The best known, the best hated and the best loved stimulant is alcohol (the "grain" or drinking alcohol as distinguished from the wood alcohol). Some who see in alcohol only a substance which has been invented to curse mankind, refuse to include it in a list of stimulants; and the weight of much medical authority favors such an exclusion. On the other hand, in diseases such as pneumonia, its beneficial effect has been amply proved. But that, say its opponents, can be said of all medicines; for they all help in small doses and injure in large.

A small amount of whiskey or a couple of glasses of beer a day have not been shown to have any evil effects on the normal, healthy individual. You may argue that this is merely a negative virtue. But the moderate drinker claims more for his alcohol. He insists that it serves as an excellent appetizer, and his experience leads him to contradict some of the learned doctors. He tells you that the little alcohol he consumes gives him an optimistic view of life, which not all the bungling of politicians can destroy.

The case is quite different with excessive alcohol consumption. Here the facts point to but one conclusion: alcohol in excess is a poison. Autopsy examinations have proved this beyond the shadow of a doubt. You may find impairment of the stomach, of the heart, and above all, of the nervous system. But why wait for these discoveries until death overtakes the sufferer? The results of excessive alcohol consumption on the individual while still alive are only too obvious to the onlooker.