Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers SayAllen, Martha Meir
Science
Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers Say
Allen, Martha Meir
Alcohol -- Physiological effect; Temperance
"1. That alcohol when taken into the living body acts as a
general stimulant, and especially so to the cardiac and
vasomotor functions. 2. That in mild, uncomplicated cases of
typhoid fever in young and previously healthy subjects,
stimulants are not required and no alcohol should be given. 3.
That in a 'majority of cases' the tendency toward dangerous
'nervous exhaustion' and 'heart failure' is so great that the
giving of 'more or less alcohol is required.' 4. The amount
required may vary from two to twelve or more ounces per day.
"In the two preceding numbers of this journal, I have endeavored
to show that the chief causes of nervous exhaustion and heart
failure, in typhoid and other fevers were impairment of the
hemoglobin and corpuscular elements of the blood, deficient
reception and internal distribution of oxygen, and molecular
degeneration of the muscular structures of the heart itself.
These important pathological conditions are doubtless caused by
the specific toxic agent or agents giving rise to the fever.
Consequently the rational objects of treatment are to stop the
further action of the specific cause, either by neutralization,
or elimination, or both; to stop the further impairment of the
hemoglobin and other elements of the blood; and to increase the
reception and internal distribution of oxygen, by which we will
most effectually prevent further fatty or granular degeneration
of cardiac and other structures. The language of the paragraphs
I have quoted, fairly assumes that alcohol is a _stimulant_
capable of relieving nervous exhaustion and cardiac failures,
regardless of the causes producing those pathological
conditions, and consequently its use is necessary in the
'majority of cases' of typhoid fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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