--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young, Seymour B. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 12 published: 1899-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young, Seymour B., "Evils of Drink and Tobacco, and Some Remedies Therefor," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 12 (October 1899): 881–886.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera212unse start_page: 881 end_page: 886 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Evils of Drink and Tobacco, and Some Remedies Therefor EVILS OF DRINK AND TOBACCO, AND SOME REMEDIES THEREFOR. BY DR. SEYMOUR B. YOUNG. Perhaps it will seem strange, it is surely commonplace, to still continue writing to the young people on the evils of the use of liquors and tobacco. So much has been said and penned on these points, that further warning would seem useless. It is with the hope, however, that these words may reach some one who is still able and strong enough to repent, that I call attention to the following quotation from the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 89: "That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold, it is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father." It is a fact that there are many hard-working men who visit saloons, and in a few hours on Saturday night squander the fruits of their whole week's toil; and, not only this, but with it waste enough energy to shorten their lives many days, to say nothing of the loss to their morality and manhood. What a sad picture — they present on the Sabbath morning besotted, blear-eyed, al- most unable to stand or walk! Sometimes men may endure, by 882 IMPROVEMENT ERA. following this kind of a life, for a number of years, but it is only a matter of a few decades when they must die from the effects of the poison of strong drink. And then what a fearful road they travel! How repulsive! How full of pain, isolation, affliction, spurning, as one beholds the will of such men still vainly striving with them to overcome, only to be trampled upon and laughed to scorn Even by the vulgar passion which craves for drink. if such men are blessed with money, it is but a curse to them until at length it is squandered. They become unfit for labor, frequently become loafers about the dives, doing menial service for a drink, or begging a dime to procure bad whisky. Filthy, disgusting, they are spurned even by their fellows. It is a blessing to their families when the end comes at last, and the deadly serpent of the still claims the victim. It is not the workingman, so called, who alone takes this course, but drink is like death — it levels all ranks. There is the successful merchant, the stock-raiser, the miner. These come to possess a competence in middle life. One of this class does not, as a rule frequent the saloon, nor associate with the drunkard and the vulgar. He says to himself: "I am not now going to work quite so hard as I have been working." He slackens or completely ceases his physical labor, lives high, eats rich food, drinks wine at dinner, takes whisky as an "eye-opener" or "appetizer" before breakfast; has a few friends, is perhaps the member of an innocent merchants' club, and in all these takes only a different route in the same general course taken by the workingman, which ends in sorrow and death. He soon becomes gouty, his kidneys become overworked, uric acid is retained, the heart becomes weakened, and the scene is soon closed by death from dropsy and heart- failure. Verily, the words of the Lord are true: "Inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold, it is not good." Sometimes the habit of strong drink is fastened upon an individual through the improper advice of a physician. On the approach of convalescence from typhoid fever, or any of the exanthemata, the patient's vigor is all gone, the heart is feeble, and the doctor prescribes a little whisky as a tonic. In some cases, persons have been known to continue the use of liquor long EVILS OF DRINK AND TOBACCO. 883 after the feeble condition and the need for it have passed, and so have claimed that by the advice of the physician they have con- tracted the habit of drunkenness. Hence, the need that the doc- tor should study his patient well, becoming thoroughly acquainted with his tastes, his powers, his will and self-control, so that he may treat him intelligently. If he has a case under treatment who he has any reason to suspect will indulge himself in the use of strong drink after recovery, the doctor would be justified in with- holding the stimulant, even to the supposed risk of the patient's life. 1 hold that a man would better die than live and become so base a thing as a drunkard, more especially if he have a wife and children. In the treatment of wasting diseases, strong coffee may be administered with good results to convalescents, and doctors frequently advise it as a beverage for sufferers from a long siege of typhoid. Possibly this berry is one of the herbs mentioned in the revelation (Section 42, Doctrine and Covenants) : "And whoso- ever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but be- lieve, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food." But where one person becomes habituated to drink from the advice of his physician, nine are led toit by their own free will and choice. There is no remedy but determined will power, and no certain preventative for the fearful evil except total and con- tinued abstinence. Deny, forbear, refrain, are the watchwords that will, if heeded, keep men out of the evil path of the drunkard. Parents have great responsibility resting upon them while their children are under their watchcare. Home influence has much to do with the life of a person. Herbert Spencer says that reforma- tion to the drunkard can better be reached by providing good food and pleasant surroundings at home. For instance, as a commence- ment to bad habits, a man goes to a beer or lunch counter, eats lunch and calls for a glass of beer to wash it down. Gradually the man's appetite demands something stronger than beer, as all abnormal appetites increase on what they feed upon. Young men should be encouraged to refrain from bad habits, consequently home should be the most attractive place in the world. The boy who said, "I eat my meals down town, and go home only to sleep, because the old man gives me h — whenever he gets a chance at 1 ; 884 IMPROVEMENT ERA. me," is indeed to be pitied. Now, the boy needs to reform; and, it may be, the home conditions also need some change. This leads one to reflect; and the saying of Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes is brought to mind: "The education of a child should begin two hundred years before it is born." Hence we declare, the Gospel is the only true educator, not alone by those precepts thereof which relate to morality, but those pertaining to the physical being as well. The essential to produce in man a real moral life is obedience to highly moral principles, and obedience is not only moral but it requires physical and mental training to sustain this action successfully. No man or boy should allow himself to become addicted to the use of tobacco. The tobacco chewer is a most filthy person, for wherever he goes he must have a small quid tucked away in his mouth. In the church, in the drawing room, in the parlor, he slyly ejects the filthy saliva onto the floor, onto the carpet, and has even been known to pull aside the damask curtains and spit upon the wall or wainscoting. Sometimes he has been known to spit into his handkerchief or into his hat, but he generally prefers some other person's hat for this purpose. I well remember reading a request made by the pastor of a church to the tobacco chewing members of his congregation. He said, "Before entering the church, I wish, gentlemen, you would remove your tobacco from your mouths. You may lay it upon the edge of the curb-stone where you can again find it and resume its mastication on coming out of the church; for let me assure you that it will be absolutely safe, as no chicken, no dog, no hog, no, not even a rat, will take it while you are away." Smoking is also a vile habit, and, like chewing, is dangerous to life. The nicotine of tobacco is a very quick and deadly poison yet smokers of the pipe become so addicted to receiving small quantities into the mouth from the over-saturated pipe-stem or bowl, that their systems gradually become immuned to its deadli- ness; so that men may smoke a pipe for years with seemingly no bad effects to their own systems. I say seemingly, but, in reality, no man ever disregarded the law of God wherein he says, "Tobacco is not good for man," but its use, sooner or later, according to the physical strength of the man, produced disaster and evil. The cigarette smoker is always in the most danger. So incessantly EVILS OF DRINK AND TOBACCO. 885 does he inhale the smoke loaded with nicotine, into his lungs that, if he be not smitten at once, if any disease like reheumatism or any of the essential fevers overtake him, he will fall an easy victim to its ravages, for his heart and general circulation are so weakened by this continuous inception of the poison-ladened smoke that his case becomes hopeless from the first invasion. The revelation quoted in part above becomes of vital impor- tance to parents and children, especially to those who are members of the Church of Christ. The Gospel was preached by Jesus, and by his Apostles and followers many years after his resurrection and ascension into heaven. Their descendants are upon the earth today by millions. These descendants are indeed Israel, and the Gospel is gathering them from every land and clime, and they have been gathering to these mountains for years. Many of them as they enter The Church are awakened to their true condition of royal descent from those illustrious fathers of the early Christian Church. The spirit of the true Gospel bore good fruits in the lives of those who were pioneers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and these fruits should be transmitted to their descendants. Our boys and girls should not only be taught morality and intellectuality, but their education also should be physical and social. Boys should be educated for trades and pro- fessions, also to be intelligent farmers, so that when they become fathers and heads of families they may know how to gain, by their own labor, a good home and plenty of the necessaries, comforts, and even the luxuries, of life. A home thus gained and made happy is a blessed and effectual remedy against evil habits in the children reared therein. The girls should be well trained in the art of cookery and good house-keeping, so that meal-times at home may be the happiest and most social of all the hours of household union and gathering. And at this family union, where excellent and well cooked food waits on cheerful minds and good digestion, abstinence from tea and coffee should be taught, not alone as an ethical or religious principle, but as a physical neces- sity, in order that the children of Zion may inherit the great blessings promised by our heavenly Father in the following expres- sive and forceful language: "And all Saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the command- — 886 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ments, shall receive health in their navel, and marrow in their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint; and I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them."