Beer : Health and Nutrition

Beer Through History 45
with the acceptance in the medical profession even then that alcohol had real merits.
Before ether was discovered in 1846, alcohol was used to dull pain (Fleming 1975).
In 1900, the distinguished physician Sir William Osler referred to alcohol as ‘our most
valuable medicinal agent’. In those days whisky, beer and brandy were stocked on the
medicine shelves as ‘stimulants’.
Meanwhile over a period of many years there was much debate and development
in the area of licensing, primarily on account of concerns about the numbers of public
houses. The Licensing Bill introduced in 1908 ruled that there could be one licence for
every 400 persons for areas with populations averaging two individuals per acre; one
for every 500 when the population was 2–25 per acre; and up to one per 1000 people
when the population averaged 200 to the acre.
The Great War of 1914–18 led to fresh concerns about excessive drinking and its
impact on the war effort. Lloyd George claimed: ‘Drink is doing us more damage in the
war than all the German submarines put together.’ However, a bill proposing a doubling
of the tax on alcohol was not passed (King 1947).
In World War II, also, formidable voices in the UK government urged a ban on alcohol,
so as to divert raw materials to food production. Fortunately, rational minds applied
logic to the situation (which seems seldom to be the case unfortunately when it comes
to matters to do with alcohol): it was calculated that if the beer supply was halved and
the barley thus saved diverted to chicken food, the net bene t would have been one egg
per month in people’s ration – and huge public discontent (King 1947).
Towards prohibition
The most famed instance of prohibition was of course the United States between 1920
and 1933. In the earliest days of that country everyone generally held that the human
could not survive without alcohol (Fleming 1975 – from which reference I have sourced
much of what follows in this section). As Fleming puts it:
Men and women, old and young, rich and poor, regularly started the day with a
morning dram. The drink might be anything from cherry brandy to wine mixed
with sugar and water, as long as it contained alcohol. A daily glass of ‘bitters’ was
considered essential for warding off disease, clearing the head, and keeping the
heart in good working order.
Shopkeepers had barrels of rum on tap for customers (rather like a bank might have a
pot of coffee on the go today). Labourers had a mid-morning break for ‘bitters’. Jugs
of rum were in the elds for agricultural workers. Note that the liquids provided were
spirits, not the gentle (by comparison) beer.