Article #171 - Temperance

What proof or evidence is there that alcohol even in the smallest quantity is poisonous to the human system

            Poison is any thing that is injurious to health, any thing taken into the human system will either do evil or do good, when a man is in perfect health he needs nothing but for nutrition or to

quench thirst, there is no nutrition in alcohol neither will it quench thirst, therefore it will do no good; consequently do evil or be injurious, therefore it is a poison.

            Again, To the uncorrupted palate all poisons are painful and disgusting, and there is no poison which when not mixed with things agreeable to the taste will not cause disgust to every palate and excite vomiting. “The natural palate, when moistened by any intoxicating liquor, becomes alarmed, as all seamen and discoverers unanimously inform us, that every savage spits out the first draught of anything intoxicating, or perhaps swallows it with averseness, and

feelings of disgust” alcohol is therefore a poison.

[The author adds further arguments: alcohol being indigestible is a poison; taken in large quantities it kills and in small quantities it produces “pernicious effects.”]

                                    Jabez Baily

                                    July 1851