Alcohol and Business

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 11, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 40.

Alcohol and Business

The following is clipped from a business circular, issued by a “life assurance society:”

“By reason of its poisonous effects, alcohol is an enemy of life-insurance companies. Directly and indirectly it is responsible for no small portion of the mortality rate.

“Notwithstanding the successful movements in various sections of the country to restrict its sale and use, the fact that over two thousand million gallons of beverages which contain alcohol are consumed annually in the United States indicates that this dangerous drug still exerts a powerful influence for evil. Even the ‘high cost of living’ does not seem to diminish the national thirst.

“In view of the wide-spread so-called temperate use of alcohol, we have endeavored to consider this subject in no narrow or partisan spirit, but solely from the scientific and practical view-point, as we would any other cause contributing to increase the cost of insurance.

“It has been conclusively shown by laboratory experiments that alcohol taken in so-called moderate quantities (two glasses of beer daily), reduces mental and physical efficiency. Those who are disposed to question this statement would do well to have themselves subjected to a test in some experimental laboratory, where the degree of impairment of mental and physical functions caused by alcohol can be measured quite as accurately as a yard of cloth.

“Alcohol is not a ‘demon,’ but a drug; not a stimulant, but an anesthetic. In so-called moderate quantities it reduces muscular and mental efficiency. It suppresses the higher brain functions, thereby releasing the lower. It is most dangerous to those with weak family histories. The effects of excess in those of normal family history may be transmitted to their children. The experience on large groups of insured lives shows that moderate drinking shortens life. Most cases of alcoholism are curable, if the desire for cure exists. Advertised cures are worthless; they merely ‘sober up’ the patient. The advice and assistance of an intelligent physician, the upbuilding of self-control, and faith in one’s manhood, are the fundamental requirements for a permanent cure.”

One life-insurance company, in an investigation covering forty years, found that for every 100 deaths among total abstainers, there were 131 deaths among the same number of temperate drinking policyholders; 31 per cent in favor of the abstainers. Another company found it 100 to 146 in favor of the abstainers.

These facts ought to appeal to every man of common sense. Higher considerations appeal to the Christian.