ALCOHOLIC POISON.
Medicinal Use of Alcohol Leads te
Drunkenness.
Thousands of victims of intemperance have ac-
quired their appetite for the fatal drug from a
physician's prescription. The doctor prescribed
it as a tonic. The patient continued to feel the
need of a tonic, and so he continued taking his
dram as a medicine, a tonic, until he finally
found, when too late, that he had become a con-
firmed inebriate.
Hundreds of reformed drunkards who have
been induced to sign the pledge, and who had
kept their resolution for years, have fallen back
into the gutter again through the careless ad-
ministration of alcohol by the family physician,
and have thus been hopelessly lost to themselves
and to society. We might present the touching
details of many such cases; but all have been
familiar with instances of the kind, and we will
not present them here,
In addition to the alcohol prescribed by regu-
lar physicians, there is a still greater quantity
sold and used under the name of bitters, which
always consist of a filthy mixture of poisonous
drugs with poor whisky. Not one of them is
free from alcohol. This statement is true, not-
withstanding the false asseverations of the manu-
facturers to the contrary. Even “temperance bit-
ters” are no better than the rest. Some of these
“bitters ” contain more alcohol than the strongest
ALCOHOLIC MEDICATION, 93
liquors, By these infernal compounds, thousands
of unsuspecting human beings have been lured
down to death and ruin. The popular theory
that alcohol is a good medicine, helps to inspire
confidence in them, and so becomes in a measure
responsible for the results.
The Medical Use of Alcohol an Ally of
Intemperance.
The doctor gives a man alcohol because he is
sick or weak. The moderate drinker takes it for
" the same reason. The drunkard prescribes his
own “poison” because he feels uncomfortable,
sick. The moderate drinker takes a glass of wine
to give a “lively play of the imagination.”
When its influence is gone, his intellect is dull,
his imagination clouded. He takes another
alags to “cure” the difficulty, not considering
that the remedy is the very thing that is making
him ill. The drunkard wakes up after a night's
debauch with an aching head, enervated muscles,
and trembling nerves. He takes a glass of rum
to cure his bad feelings, and at once feels better.
Is not rum a good medicine for him ? He thinks
it is, and he has the doctors on his side, for the
principle is the same whether the patient is suf-
fering from fever debility or whisky debility ;
. whisky cures in cach case, and in the same way.
Why has not the drunkard as good an excuse for
curing his wealness and bad feelings by alcohol
as any other person ?