Is Beer-Drinking Injurious?, from Science in 1887 is a very interesting article, indeed.
Being the librarian that I am, I did some poking around in various databases, including one of my favorites—JSTOR, and found a few articles on beer or brewing that I would like to share here. I am beginning with one that is in the public domain and is available to one and all. This article is available to you via the JSTOR Early Journal Content program as are many other public domain articles. So, without further ado, here is the article in its entirety (with some minor reformatting).
Is Beer-Drinking Injurious?
Science, Vol. 9, No. 206 (Jan. 14, 1887), pp. 24-25
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1761606
IS BEER-DRINKING INJURIOUS?
We have before us a direct and unqualified challenge to the prohibitionists in the form of a pamphlet on ‘The effects of beer upon those who make and drink it,’ by G. Thomann (New York, U. S. brewers’ assoc., 1886). The writer boldly presents the following propositions.
- Brewers drink more beer, and drink it more constantly, than any other class of people.
- The rate of deaths among brewers is lower by forty per cent than the average death-rate among the urban population of the groups of ages corresponding with those to which brewery-workmen belong.
- The health of brewers is unusually good: diseases of the kidneys and liver occur rarely among them.
- On an average, brewers live longer, and preserve their physical energies better, than the average workmen of the United States.
The writer claims that beer is a perfectly wholesome drink, and, in support of this claim, refers to investigations made in Belgium, France, Holland, and Switzerland. He quotes also from the report made by a sanitary commission appointed by President Lincoln to examine the camps of the Union army and their sanitary condition. In examining the condition of regiments in which malt-liquors were freely used, the commission found not only that beer is a healthy beverage, but that it possesses hygienic qualities which recommend its use for the prevention of certain diseases. Mr. Thomann states, that, wherever the effects of the use of beer upon the human body have been examined methodically by competent physicians, it was found, to use the words of Dr. Jules Rochard of the Académie de médecine of Paris, “that beer is a very healthy beverage, which helps digestion, quenches thirst, and furnishes an amount of assimilable substances much greater than that contained in any other beverage.”
The charge is often made that American beer is composed of so many poisonous ingredients that it is thereby rendered unfit for consumption; that, while pure beer may be harmless, such beer as is supplied by brewers at the present time in this country is positively injurious. This is met with a reference to the report of the New York state board of health, in which it is stated that an analysis of four hundred and seventy-six samples of malt-liquors had been made, and that they were all found perfectly pure and wholesome, and to contain neither hop-substitutes nor any deleterious substances whatever.
The most interesting portion of Mr. Thomann’s pamphlet is that which deals with the statistics of the physicians under whose professional care the men employed in the breweries are placed. About five years ago the brewers of New York, Brooklyn, Newark, and the neighboring towns and villages, established a benevolent bureau for the relief of their sick and disabled employees. Physicians are appointed, whose duty it is to attend the sick members of the bureau, and a record is kept of all cases of sickness and death which occur. The number of deaths which took place among 960 brewery workmen in five years was 36,—an average of 7.2 per annum, or a death-rate per 1,000 of 7.5. The United States census gives the rate per 1,000 of the urban population of the same ages, as 12.5; or, in other words, the risks incurred in insuring the lives of habitual beerdrinkers are less by forty per cent than the ordinary risks of such transactions. The death-rate per 1,000 in the regular army of the United States in 1885 was 10.9; so that, even as compared with the soldier in peace time, we find that the brewery workmen have a great advantage in point of low rate of mortality.
Mr. Thomann gives us a number of interesting facts connected with the breweries and the workmen engaged therein. In every brewery is a room, called the ‘Sternenwirth,’ in which beer is constantly on tap, to be used by every one at pleasure and without cost. Every one drinks as much beer as he thirsts for, without asking, or being asked any questions as to his right to do so. The average daily consumption of malt-liquors for each individual is 25.73 glasses, or about ten pints (emphasis mine). In the statistics which are given we find that a considerable number of the men consume forty and fifty glasses a day, and two are reported as drinking, on an average, seventy glasses daily. With a view to ascertaining, in the most reliable manner possible, the effects of the use of malt liquors, the physicians of the benevolent bureau examined one thousand of the brewery workmen as to general state of health, condition of liver, condition of kidneys, and condition of heart. In addition to this, they weighed and measured each man, and tested his strength by the dynamometer. These examinations showed that there were, in all, twenty-five men whose physical condition was in some respect defective; and the remaining nine hundred and seventy-five enjoyed exceptionally good health, and were of splendid physique. There were 300 men who had been engaged in brewing from five to ten years, 189 from ten to fifteen, 122 from fifteen to twenty, and 46 more than twenty-five years. One special case referred to is that of a man fifty-six years of age, uninterruptedly at work in breweries during thirty-two years, who drank beer throughout this time at the rate of fifty glasses per day, yet has never been sick, and to-day is perfectly healthy, vigorous, and active.
The statistics are, to say the least, very surprising, and, unless refuted, will result in modifying to a considerable degree the generally accepted views of the influence of malt-liquors on the health of those who drink them habitually. Mr. Thomann has boldly thrown down the gauntlet, and we shall watch with interest to see who will take it up.
Comments
“The average daily consumption of malt-liquors for each individual is 25.73 glasses, or about ten pints” (25). Now, clearly, this must have been some form of small beer at ≤ 3.5% ABV. Still, that is a fair bit of beer consumption a day, especially considering that that is an average and some outliers were drinking twice to almost three times that much.
The pamphlet on which this article is based is available via Google Books: Gallus Thomann, ‘The effects of beer upon those who make and drink it: a statistical sketch.’ (New York, United States Brewers’ Assoc., 1886). It is a 46 page pamphlet that I hope to delve into soon.
The post Is Beer-Drinking Injurious? (Science, 1887) appeared first on By the barrel.