Health Lessons Part 7

=Sherry= is a strong wine used in flavoring food, such as puddings and sauces. A few teaspoonfuls of this wine will make a child drunk. The wines made at home from elderberries, blackberries, and cherries contain alcohol which will do just as much harm as that in the purchased wines.

=How Brandy is Made.=--Brandy contains more alcohol than wine and almost as much as whisky. In fact brandy is only very strong wine.

After the yeast plants have formed as much alcohol as they can in grape juice it becomes so strong that it kills them. This wine is then heated in such a way as to separate some of the water from it. The taking away of the water leaves the wine stronger in alcohol and it then forms brandy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 39.--The shaded part at the bottom of each bottle shows the amount of alcohol in the drink.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 40.--A still used in making whisky or brandy. The heat makes the alcohol fumes or vapor rise and pa.s.s over through the pipe coiled in a vessel of cold water. The cold changes the vapor to a liquid which is whisky.]

=Whisky and Rum.=--These two drinks are strong in alcohol. Nearly one half of each is pure alcohol. Whisky is usually made from rye, corn, or wheat, or all three together. They furnish the food in which the yeast grows and makes alcohol. This watery mixture of grain and alcohol is then heated and the vapor or steam forms whisky after it goes off through a pipe into another vessel. This kind of heating is _distillation_. Rum is formed in somewhat the same way from mola.s.ses or cane juice.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. Name some alcoholic drinks.

2. What is an unnatural thirst?

3. Explain how the yeast plant forms alcohol.

4. Tell how beer is made.

5. Tell how wine is made.

6. What is brandy?

7. Which drinks contain most alcohol?

CHAPTER X

ALCOHOL AND HEALTH

=The Money spent for Alcoholic Drinks.=--If the money spent for alcoholic drinks were all collected together in silver dollars, it would more than fill ten schoolrooms of average size. Not only rich men spend large sums yearly for fine wines and brandies, but also the poor give their money for beer and other drinks which the body does not need.

When parents waste their money on drink, they cannot buy the food and clothes needed to keep their families strong and well. In this way strong drink causes much sickness and suffering and sometimes even death.

=Alcohol injures the Body.=--Some persons drink very little beer or wine, so they seem to have but little effect on the health. Others use strong drink every day and for a few years they may remain quite well.

Later ill health often comes on, and they then find that some of the organs have been so much hurt that they will never be quite well again.

A few years ago a group of fifty well-known men in the United States spent much time and thousands of dollars to learn how much alcohol was harming our country. After much study among many people they announced that there were about one million men and boys whose health had been injured by strong drink, such as beer, wine, and whisky. Because strong drink causes so much sorrow and sickness several states have pa.s.sed laws forbidding its sale, and saloons have been closed by laws in parts of many other states.

=How Alcohol affects Kittens.=--The body of a kitten is made very much like the body of a child. It has just the same organs that a child has, and they do the same kind of work. Doctor Hodge, a well-known scientist of Ma.s.sachusetts, therefore concluded that alcohol would act on kittens in the same way as it would on a man or boy.

The doctor got two healthy kittens and fed them a little alcohol every day for nearly two weeks. In a few days they stopped being playful, did not grow, and did not keep their fur clean and smooth as healthy kittens do. After using alcohol several days they became very ill.

This experiment showed that alcohol stops kittens from growing and robs them of good health.

=How Alcohol hurts Dogs.=--Doctor Hodge fed a little alcohol to two dogs nearly every day for three years. He also kept the brother and sister of these dogs, but gave them no alcohol. All the dogs had the same kind of food and were treated alike except that one pair got alcohol and the other pair did not.

The two drinking dogs got sick more easily and staid sick much longer than the temperance dogs. The drinking dogs became lazy, and timid, while the others were strong, full of fun, and brave.

Within four years the drinking dogs had born to them twenty-seven puppies, but only four of them lived to grow up. The others were too weak or sickly to live. During the same time the temperance dogs had forty-five puppies and forty-one of these lived. This shows that strong drink will not only injure the bodies of those who take it, but will make their children weak and sickly.

=The Use of Strong Drink causes Disease.=--Many persons who take beer or wine every day become fat. They think this is a sign of health. It is really a sign of disease. They become short of breath. They can no longer run so fast or do so much work because the heart is covered with fat and even some of its wall is changed to fat. For this reason the heart cannot do its work easily or well.

The kidneys which take the waste out of the blood often become injured by alcohol and a disease causing death follows. Sometimes the stomach becomes diseased so that it cannot do its work. This makes the whole body sick.

The hardening of parts of the liver is nearly always caused by the use of beer. The liver is sure to suffer if one uses much alcoholic drink because the alcohol goes direct from the food tube to the liver. Long use of strong drink may bring on disease in the brain and nerves.

=Alcoholic Drinks may cause Death.=--Every ten years the government appoints persons to visit each home in our land to take the census. A part of this census report consists of a table showing the disease of which people died. It is from the census report that we know that hundreds of people die every year from the use of alcohol.

=Danger to Health in beginning the Use of Strong Drink.=--A large number of people take a drink of beer or wine occasionally because they do not see that it hurts the body. No one expects to become a steady drinker or a drunkard when he begins to drink. Reports show that every drunkard begins his downward course by taking a few drinks occasionally. Thousands of persons begin a drunkard's life every year because the appet.i.te leads them on gently until they become slaves and cannot let drink alone.

CHAPTER XI

TOBACCO AND OTHER DRUGS WHICH INJURE THE HEALTH

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 41.--The tobacco plant.]

=How Tobacco is Made.=--Tobacco is made from the leaves of the tobacco plant. The plant may grow as tall as a man and bear more than a dozen leaves. Each leaf is two or three times as large as your hand. The seeds are planted in the springtime, and the plants are ready to be cut in the autumn. Most of our tobacco is raised in the Southern states and Cuba.

After cutting, the tobacco must be dried and cared for in a special way to give it the right flavor. It is then sent to factories and made into cigars, smoking tobacco, or chewing tobacco.

=How Tobacco is Used.=--Many million dollars are spent every year by the people of our country for tobacco. Most of the tobacco is used in smoking. Some men smoke it in pipes, while others smoke it in the form of cigars or cigarettes.

Many men chew tobacco. When used in this way, something like licorice is generally mixed with the tobacco to give it a more pleasant taste.

Sometimes the dry tobacco is ground into a fine powder called snuff.

This is used by both men and women.

=Tobacco contains a Poison.=--When boys chew or smoke tobacco for the first time, it always makes them sick. Chewing or smoking for fifteen minutes will make them grow dizzy and weak and feel so sick that they must lie down for a long time.

The sickness is caused by a poison called _nicotine_ which is present in all tobacco. Much of this poison may be soaked out by boiling the tobacco in water. A cup of water in which a pipeful of tobacco has been boiled will kill goldfish in an hour when poured into a gallon jar of water with the fish. There is enough poison in a handful of tobacco to kill a boy who is not in the habit of using it.

=Why Men can use Tobacco without becoming Sick.=--Experiments upon animals have shown that the body can learn to use a poison and not become sick from it. The poison of a rattlesnake is deadly to most animals; but if a tiny bit of the poison is put under the skin of the rabbit one day and then on each succeeding day a little larger dose of the poison is given the rabbit for a long time, the animal will become so accustomed to the poison that the bite of a rattlesnake will not harm it. It is the same way with tobacco. Little by little the body learns to overcome the effects of the poison, but much use of tobacco is likely to hurt certain parts of the body.

=Tobacco is Harmful to the Young.=--A dose of poison which will kill a child may do but little harm to a man. Tobacco is certain to hurt boys more than it does men. The poison makes the body grow slower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 42.--There is more poison in the one on the right than in the one on the left.]

A large number of measurements made by Doctor Seaver showed that the boys who did not use tobacco gained in four years one twentieth more in weight and one fourth more in girth and height than the users of tobacco. These boys were between sixteen and twenty-two years of age.

It is likely that tobacco will have a more harmful effect on younger boys.

=Laws to keep the Young Healthy.=--Boys ought to be wise and brave enough to let alone what keeps their bodies from growing and hurts their health, but some will not do it. For this reason some countries are trying to save the health of their boys by making laws against the use of tobacco.