The Evils of Fermented Wine
By John Ellis, M. D.
INTOXICATING drinks, even the single article of fermented wine, has hurt and killed more of the human family than all other poisons or evil uses pertaining to food and drink put together. It has done it more insidiously, more cruelly, and has perverted the passions and appetites of men immeasurably more than all other poisons. It has caused more wretchedness, poverty, domestic unhappiness, and crime, than all other poisons put together. It so clearly belongs to the evil uses, which have their origin from hell, that it seems strange that any intelligent Christian should for a moment claim that fermented wine is a good and useful article to drink, when in health. In sickness the chemical elements of fermented wine may be curative in very rare instances. Chemistry shows conclusively that it is in no true sense the fruit of the vine; that almost all of the organized substances contained in the juice of the grape have been either partially or totally destroyed, precipitated, changed, and perverted by leaven or ferment. Can an evil substance, like leaven, bring forth good fruit?—John Ellis, M. D.