"
How can you be sure never to have delirium tremens?--"By drinking nothing
which has alcohol in it."
Will a little beer or wine hurt you?--"Yes, it may make me love the taste
of alcohol."
What harm is there in loving the taste of alcohol?--"I may love it so much
as to become a drunkard."
Tell once more how you should treat alcoholic liquors.--"I should never
drink a drop of them."
[4] See Appendices.
* * * * *
ALCOHOL.
THE STORY ABOUT ALCOHOL.
Several hundred years ago many people were trying to discover something
that would keep them young and strong, and prevent them from dying. It is
said by some that a man named Paracelsus, in making experiments, discovered
_alcohol_. He called it "the water of life," and boasted that he would
never be weak and never die; so he went on drinking alcoholic liquors until
at last he died in a drunken fit.
What is this alcohol which has done and is doing so much mischief in the
world? I will show you some. What does it look like?--"Water." Yes; and if
you were to smell it you would say it has a somewhat pleasant odor; if you
were to taste it, that it has a hot, biting taste, _i.e._, is pungent. If
you put a lighted match to it you would notice that it burns easily, and
with a flame, and may therefore be said to be combustible and inflammable.
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