ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 339, 15 March 1910, Page 2

ALCOHOLOGY.

ABOUT BEER. (Published by Arrangement)

The great German, Von Moltke, said-. "Beer is a far more dangerous enemy to Sfermany than all the armies 01 France." We might adopt the saying by amending it to read: "Beer is a fai greater enemy to Britain than all this navies of Germany." Let us then talk a little about beer. What is it composed of? Roughly, it is about 90 pei> cent water, 4 to / per cent, alcohol (though the Royal Commission on Beer Materials, 1899, shows that stronger beers go up to 10 per cent.), the rest being made up of extractive matter, albumin and sugar; though only about a hali per cent, of the whole has any nutritive - value. The alcohol for which alone beer is valued and lor which men drink it is described by Prof. G. F. Hodge, of Clark University, as "a waste product in the activity of the yeast plant." How then is beer made? What is used in the manulacture of it? As everyone knows, it is made by fermentation, "a process with which all are familiar in »ome way- or another, and which is ordinarily regarded as partia 1 decay; we see it going on when milk becomes sour, butter rancid, fruit decays or jam distinctly ferments: in these we say the stuff is bad and throw it away, but in beer some say it is good and then drink it. As to what is used in the manufacture of beer it is hard to say—a trade secret. Professedly it is malt and hops and nothing more; really it is many things more, if the findTngs of the Itoyal Commission are to be accept-

«d; many oi them perhaps harmless, others injurious to health, some as poisonous as the alcohol itself. The alcohol is got from the sugar, in the various ingredients, being chemically split up into alcohol and'carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) gas. The sugar is obtained from various sources—for wine from grapes (per.haps), for beer from barley, or failing that from glucose, rice, saccharum, etc., etc. The Royal Commission in its report, page 381, enumerates about 40 malt substitutes, and hop substitutes and other materials to the extent of 25. As a proof that something more than barley is used in the Uniteo Kingdom (New Zealand may be different) a few figures may be given: Homegrown barley annually used ior brewing purposes amounts to 30 million cwts.; imported to 19 million cwts.; in all, 49 million cwts. of barley for brewers' use. Now it takes 6lbs of barley to make a gallon of beer; and the quantity of beer consumed totals 1215 million gallons (as per Year Book), so a little calculation will show that the total barley used only allows 4y g lbs lo the gallon, therefore the rest must be made up in malt substitutes. Having regard only to the barley used, what an appalling waste: all these millions of hundredweights of good barley coniverted by brewing into (1) a small quantity of nutritive matter, and a larger amount of non-nutritive material (alcohol, extractive, etc.). Then it is not only waste, bad as that is; look at the harm done. Many who condemn drunkenness use, and advocate the use I of, beer as, what they call, a harmless I drink. Then read this: Drs. Bauer and Bollinger in Munich found that one in | sixteen or the hospital patients died of J-beer-drinker's heart. From U.S.A. Renate document on "Moral Legislation" we read: "Dr. S. H. Burgin, with 35 years' experience says: 'I think beer | kills quicker than any other liquor. Mv j attention was first called to its' inskliI ous effects when I began examining for life insurance. 1 passed as unusually . good risks five Germans, young business ; men, who seemed in the best of health, : and to have superb constitutions. In 'a few' vears 1 was amazed to see the ; whole five drop off, one after another. ! with what ousrht to have been mild ' and easily curable diseases. On eomi paring my experiences with tha- oi t other physicians I found they were all ! having similar luck with confirmed beeri drinkers ami my practii.ee <sinee has 'heaped confirmation upon confirmation."

.mis Kinn oi evidence micrnt op mumplied indefinitely. "It is just this precious beer which lowers among thousands and thousands intellectual carmcity yand makes them old before their time'; ruins stomachs, livers, hearts, and brains: and brings them into the poorhouse and prison, hospital and asvlum. and early puts them under the earth."