Not Amputation nor Pneumonia, but Rum
By John G. Woolley
I was at a hospital when an ambulance came tearing at the door, with a man whose leg was crushed from mid-thigh down. He was placed upon the operating table, restless and moaning. "O doctor," he said, "will it kill me?" and the good, blunt man of science answered, "No, not the leg; but the beer may do you up." And it did. The limb was removed quickly and skilfully, but the clean aseptic cut had really no chance to heal, because the general physical degradation of beer no surgeon's knife can amputate. When life and death grip one another, beer stabs life in the back. A friend of mine was taken with pneumonia. He was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, forty-six inches chest measure, and set up like a Greek god. To the amazement of his friends, he died in the first onslaught of the disease. The comment of the doctor, whom I knew very well — his comment in private — was curt, but eloquent: "You can't bank on a fine physique when pneumonia grips a drinker. When life and death meet in a tug of war, drink takes the graveyard end of the rope." The liquor traffic is against the safety of the people, tried by these tests. — John G. Woolley.