ALCOHOLIC POISON,
affect the child as promptly as the mother, The
same is true of alcohol ; but the delicate organi-
zation of the infant is far more susceptible to its
poisonous influence than the mother’s system.
Dr. James Edmunds says that a large majority
of English ladies use stout while nursing, so that
their infants “are never sober from the earliest
period of their existence until they have been
weaned.”
Beginning life under such a regimen, is it any
wonder that so large a number of young men,
and young women also, develop into drunkards ?
Such a result is only the fruit of the seeds sown
in earliest infancy. The ancient Romans were
so well aware of this fact that the use of alcoholic
drinks was by law prohibited to a Roman
mother while an infant was dependent upon her
for support.
What Does Experience Prove ?
The testimony of many eminent physicians is
that the use of alcohol as a supporter of vitality,
a tonic, or a stimulant, is wholly unnecessary.
In London, there is ga temperance hospital
under the charge of Dr, James Edmunds, who
delivered a very interesting series of lectures on
this subject in New York City a year or two
since. In this hospital, all alcoholic wedicines are
excluded “without incurring any risk or delay
in recovery, and with advantage rather than det-
viment.” The death rate, from the first establish.
ALCOHOLIC MEDICATION. 97
ment of the hospital, has been but six per cent,
a rate far below that of other hospitals. Of more
than three hundred surgical cases which are a”
erally supposed to especially demand alcohol, no
ithout it.
ingle one proved fatal withou )
) Sars Prof. Miller, M. D., of Scotland, “ Alcohol
es nothing.” N
Dr Higginbottom said before the British Med
ical Society, «1 have never known a disease
ured by alcohol.” y |
Dr Johnson an English physician, says that
alooholic liquors are, “as medicines, wholly un-
"Tow years aco, two thousand English physi-
cians publicly expressed their disapproval of the
se of alcohol as a medicine.
EN London alone three hundred physicians
sioned a petition for the suppression of the liquor
traffic «gleoholic drink being, in their opinion,
wholly unnecessary for medical purposes. .
Medical testimony against the use of eo! °
micht be presented at much greater length 1 r
were necessary. We wish it distinctly under
stood that in disapproving of the we of leo °
dic t advocate the
s a medicine, we do 10 ©
poisonous substitutes, though even this one
i ht in many cases be preferable. h os
of ® the arguments which have been adduce
© equ alid
oainst the use of alcohol are equally v
in There ate numerous other
“acainst all poisons. Lo. Tol 1a
agan L wesent limits forbid us to
wuments which the
arguments wl }