ALCOHOL A CAUSE OF DISEASE.
By John Ellis, M. D.
ALCOHOL and fermented drinks cause various diseases of the brain, red eyes, "rum blossoms" on the nose and face, diseases of the stomach, liver, and kidneys, and in fact, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, even to the end of the toes, there is scarcely an organ which does not suffer more or less from the habitual use of alcoholic and fermented drinks. They, especially wine and other fermented drinks, are recognized as among the chief causes of that crippling, painful and hereditary disease, named gout. Need we say more? Does a good tree, or good, wholesome food or drink, bring forth such fruits as the above? Never! If we examine the origin of alcohol in the light of correspondence, we shall see that it is the fruit of, or, rather, produced by, an evil tree (the yeast fungus); then why should we pervert its use by taking it into our stomachs. Alcohol is never found in any healthy living natural substance, fruit or vegetable. It is always the result of the decomposition or decay of a good and useful article of food. This vile substance lays hold on the sugar and actually destroys it, and perverts its natural constituents into carbonic acid gas (which men cannot breathe without destroying life), and alcohol, which causes drunkenness, delirium tremens, insanity and death. Now we will ask the thoughtful reader if it is not almost shocking, to say the least, to suppose for a single moment that the wine partaken of by the Lord and his disciples at the Last Supper, was a wine which had been polluted and partially decomposed by this substance of evil correspondence, and that the wine actually contained the poisonous products which always result from such decay? Was the natural blood which flowed from the Lord's side at the crucifixion, fermented blood? Please remember that it had a similar signification to the wine, and if the latter was fermented it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the former must have been. Is it possible that when the Lord changed the water in the water-pots, at the wedding, into wine, he permitted leaven, or ferment, to enter the wine and decompose, or rot it, for the sake of having alcohol formed therein? In the first place, we can see there was not time for this process to take place. But he formed the alcohol in the wine when he formed the wine, some one may say. But, unfortunately for this supposition, alcohol has never been found as one of the good gifts of God, for it has never been found either in the vine or the fruit of the vine, and is only found in wine, or in the juice of the grape or other fruits, when a certain temperature has been preserved for a period, and leaven has decomposed sugar. It is always the product of ferment or leaven.—John Ellis, M. D.