News: Colby, Wis. (August 26, 1885)
Contact: R. Lipprandt
Email: bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Freeman, Shelly
----Source: The Tribune-Phonograph (Abbotsford, Clark County, Wis.) Wednesday, August 20, 2008, Volume 48, Number 34, page 2
A serious attack upon beer as a beverage is made by The Scientific American. It says that the prevalent idea that beer is healthful is a delusion, and that it is more deleterious in its effect than whiskey. The habitual use of beer, it continues, is found "to produce a species of degeneration of the organs; profound and deceptive fatty deposits, diminished circulating, condition of congestion and perversion of punctual activities, local inflammation of both the liver and kidneys, are constantly present. In appearance the beer-drinker may be the picture of health, but in reality he is not capable of resisting disease. A slight injury, a severe cold, or a shock to the body or mind, will commonly provoke acute disease, ending fatally compared with inebriates who use different kinds of alcohol, he is more incurable and more generally diseased. The constant use of beer every day gives the system no recuperation, but steadily lowers the vital forces. It is our observation that beer drinking in this country produces the very lowest kind of inebriety, closely allied to criminal insanity. The most dangerous class of ruffians in our large cities are beer drinkers.
A little son of H. F. Shelly, of Unity, fell from the high trestle track at Spaulding’s mill, last Sunday, and was severely injured, being nearly scalped and, in fact, his whole body bruised. Dr. Freeman was called to attend the little fellow and made him as comfortable as possible, though the chances of his living are rather slim.
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