinking.—Ex.