"Substances which Nature never intended for the food of man have come to form a principle part of our diet; caustic spices torture our digestive organs; we ransack every clime for noxious weeds and intoxicating fluids; from twenty to thirty five per cent. of our bread stuffs are yearly wasted on the distillation of life-consuming fire; vegetable poisons, inorganic poisons, and all kinds of indigestible compounds enslave our appetite," says Oswald,--Physical Education, p. 21.

We are a nation of drug addicts. There are few who are not addicted to the habitual use of some. drug. Coffee and tea addicts, chocolate and. cocoa addicts, alcohol addicts, tobacco addicts, aspirin addicts, morphine addicts, coca-cola addicts. Where is it all to end? Why are we so addicted to these poison habits? What do we hope to gain from habitually poisoning ourselves? Who is responsible for our faith in the beneficence of poisons?

These substances all, from condiments to nicotine, act as irritants (stimulants) and draw upon the body's reserve fund, which is not completely replenished and, as the use of "stimulating" agents continues, physiological bankruptcy inevitably ensues. As enervation grows greater from the use of any stimulant, larger and more frequent doses are required to give the same reaction--"thrill"--, hence the progressive tendency of all poison habits. At first we use but small quantities of salt or pepper; later we use these substances in large amounts. At the beginning we use one cup of weak coffee, later, several cups of strong coffee. ....