Los Angeles Herald, Volume XXIX, Number 287, 16 July 1902 — MURDEROUS LIQUEURS Danger in Absinthe, Vermouth and Other Cardials [ARTICLE]

MURDEROUS LIQUEURS Danger in Absinthe, Vermouth and Other Cardials

Dr. R. Grlsel, writing In L'Echo fle Paris upon the condemnation of "aperitifs," —absinthe, vermouth, noyau, chartreuse, etc. —by a commission of the French Academy of Med'icine, says: "I do not know what will follow from this academic Judgment. It Is probable that a charge will not take place In a day. What is not doubtful, however, Is that the consumption of murderous liquids has grown In such proportions, even among women and children, that It has become absolutely necessary to do something to check the downward movement. Even supposing that the state were completely indifferent to the great Interests of the health of the race, and solely concerned with budgetary considerations, the time has arrived when we must ask ourselves whether it would not be better to renounce the revenue resulting from the sale of these alcoholic drinks—a revenue already reduced by extensive fraud—than to set the profits So to the construction of asylums for the victims of alcoholic madnes?. of hospitals for diseases caused by absinthe and of prisons for the criminals that It creates. "And to this picture may be added a diminution of the birth rate, an Increased infant mortality and a swelling of the number of idiots and cripples, children of drunkards, wrecks of the race, and burdens on the community; the falling off of the nation's wealth In Its work people before the ravages which alcoholism produces; the growing development of consumption, of which alcohol Is one of the principal factors. From all this U will be seen that, given the suppression of absinthe, the apparent loss of revenue would really mean, from the point of view of national riches, a considerable economy."—London News.