CAUSES OF INSANITY.

97

Dr. F. E. Anstie says: "Where drinking has been strong in both parents I think it is a physical certainty that it will be traced in the children."

The following is upon good authority: "The wife of an amiable clergyman of S, in Staffordshire, England, was so addicted to drunkenness that she had frequently to be carried to bed. Every effort of her distressed husband failed to reclaim her; till at last premature death cut short her career. She was the mother of three idiotic children."

The world is full of the proof. Every mind recalls its own well-remembered instances.

It is painful to dwell upon this, to me, most sorrowful aspect of the liquor crime. Intemperance transmits itself with the inexorable certainty of gravitation, and it is only by fortunate surroundings or strong elements of resistance implanted in his nature from other sources, that the child or even the great-grandchild can escape its baneful power.

Can we be human and resist this mute appeal from the unborn-the wailing voices, the upturned, tearful faces, and the cold white dead of childhood yet to be?

7

CHAPTER VII.

ALCOHOL AND LENGTH OF LIFE.

Investigations of the Subject by Life Insurance and Provident Associations - Human Life as a Business Commodity - Experience of the Great English Institutions-Superior Showing made by their Temperance Sections-Cases where the Premiums are Reduced Ten per cent. for Total Abstainers-Striking Comparisons shown by Diagrams-Experience of the Sons of Temperience-Mortality among Beer Sellers -Testimony of Leading Insurance Experts-Letter from Chief Medical Examiner Lambert of the Equitable.

THE

HE medical profession is charged by every principle of honor and duty to know the effect of alcohol upon human life and health; we have, therefore, very largely drawn upon its facts and best intelligence already, as we shall have occasion to hereafter, not only in this work, but so long as alcohol is an agent in human affairs. Alcohol in the form of beverages will die when the medical profession is ready to kill it. I fear not till then.

But in this chapter I wish to collate facts from the experience and observation of institutions which deal with human life as a business commodity, and whose prosperity depends upon their practical and certain knowledge of the conditions. which promote or destroy it.

It is hardly necessary to say that men endeavor to be sure of their ground before they put their money into it, and the knowledge upon which great institutions act successfully during long periods of time, in that sharp competition which destroys fallacy and all men and organizations of men who do not build upon the everlasting rock of business truth, is entitled to the profoundest respect.

Life insurance and provident institutions have investigated the alcohol question, not from the stand-point of sentimentalism, but of cash earnings and stock dividends, and in their researches and observations have employed the highest professional intelligence and business accuracy. Their work has accumulated for generations, and everything learned has been utilized as so much increased capital for further investigation,

ADVANTAGES FOR ABSTAINERS.

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until now these organizations regulate their action in dealing with individual men as much with reference to their drinking habits as to the presence or absence of tendency to mortal disease. Let us note some of the facts which have been developed by their experience and which are now the basis of their daily action in affairs.

The United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution of London, England, on the mutual system, was founded in the year 1840. It was composed of total abstainers from intoxicating drinks until 1847, but in that year nonabstainers were admitted to policies for the term of life.

The institution began in the year 1855 to declare bonuses to its policy holders-dividing the surplus of the two sections among the respective classes of abstainers and non-abstainers. The premiums in each section are the same, and hence the amount of these distributions would fairly indicate the health and life condition of the members as affected by the use of alcohol. It should be observed, however, that the comparison would not be between abstainers and the average of the community, for the non-abstainers are always selected subjects from whom are excluded all who have not good reason to expect long life, and the habitual use of intoxicating liquors to even slight excess would be cause of rejection. In such comparison large numbers show to best advantage, because the more frequent the admission of fresh members the less the relative apparent mortality. This will appear from the fact that if no new members were admitted from year to year percentage of death must constantly increase until the last member dies, whose single death would be 100 per cent. of the whole, and would extinguish the institution. In the G. T. and P. Institution the non-abstainers have for many years outnumbered the abstainers in the proportion of three to two. There have been five bonuses declared during the period from 1850 to 1879, inclusive.

PERCENTAGE BONUSES ON PREMIUMS PAID.

Temperance Section.

the

General Section.

Again, the expectancy of life at any given age is the basis of the premium paid, and it is fixed at a rate which is sure to cover all probable loss from even exceptionable visitations of mortality. The consequence is the accumulation which is distributed as above, and it must result, of course, that, as the amount of bonus paid to the abstainers is the larger, that there is a smaller percentage of death rate among them than among the other section. The expected and actual deaths in each section are shown year by year, in the records of the company from 1866 to 1882 inclusive, and it appears that in every year during the entire period the survivals above expectancy were greater among the abstainers than among the non-abstainers by a large per cent.

Cmitting the single years, the result in groups of five years is given below:

Thus the survivals above expectancy in the Temperance Section from 1866 to 1882-17 years-was 783, or 29.5 per cent. of the total of expectancy, while in the General Section, itself made up of persons of good habits and exceptional vigor, the survivals were but 69, or 1.5 per cent. If the membership of the General Section had been the same as that of the Temperance Section, the survivals in the General Section would have been 46, or two thirds of 69, which is one seventeenth the survivals in the Temperance Section.

Rev. Dawson Burns, commenting on these facts in his valuable compilation, "The Vital Statistics of Total Abstinence," says: "If in a comparison with selected lives of adults the Temperance Section showed a superiority of 28 per cent."