The psychology of alcoholism / by George B. Cutten.

  • George Barton Cutten
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of alcoholism / by George B. Cutten. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Company, Limited, for the twenty years from 1883 to 1902, inclusive, gives the following figures: Abstainers, expected deaths, 936; actual deaths, 420, or 45 per cent. of the expected. Non-abstainers, expected deaths, 319; actual deaths, 225, or 71 per cent. of the expected. In another company they have kept the figures for over sixty years, and the results are as follows: Non-Abstainers, Male Lives. Total number of years of exposure to risk, allages - 466,943 Expected deaths by O™ table - - - arn Oe rl Actual deaths” - - - - - - 8,947 Per cent. of actual to expected - - - - 100.4 Male Lives; Abstainers,; Whole Life Policies; “ Transfers — Zo” Excluded. Total number of years of exposure to risk - - 398,010 Expected deaths by O™ table - - - - 6,899 Actual deaths’ - - - - 5,124 Per cent. of actual to etiected : - - - 74.3 The non-abstainers are not all drunkards, but include all persons who take alcohol in any quantity. The evil effects are shown in disease as well as in death, both in the drunkard and his offspring. This Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed a number of years ago as follows:—“ When nature has made up. her mind that she has had enough of a particular stock, and that. its room is better than its company, the work of patching up the constitutions of its offspring and keeping them sober is one of the most desperate tasks assigned to the healers of men.” So many men think that there is no harm in drinking so long as they never get drunk. The business man at the close of the day must have his “bitters,” and thinks that only good comes from his temperate indulgence; but Dr. W. H. Riley has made the statement that he “has seen scores of cases of paralysis caused by alcohol in those who never became intoxicated. Man does not need to be so intoxicated as to dethrone his reason in order to have the drug do him harm.” It is well known that injuries, which to other people would be but slight, are apt to prove serious even in
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