ALCOHOL IN TONIC WINES
| Armbrecht's Coca Wine | 15.05% |
| Bugeaud's Wine | 14.80% |
| Baudon's Wine | 12.75% |
| Busart's Wine | 16.85% |
| Christy's Kola Wine | 18.85% |
| Hall's Wine | 17.85% |
| Mariani's Coca Wine | 16.40% |
| Marza Wine | 17.48% |
| Nourry's Iodinated Wine | 11.50% |
| Quina Laroche | 16.90% |
| St. Raphael Quinquina Wine | 16.89% |
| St. Raphael Tannin Wine | 14.65% |
| Savar's Coca Wine | 23.40% |
| Serravallo's Bark and Iron | 17.26% |
| Vana | 19.20% |
| Vibrona | 19.30% |
In order to complete our reference to this subject, the following may be quoted from an excellent little pamphlet which is published by the National Temperance League. The United States Government Laboratory affords striking evidence of the large percentages of alcohol contained in specifics which are stated to be largely used by persons who profess to be total abstainers. Of these the following are given as examples:—
| Paine's Celery Compound | 21.00% |
| Peruna | 23.00% |
| Brown's Blood Purifier | 23.00% |
| Brown's Vervain Restorer | 25.75% |
| Hostetter's Bitters | 44.30% |
But indeed we are far from having covered the ground in Great Britain alone. There are many well-known preparations which consist almost entirely of alcohol and water, together with small quantities of flavouring matter nominally medicinal. Thus we find, for instance, the following proportions of alcohol in—
| Powell's Balsam of Aniseed | 40.0% |
| Dill's Diabetic Mixture | 35.0% |
| Congreve's Balsamic Elixir | 25.5% |
| Steven's Consumption Cure | 21.3% |
| Hood's Sarsaparilla | 19.6% |
There are also other compounds such as Crosby's Balsamic Cough Elixir, Townsend's American Sarsaparilla, and Warner's Safe Cure, which contain from 8 to 10-1/2 per cent. of alcohol. As the British Medical Journal justly points out, in a mixture of which a table-spoonful is to be taken five or six times a day a proportion of 10 per cent. of alcohol is by no means negligible.
Let it be noted further that though most malt extracts are free from alcohol, that which is called "bynin" contains 8.3 per cent, and "standard liquid" 5 per cent. The British Medical Journal has also shown that there is at least one "inebriety cure" in Great Britain which consists of a liquid containing just under 30 per cent. of alcohol.
On this whole subject it is impossible to speak too strongly, more especially when one is concerned with the interests of woman and womanhood. It is true that in consequence of the labours of those few keen workers whom the impotent and the meaningless and the selfish call fanatics, we are making a beginning in the matter of education on Temperance. But apart from that, which amounts only to very little as yet, it is the lamentable truth that the State does absolutely nothing whatever to protect the community and especially its women from the manifold evils which are involved in such figures as those here quoted. The State wants money, and life is a trifle. Anything that can pay toll to the State may therefore go without further question. A tax has been paid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a further tax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That the medicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it may take from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for air and food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing—all these things are nothing to the State if the tax is paid.
Preparations such as those which have been mentioned above have no place or status whatever in scientific medicine. Their constituents are known and their action is known. The public pays for sarsaparilla, for instance, and simply gets a 20 per cent. solution of flavoured alcohol, and there is no one to inform it that sarsaparilla has been exhaustively studied by pharmacologists, employing every means of observation and experiment in their power, and that none of them have yet been able to detect its capacity to modify the body or any function of the body in any degree at all whether in health or disease. This is only one of many instances that might be named; every preparation of which the composition is not stated is suspect. Men are paying for these things at this moment under the impression that they are buying valuable tonics which will save their wives from the consequences of the drink craving and help to avert it. Large numbers of women are ruining themselves in purse and in body quite secretly under cover of these scandalous abuses which are allowed to go on from year to year, and which are undoubtedly doing more injury to the feminine—that is to say, to the more important—half of the community in each succeeding year. At least let the facts be known. Let liberty be believed in and encouraged; but if these things are to be made and sold and bought, let their composition be stated on the bottles. The composition of milk is supervised by the State; margarine, which is harmless and an excellent food, may not be sold as butter; alcohol, which is noxious, may be sold under any lying name, but so long as the State gets its percentage, it is well pleased. The official organ of the medical profession in this country has done well to draw renewed attention to this subject. Surely it ought to be possible for the profession and the advocates of temperance to join hands for the promotion of legislation in a direction where reform cannot otherwise be obtained. Something, one hopes and believes, can be done by merely writing on the subject. A certain number of women who read this book will be deterred from buying these things on finding that they are simply "masked alcohol" and that their medicinal virtues are less than nil. But though all that is to the good, only legislation can meet the real need. These preparations offer insidious means of teaching women to drink, and when the habit is established, nothing can be accomplished by revealing to the victim the history of its origin. The minimum demand for legislation should be, at the very least, that all preparations of this kind should have their composition stated with every portion of them that is vended to the public. Assuredly the champions of womanhood will have to take this matter up soon, and the sooner the better. There is no need to be a fanatic, there is no need even to be a teetotaler, in order to satisfy oneself that here is a crying abuse which is ruining the unwarned and the unprotected up and down the land, and which is quite definitely and obviously within the capacity of legislation to control effectively and finally.