ALCOHOLIC POISON,
is to disguise the symptoms, to merely fool the
patient, that if alcohol were a stimulant, that is
not the sort of thing you would want to give to a
man when exhausted from fever. . . . . . If your
patient is exhausted by any serious disease,
surely it would be the more rational thing to let
him rest quietly, to save his strength, and in
every possible way to take cave to give him such
food as will be easily absorbed through the di-
gestive apparatus, and keep the ebbing life in
the man.”
If brandy, or alcohol in any form, is ever ad-
missible, it is only when its poisonous effects as
an irritant may be desirable, just as a dash of
cold water, the application of a hot poker to the
spine, or of ammonia to the nostrils, may each
under some possible circumstances be serviceable
In arousing the vital energies from a sudden col-
lapse, and thus preventing death.
Alcohol Prevents Waste.
So said Prof. Liebig, who supposed that alco-
hol might serve as a substitute for the tissues in
maintaining the combustion necessary to produce
heat. But Prof Liebig was mistaken, Dr.
Smith, of England, proved that alcoholic drinks
increase waste, It is useless, then, to give alcohol
to the sick for the purpose of preventing the
wasting of the body, for it will only accelerate
the undesirable process.
ALCOAOLIC MEDICATION,
Will Alcohol Prevent Consumption?
The notion has lately become prevalent that
alcohol will, in some mysterious manner, check
the ravages of that dread disease, consumption.
It might almost be said that in our large cities,
in the practice of regular physicians, few con-
sumptives die sober, so fashionable has this
remedy become,
The evidences upon which the utility ‘of the
drug in this disease is based are quite too incon-
clusive to amount to anything like demonstra-
tion. In those cases in which recovery has
taken place under the use of alcohol, the 1m-
provement can be attributed to other far more
probable causes than alcohol, as improvement in
sanitary or hygienic surroundings or habits.
But the most conclusive evidence against the
curative virtues of alcohol in this disease is found
in the fact pointed out by Dr. B. W. Richardson,
of London, that alcohol is itself a CAUSE of
consumption. There is no evidence that spirit
drinkers are as a class less subject to consump-
tion than abstainers, while it is certain that their
mortality is much greater; and one form of dis-
ease of the lungs pointed out by Dr. Richardson
is found only in those who are addicted to the
use of liquor.