It was believed to increase working power, and has now been clearly shown to diminish it.

It was supposed to increase the thinking power and stimulate the imagination, and now we know that it dulls and muddles both.
Fifty years ago it was freely used as medicine for all sorts of illnesses, both by doctor and patient; it was supposed to stimulate the heart, to sustain the strength, to increase the power of the body to resist disease, and to sustain and support life in emergencies.

Now we know that practically all these claims are unfounded, and that such value as it has in medicine is chiefly as a narcotic, as a deadener of the sense of discomfort.

As a result, it is already used in medicine only about one-fourth as much as it was fifty years ago, and its use is still steadily decreasing.
Fifty years ago, in this country, in England, and on the continent of Europe, farm laborers and servants living in the house, expected so many pints or quarts of ale or beer a day, as part of their regular food rations, just as they now would expect milk or tea or coffee.

It was only a few years ago that the great steamship companies stopped issuing _grog_, or raw spirits, to the sailors in their employ, as part of their daily ration, because they at last came to realize how harmful were its effects.