warmer. (2) They make the liver work too
hard. (3) They dull the brain, so that it cannot think so clearly or
so well. (4) If one drinks them frequently, it is harder for him to
get well when he is sick; more people die out of those who drink
alcohol than out of those who do not.

Alcohol is a _narcotic_; that is, it deadens our nerves, for the time
being, to any sensations of pain or discomfort, much in the same way
that a very small dose of _morphine_ or _opium_ would. We may imagine
it does us good because, for a little while after drinking it, we may
cease to feel pain or fatigue or cold; but, instead of making us
really better and able to do more work, it is dulling our nerves so
that we work more slowly and more clumsily. Men who have carefully
measured the amount of work that they do have found that they do less
work on days when they take one or two glasses of beer or wine than
they do on days when they drink only water.

The great insurance companies have found that those of their policy
holders who drink no alcohol at all live nearly one fourth longer and
have nearly one third fewer sicknesses than those who drink alcohol
even in moderate amounts.

Indeed, so strong is the evidence as to the bad effects of alcohol,
and so steadily is it increasing, that it will probably not be very
many years more before the drinking of wine or beer by intelligent,
thoughtful people will have become less than half as common as it is
now.

Strong, healthy men may be able for a long time to drink small amounts
of liquor without noticing any harmful effects; but all the time the
alcohol may be doing serious harm to their nerves and brain and
kidneys and liver and blood vessels, which they will not find out
until it is too late to stop the trouble.

Useless and bad as alcohol is for full-grown men and women, it is even
worse for young and growing children; and no child, and no boy or girl
under the age of twenty-one, should ever touch a drop of it, except in
those rare instances where it may be prescribed as a medicine by a
doctor, just as many other drugs are, which in larger doses would be
poisons.

Fortunately, it will be no trouble for you children to let it alone
entirely; for not one of you would like the taste of it the first
time--or, indeed, for the matter of that, for the first ten or twelve
times--that you tried to drink it, if you should be so foolish. This
is one striking difference between alcohol and all oth