Drunkenness in France by Springfield Republican

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 23.

Drunkenness in France.

By Springfield Republican

THE drink problem takes on a different aspect in France from that which it wears in this country. Wine of the country has long been insufficient for the appetites of the people, and there have come into general use among the lower classes vile alcohols distilled from grains, potatoes, beets, and other vegetables, which are sold at a very low price and are very dangerous toxics, producing alcoholism to an enormous extent. Whether these debased alcohols are any worse than the adulterated strong liquors of America (which are not cheap) is a question perhaps worth investigating; but the results of their use are so serious that the Paris Academy of Medicine has made a deliverance against them. Alcoholism was scarcely known to French physicians thirty to thirty-five years ago, but now it is frightfully common, and the hospitals are full of sufferers from strange diseases—derangements of the circulation, curious forms of paralysis, hallucinations, idiocy, etc.

Drinking places multiply to an alarming degree; nearly 100,000 have been opened within ten years. The Academy of Medicine now proposes to call upon the Government for surveillance of the manufacture of "hard" liquors (as we call them), for heavy taxes upon all brandies and strong liquors in commerce, and heavy licenses imposed on all who sell them; and that every possible measure be taken to limit their sale. The cider region of Normandy, however, is one of the most intemperate in the whole republic.—Springfield Republican.