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
"There is one encouraging fact to be noted in this connection,
that the use of alcohol in medicine has very much diminished
during the past twenty-five years, and the present tendency is
constantly in that direction. Right here is an important point
which I wish to make: When the physician ceases to prescribe
alcohol as a medicine, the drink problem will have reached the
final stage of its solution. Mankind will eventually learn that
safety lies not so much in skillful doctors, or in some
wonderful 'new remedy,' as in daily obedience to the laws of
health. A small amount of prevention is of more worth than all
the power of cure."--DR. C. H. SHEPARD, Brooklyn, N. Y.
"My observation has been that there is a decided tendency among
educated physicians to give less alcohol than formerly in the
treatment of disease. Of late years I have given but very little
alcohol in my own practice. The tendency is due, in my opinion,
to the study of the physiological action of drugs, and to the
better understanding of the causation of disease and
pathological processes. Modern investigators now know that we
have therapeutic agents that meet the requirements of disease
processes with more scientific accuracy than is obtained by the
exhibition of alcohol."--DR. DONNELLY, Secretary of Minnesota
State Medical Society, St. Paul, Minn.
"Dr. Pearce Gould recently made a speech to the National
Temperance League on alcohol and the advantage of doing without
it, both in health and in the treatment of disease. It takes a
strong man to say the strong things which Mr. Gould said on the
subject, especially if he happens to be a medical man. No doubt,
as Dr. Gould says, the use of alcohol in medical practice is
nothing now compared to what it was twenty years ago, much more
forty years ago, when Dr. Todd's influence, and the reaction
from the so-called antiphlogistic treatment were at their
height. Public opinion has been enlightened by the evidence of
leaders in medicine, such as Dr. Parkes, Sir William Gull, Dr.
Gairdner, Dr. Sanderson, and others, and medical men have dared
to treat disease without alcohol, or with only small quantities
of it. There are physicians and surgeons of reputation and
success, who are so strong in their convictions that alcohol is
of little use in the treatment of disease, that it destroys
tissues, lessens the resistance to microbes, deranges functions,
spoils temper, and shortens life, that they are ready to testify
to this effect in public, in company with redoubtable champions
of the temperance cause like the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir
William White (chief constructor of the navy), and the Bishop of
Derry, who have as much prejudice to contend against in their
spheres as the medical man has in his. We recognize with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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