Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in THE APPEAL OF ALCOHOL Several poisons and drugs, such as alcohol and opium, which have medicinal value when properly applied, are widely used apart from their medical utility, thus causing much injury. Alcoholism is the greatest evil which results from the use of these poisons. The essential element in all alcoholic beverages is ethyl alcohol, namely, C2H5HO. This form of alcohol is produced whenever yeast cells come in contact with the sugar of crushed fruit or fermented grain. Mankind probably discovered how to make alcohol after reaching the agricultural stage, though the discovery may possibly have been made in a few instances in the pre-agricultural stage. At any rate, evidence of the manufacture of alcohol has been found as far back as the beginning of the historical period, and among most of the primitive agricultural peoples which have been observed. CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES It is desirable, in the first place, to ascertain to what extent alcohol is consumed as a beverage among civilized peoples. The followingtable indicates the greatly increased use of alcoholic beverages in the United States between the years 1840 and 1916 inclusive:1 CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1840-1916 Total consumption per capita. v , , Of distilled ... . Year ended spints ? wines June SO prQof gallons Gallons Of malt liquors Gallons Of all liquort and wines Gallons 1840 ...2.520.291.304.171850 ...2.24.271.584.081860 ...2.86.343.226.431870 ...2.07.325.317.701880 ...1.27J68.2610.081890 ...1.40.4013.6715.531900 ...1.28.3916.0917.761910 ...1.42.6620.0922.191911 ...1.46.8720.6622791912 ....1.44.5810.9621.981913 ...1.50M 20.6222.681914 ...1.43.5220.5422501915 ...1.25.3218.2419.801916 ...1.35.4017.5919.40This increase is due to the hu... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.