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
"What light, then, does true science throw on these important
questions? All who know anything on the subject are aware that
alcohol, instead of dissolving _food_, or aiding in its
dissolution, is one of the most powerful agents in preventing
that dissolution. On what principle, then, is it possible that
its being mixed with the materials of food, in this case, can
aid in their dissolution, so that they may more easily be
changed into the fresh blood required to sustain and recover
life in this child?"
He then refers to the experiments with gastric juice in vials, and
proceeds:--
"Here, then, is indisputable evidence that alcohol effectually
_prevents_ that process which is known as digestion, and which
is essential to food's being of any use to support life in man.
On what principle can the physician explain his introduction of
it into the stomach of a child whose thread of life is
attenuated to the slenderest hair?
"We urge the chemical truth that the alcohol, given to promote
support, is of such a nature as to prevent that which would
nourish, from effecting the end so much to be desired, and for
which true food is adapted."
The pure, unfermented juice of the grape, free from chemical
preservatives, is now used by many physicians where the miserable
concoction of drugs and alcohol, known as port wine, was once considered
essential. Unfermented grape juice contains all the nutriment of the
grape, without any of the poison, alcohol. After being opened it should
be kept in a cool place, or it will ferment and produce alcohol. Fruit
juices are very grateful to a fever patient, and should not be withheld
as they are in so many cases. Dr. J. H. Kellogg, and other
non-alcoholic physicians, recommend them highly. They are better than
milk, as milk frequently produces "feverishness," while fruit juices
allay it.
For those who think beer or ale an incentive to appetite, Dr. N. S.
Davis, and others, recommend an infusion of hops, made fresh each day.
It is the bitter which promotes appetite, not the alcohol. For the sake
of the little bitter in beer, it is not wise to vitiate the tone of the
stomach with the alcohol it contains, and which is its active principle.
Many mothers have become drunkards, secret drunkards, possibly, through
the use of beer as a fancied aid to digestion. Multitudes of men suffer
untold horrors from dyspepsia, caused by the beer which they mistakenly
suppose to be a friend to their stomach.
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL UPON THE BLOOD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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