Alcohol in the War

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 16, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 45.

Alcohol in the War

THE Journal of the American Medical Association says:

“The time has passed when alcoholic liquors are to be regarded as inseparable from warfare and essential for military activities. Efficiency is now the prime consideration. . . . The overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence is in favor of the proposition that the use of alcohol, in any amounts, large or small, tends to impair muscular coordination, to dull the special senses, to retard muscular and nervous reactions and mental processes, and to reduce efficiency in any work requiring rapid and accurate mental or physical effort. . . . The physiologic effects of alcohol on military efficiency would probably not be so clearly apparent in the army as in the navy. The modern battleship, cruiser, and submarine have become marvels of mechanical complexity and delicacy. . . . There is abundant testimony on the part of naval experts to show that alcohol diminishes the accuracy of the gun-pointer on the battleship, and so reduces the number of probable hits. . . . The present war will reverse the opinions of the civilized world on a good many questions, and it is possible that the indispensability of alcohol in the army may be one of them.”

An unprejudiced authority like the Journal of the American Medical Association should overwhelmingly submerge the opinions of some of the trumped-up interested “scientists” that the liquor dealer employs for a stipulated sum to write opinions on the values of alcohol.