Attitude toward Habit-forming Drugs.—Among the different substances introduced into the body, either as foods or as medicines, are a number which have the effect of [pg 411]developing an artificial appetite or craving which leads to their continued use. Since the effect of such substances is usually harmful and since they tend to engraft themselves upon communities as social customs, they present a twofold relation to the general problem of keeping well. The individual may be injured through the personal use which he makes of them, or he may be injured through the effect which they have upon relatives or friends or upon society at large. Since our social environment is a factor in health little less important than our physical environment, the conditions that make for their continuance should be more generally understood.
How Social Agencies perpetuate the Use of Habit-forming Drugs.—When the use of some habit-forming drug has risen to the importance of a general custom, a number of conditions arise which tend to continue its use, even though the fact may be quite generally known that the substance does harm. In the first place, those who have formed the habit suffer inconvenience and distress when deprived of its use. In the second place, a number of people will have become interested in the production and sale of the substance, and these will lose financially if it is discontinued. In the third place, those of the rising generation will, from imitation or persuasion, be constantly acquiring the habit before they are sufficiently mature to decide what is best for them. Thus may the use of a substance most harmful, such as the opium of the Chinese, be indefinitely continued—a species of slavery from which the individual finds it hard to escape.
Such is human nature and such are the forces and influences of human society, that the freeing of a people from the bondage of some habit-forming drug cannot be accomplished without strenuous and persistent effort. Education,[pg 412] persuasion, the good example of abstainers, and legal restrictions must be pitted against the forces that make for its continuance. Such a struggle is now in progress in all civilized countries relative to the use of alcoholic beverages.[135]
How the Use of Alcohol became a Social Custom.—The general use of alcohol as a beverage may be accounted for by three facts. Alcohol is a habit-forming drug; it has a stimulating effect which many have found agreeable; and being a product of the fermentation of fruit juices and other liquids containing sugar, it is easily obtained. Through the operation of these causes the human family became habituated very early to the use of alcohol. The "wine" of primitive man, however, did little harm as compared with the alcoholic liquors of modern times. It was a weak solution and on account of the crude methods of manufacture and storage could only be produced in limited quantities. Perhaps the worst effect of its early use was the establishment of a general belief in its power to benefit, since this laid the foundation for excess in its use when the developments of a later period made it possible.
During the eleventh century the method of making alcoholic drinks from starch-producing substances, such as wheat, barley, and potatoes, became quite generally known, and also the method of concentrating them by distillation.[pg 413] This knowledge made possible the manufacture of alcoholic drinks in large quantities and in considerable variety. Alcoholic indulgence was now no longer the pastime of the few, but the privilege of all. Its evil effects followed as a matter of course; and as these became more and more apparent, there began the struggle to restrict the consumption of alcohol which has continued with varying success to the present time.
Counts against Alcohol.—The statements found in different parts of this book relative to the effects of alcohol upon the body may here be summarized as follows:—
1. Alcohol has an injurious effect upon the white corpuscles of the blood and lessens the power of the body to resist attacks of disease (pages 35, 98).
2. Alcohol injures the heart and the blood vessels (page 56).
3. Alcohol causes diseases of the liver and kidneys and interferes with the discharge of waste through these organs (pages 210, 212).
4. Alcohol interferes seriously with the regulation of the body temperature (page 271).