Too Much Beer.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 295, 12 December 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

Too Much Beer.

German Statistics Showing the Fatal Results of Excessive Drinking.

In a counbry lika Germany, where almost everybody drinks beer, a comparative study of beer statistics' and healbh bulletins furnishes us, wibh useful material for contemplation. The old and ofben-repeated saying thab be who 'drinks beer chinks beer' does not hold good in this country, where the besb thinkers consume daily a certain quantity of their national beverage, and. to-day Germany leads the world in bhe pure sciences. Virchow, Helmholbz and Dv Boia Raymond are 70 years of age and have been using beer all their lives, and not- even a fanatic could say these men would have been able to do better and more work under any other condition or Oh total abstinence principles, although no doubt they might have done equally well. While the whole country shows by physical and mental development of her people thab the consumption of pure beer in limited quantities is nob injurious, even if ib is hot beneficial, it also shows that the excessive use of it produces 3erious disturbances in the health of the drinker, and thab, although he may never be intoxicated and never have delirium tremens, he is doomed to an early death. The data gathered ab Munich during the pasb summer demonstrate this conclusively.

Bavaria is and has been for centuries the heaviest beer-consuming country on the face of the earth, and the quantities drunk are almasb beyond belief. While, for instance, throughout Germany the annual per capital, men, women and consumption is 88-1 litres, Bavaria, if taken by herself, consumes 209, and ftlunich taken alone 581 litres per head of her population. These figures, of course, reduce the average for other parts of Germany materially. A Munich beer brewer treated at a clinic now said that he drank daily' at leasb twenty litres, and a litre is about a quart. Deductions drawn from a study of the vital statistics of Munich during the past thirty years furnish results equally startling. The maximum death rate among the adult population of Munich is for men between the age of 50 and 70, for women between 70 and 80, for beer saloon keepers between 40 and 50, and for beer brewers, i.e., men ab work in breweries, be.bween 30 and 40. Among bhe causes of death heart disease figures most prominently. The physicians hav6 loug known that habitual drunkards have less resisting power when attacked by acute diseases than people of temperate habits, and if statistics like those of Munich in relation to beer could be gathered with reference to wine and whisky, we would probably find thab when used excessively one is as injurious as the other, and that, although bhe symptoms may differ, the resulbis the same —to weaken the constitution of the individual and to shorten his life.