Temperance Trivia: Fun Trivia Mostly From the Past (original) (raw)
Temperance trivia! It’s fun. Amaze yourself. Then impress your friends and family.
Trivia
A temperance “scientist” said that inhaling alcohol vapors could lead to defective children. And for three generations.1 Those vapors must be really powerful!
A temperance newspaper warned of people who drink alcohol. If they gave birth to children, those will a inborn desire for alcohol. It might be “so strong that the mere sight of a bottle shaped like a whiskey flask brought them whining for a nip.”2
Early temperance advocates often said alcoholics could burn to death. That’s because of all the alcohol can their bodies.3 (Alcohol is flammable. But not that flammable.)
A temperance leader tried to have high schools and colleges to remove all mentions of alcohol in ancient texts. And even colleges!4
Temperance believers hired a Biblical scholar. He was to rewrite it by replacing all mentions of alcohol. He was to substitute raisins.5 That would seem to make some passages nonsensical.
Temperance followers thought they were “alcohol free.” But they weren’t. The human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally. It does it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore, we always have alcohol in our bodies. We make alcohol until as long as we live.6
Temperance activists believed that alcohol is the cause of crime. So as Prohibition approached, some towns sold their jails.7
Temperance writers said the nutty flavor of Port wine is from submerging bags of of roaches in it. The real reason is oxidation. But that’s not disgusting enough.8
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union taught as scientific fact these false statements.9
- The majority of beer drinkers die from dropsy. (An old term for edema. That’s swelling from water in tissues.)
- When it (alcohol) passes down the throat it burns off the skin leaving it bare and burning.
- It causes the heart to beat many unnecessary times. After the first dose the heart is in danger of giving out so that it needs something to keep it up. Therefore, the person to whom the heart belongs has to take drink after drink to keep his heart going.
- It turns the blood to water.
- [Referring to invalids] a man who never drinks liquor will get well, where a drinking man would surely die.
Most temperance followers believed that drinking was a sin. But Jesus both made and drank wine. That was a big problem for them. But they resolved the problem in their minds. Do you agree? Learn more in Alcohol and the Bible.
Prohibition failed miserably. Yet almost one in five people in the US today favor making drinking illegal. For everyone. Of any age. And for any purpose. Not even National Prohibition did that! Learn what Prohibition did prohibit. See What did Prohibition Prohibit?
A Note on Temperance Trivia
Trivia is the plural of the Latin word trivium. More than one temperance trivium are temperance trivia. Therefore, “The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) strongly supported temperance” is a temperance trivium. But this collection is temperance trivia. So, should it be “temperance trivia is fun!”? Or should it be “temperance trivia are fun!”?
Temperance Trivia
References
Web
Footnotes
1. Ploetz, A. The Influence of Alcohol, 1915, p. 29.
2. Furnas, J. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum, p. 194.
3. Hanson, D. Alcohol Education, p. 13.
4. Burns, E. The Spirits of America, p. 69.
5. The American Mix, 1(1), 4.
6. Our Bodies Make Alcohol Naturally.
7. Anti-Saloon League of America Yearbook, 1920, p. 8.
8. Hanson, D. Preventing Alcohol Abuse.
9. Kobler, J. Ardent Spirits, p. 143.