The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

58 Tlie Phiy siolooica IEff('cts of A Icohol.
(5.) Legitimate and striking deductions can be drawn
from the statislics of healh a;zd longev/iy anmot abstainers
and others. There are statistics in regard to the army of
very considerable value. A division of the British Army
in Egypt, sent from India in isoI, was left without ardent
spirits; but, though the fatigue and heat were excessive,
Sir James McGrigor, M.D., states: "At no time was the
Indian Army in so healthy a state." Sale's Brigade in
Affghanistan, when stationed in Jellalabad, was "without
spirits " and "without either sickness or crime." The
Rev. G. B. Gleig (Chaplain-General), in his history of
that war, states: "Their beverage was only water, yet
they drank it to the health of many far away, and were
happy with a sober joy." When a temperance society
was established in the Cameronian Regiment, the annual
deaths in the regimental hospital, which had been for I4
years 72 per thousand, sank to 26, and the next year to 22.
Liver-complaints sank to half their former amount. The
hospitals received 4 per cent. of abstainers, and of others
92 per cent. In six months of i838, the sick among the
abstainers averaged 3'83, and among the others 9'39. Six
European regiments stationed in the Madras Presidency,
in r848-9, were tested with the following results:
Sick. Died.
Teetotalers........... I13088 I-II*
MIoderatedrinkers.. I4t'59 2'31
Intemperate........ 214'86 4'45
In regard to "fever only," it was found that the teetotalers had suffered at the rate of 3I'3o per cent.; the moderate men, I7'78; the intemperate, 2o'I6; and this solitary
apparent advantage was paraded by some writers who
*" Or, to put it," says Dr. Carpenter, "in another form, only one in ninety
of the teetotalers dies annually even in India (and this rate would be extraordinarily low for a similar body of men in this country), whilst one in fortytwo and a half dies among the temperate, and one in twenty-two and a half
among the intemperate."
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