The pronouncement of the Life Extension Institute of America...

The pronouncement of the Life Extension Institute of America consisting of ninety four of the most eminent Americans, including professors from the leading universities, the Surgeon General of the United States Army and distinguished physiologists of Medical Faculties. Faculties Faculties is worthy of the deepest consideration vis-à-vis the problem of alcoholism.

It runs as follows "Experimental laboratory work has kept pace with Statistical investigation and the knowledge gained from the laboratory, not only in experiment on animals but on man himself, shows that a higher death rate among alcohol users is what we would naturally expect to find in the light of what we know regarding its effects on the body.

One half to one quart of bear is sufficient to distinctly impair memory, lower intellectual power and retard simple mental processes, such as the addition of simple figures. The narcotic or deadening influence is first exerted on the higher reasoning powers that control conduct, so that the lower activities of the mind and nervous system are for a time released. The every-day well-poised, self-controlled man goes to sleep, as it were, and the primitive man temporarily wakes up.

Eventually the nervous system is narcotized and the drinker becomes sleepy. Muscular efficiency is at first increased a little and then lowered, the total effect being a loss of working power. Alcohol is a handicap for the nation at war. It is a handicap for an individual in the struggle for existence.

This is not the judgement of scientists alone, nor of weak and faddists, out of the big-brained, strong-fibered men upon whom has fallen the tremendous :burden of guiding great nations through the greatest crisis of history." Is Alcohol A Medicine? Is alcohol a medicine? Whereas, it is the unanimous opinion of the Council on Health and Public Instruction of the A.M.A.

that alcohol has no drug value, either as a stimulant, as - a tonic, or as a therapeutic agent, and that it has no food value; and whereas, its use as a beverage or as a therapeutic agent is detrimental rather than beneficial to the individual. Therefore, be it resolved that the House of Delegates of the A.M.A.

declares it as opposed to the use of alcohol by individuals either as a medicine or as a beverage, and be it further resolved that its use in medicine is permissible only in the preparation and preservation of Pharmaceutical products.