effects of alcohol upon the body. A jolly evening is followed by the
familiar symptoms of the morning after. The extent of the physical
and mental depression caused is not always realized, because it is
spread out over a considerable period of time and may not be acute;
a healthy person can stand a good deal without being conscious of
the ill effects. But they are there. In bodily vigor, and so in mental
buoyancy, the abstainer is IN THE END better off than if he drank
even a little, or seldom.

(b) Careful and repeated experiments seem to show that even a very
little drinking-a glass of beer or wine a day- decreases the capacity
for both muscular and mental work. This loss of ability is not usually
perceptible to the drinker; he often feels an illusory glow of power;
but he cannot do as much. A bottle of beer a day means an
appreciable loss in working efficiency. [Footnote: Accounts of
the experiments will be found in H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 5-23,
128, 137; H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 116. They had some
realization of this truth even in the days of the Iliad. Hector says,
"Bring me luscious wines, lest they unnerve my limbs and make
me lose my wonted powers and strength."]

(c) Even a moderate use of alcohol increases liability to disease and
shortens the chances of life. In any case of exposure to or contraction
of disease, the total abstainer has a proved advantage over even the
light drinker. The British life insurance companies reckon that at the
age of twenty a total abstainer has an average prospect of life of
forty-four years, a temperate regular drinker a prospect of thirty-one
years, and a heavy drinker of fifteen years. Many other factors enter
into the individual situation, of course; we know many cases where
inveterate drinkers have lived to a ripe old age; it takes a great