This (alcohol) poison is a recognised poison.

This (alcohol) poison is a recognised poison. We all know this. The noxious effects of alcohol are as obvious as the, light of moon day sun. It is common knowledge that it is a poison, and yet people persist in poisoning themselves. Dr. Charles Richet of Paris. The curse of intoxication.

Drunkenness takes away the man, and leaves only the brute; it dethrones reason from its seat, stupefies conscience; ruins health, wastes property, covers the wretch with rags; reduces wife and children to want and beggary, and gives such power to appetite that physically as well as normally, it is next to impossible to cure it. Mr. W. Jay.

Alcohol lessens man's power of physical endurance, delays recovery from fatigue, increases the ill-affect of great heat or cold, blunts the senses, retards nerve…