A secondary argument for temperance was that alcohol was unhealthy. It was a weak argument in the early part of the nineteenth century, since most doctors then regarded alcohol as a medicine. In fact, insurance companies might refuse to insure non-drinkers on the grounds that abstinence was an unhealthy abnormality. But by the 1850s, medical statistics clearly showed that drinkers suffered more disease and died younger than non-drinkers, and the medical argument became an important one. From that time on, insurance companies offered preferential rates to non-drinkers, and some would insure only non-drinkers.
