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FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.

AUTHOR OF "PHYSICAL EDUCATION," "HOUSEHOLD REMEDIES," ETO.

"Light is Help from Above."-G. E. LESSING.

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1887

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PREFACE.

"WHAT shall we do to be saved?" is a question which must force itself upon the thoughts of all who believe in the correlation of health and happiness, when they reflect upon the facts established by the North American and West European statistics of intemperance. In Great Britain the consumption of fermented and distilled liquors has increased since 1850 at the average yearly rate of three and one third per cent; in France, two per cent; in Switzerland, five and a half per cent; in northern Germany (including Saxony and Alsace-Lorraine) the manufacture of malt liquors has doubled since 1866; and even in the United States the consumption of intoxicating drinks of all kinds has advanced at a rate exceeding that of our rapid growth in population by one fifth. In Norway, Poland, Galicia, and the Danubian principalities, the production of distilled liquors is the only growing branch of industry; and in European Turkey the habitual use of alcoholic stimulants is no longer confined to the trinitarian subjects of the sultan. Since the harvest-time of 1873, while Ireland and eastern Brazil were struggling with famine, and thousands of our fellow men in Persia, Armenia, Cash

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