p. 285 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 18.

Health and Temperance.

Mad Dogs and Mad Men.

WHERE one person in this country dies of hydrophobia, a hundred or more die by tobacco poison—in the use of cigars, cigarettes, or the pipe. In smoking, death does not occur as speedily as in the case of hydrophobia. The bite of a mad dog does not always result in death; neither does indulgence in smoking or chewing. But, in both cases, there is damage to health and danger of life. Tobacco smoking is undoubtedly a poisonous, and therefore, a dangerous practice, and like, in its results, to the use of intoxicating drinks, which are also poisonous. Some constitutions can bear more tobacco poison or alcoholic poison than others.

We admit that, in some cases, poisonous liquids, drugs, and minerals may be properly used as a medicine, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, no one can safely indulge in the use of cigars or of intoxicating drinks. All are more or less harmful, and if immoderately used will surely result in an early death. If moderately used the damage will be sure but less apparent. The bite of a mad dog is a frightful matter anywhere, and there are probably a hundred deaths caused thereby, yearly, in this country. If one man dies of hydrophobia, a whole community is greatly excited and scared. "Run for your life!" "Load your gun!" "Kill all the dogs!" is then the loud and immediate cry in all directions. But not a ripple is made, nor hardly a word is uttered, if ten thousand men and women die in a year of delirium tremens, or a thousand die of tobacco poison.

It is fashionable to drink and to smoke; and hence, thousands of young men begin very early to indulge in these practices, with scarcely a thought of the risks and dangers of such indulgence. Pale faces, yellow skins, bloated bodies, restless nights, loss of appetite, heart disease, and poor health generally, do not seem to frighten them in the least. They will send for medicine and the doctor, but will not stop tampering with poison. They will drink and smoke, smoke and drink, day and night, year in and year out. That is the fashion, and that is law, no matter what the consequences are. "I'll take the risks," is the answer to all entreaties of friends to stop. If you should see a mad dog in the street you would run for your life, as we have before said, to get out of his way. If you see a man drunk in the gutter, you simply say: "Poor fellow! I pity him. His friends ought to take care of him," etc. If you hear of the death of a man by cancer, which was caused by smoking, you are at first startled, but never stop a day yourself the beastly practice of smoking.

A hundred thousand deaths, at least, are caused every year by indulgence in drinking and smoking; and those who are trying to stay its dreadful results are called bigots and other worse names. While we flee from mad dogs, malaria, small-pox, and typhoid fever, let us wake up and banish forever such senseless and dangerous indulgences as liquor drinking and smoking. People are beginning to wake up on this subject. Congress is talking about temperance, and physicians are speaking plainly about smoking. Tobacco is more dangerous in its direct and indirect effects on human life than would be the letting loose of all the mad dogs in the nation.

Alcoholic drinks destroy more lives yearly than do hydrophobia, small-pox, and all sorts of fevers combined. These dangerous and deathly practices should be stopped everywhere if possible. Life-saving on the ocean is now regarded as a proper theme for discussion in Congress and elsewhere. Why should not life-saving on land be also considered? As to the shameful drinking and smoking practices in the halls of Congress, it is high time that both were by law suppressed. Let us have pure air, clear heads, and a healthful example in the Capitol and at the White House. While we do well to attend to mad dogs and prevent infectious diseases, let us not forget or fail to check the immense, the untold loss of life caused by a worse madness in the shameful indulgences we have named.—N. Y. Independent.