New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-02-10
Nv - IECT
AN ESSAY FOR INvALIDs.


Diffusive Stimulants are required for medical
purposes. The most strenuous advocates OF
Prohibitory Liquor Laws concede this. and
every statute exhibiting the sale OF alcoholic
fluids to the community at large, contains a
saving clause permitting their sale for the use
of the sick, under the guarantee OF physi-
clans certificate Thousands of invalids in
every State of the Union are now taking these
stimulants daily under the advice of profes-
sonal men. They form part OF the
remedial stock of all public and private hospi-
tails, and are prescribed, in certain classes of
complaints, by medical men who rank among
the stanchest pillars Of the temperance cause.
OF course. it is of the highest Importance
that the liquors administered as restoratlves
should be pure and uncOntaminated. No mem
Der of the faculty desires to poison his patients
On the contrary, it is the earnest wish of the
whole profession to prevent the Introduction
of bad alcohol into the sick chamber. Like
conscientious me1, with due sense OF their
responsibilities, they say, "get the very best"
But where is pure or even safe article to
be got9 Price, it seems, is not the measure of
value. Brandy sold at the rate of seren dollars
a bottle ought not to be surcharged with dmy'e
or fuSel OIL or impregnated with acetlc ACID,
tannin, and plum juice; but Chemistry says 1t
is. The tests and reagents applied to it by
one of the most distinguished scientific men In
this country have proved that this so-called
brandy, costly as it is, contains not one drop
of the spirit of the grape, but is compound
of half-rectified alcohol, water, and variety
of flavoring substances; and, on comparing its
constituents with those of "ten cent rum" it
is found that, as regards EMBELLISHMENTS,
there is nothing to choose between them.
There is, however, one stimulant and tonic not
sold or used as a beverage, which may be pre-
scribed with safety for all who need stomachic
and invigorant and its vast and continually
increasing sale argues well for the common
sense of the people and for the cause of tenn
perance. Many eminent physicians in all parts
of the United States and in Spanish America,
have discarded the liquors of commerce from
their medical repertOry and adopted Hostetter's
Stomach Bitters in their stead In thus follow
ing the lead of an observant and unprejudiced
public, they have done WELL and, perhaps, in
the fulness of time, the whole profession will
follow their example. The reasons given by
the physicians who have taken the initiative in
this matter, for giving this well known vege
table tonic a preference over all other
stomachics are these: That they believe its
stimulating basis to be unadulterated that its
botanical ingredients produce a permanent
tonic effect that it has powerful ambitious
properties that it has mild aperient quality;
that it has a composing influence on the nervous
SYSTEM and last, but not least, that it does
not create that craving for excitants which is
inseparable from the frequent use of unmed-
Gated liquors.
Surely it is important that facts like these
should be universally known. If it is to the
interest of the manufacturers and proprietors
of the articles to publish them far and wide,
it is no less to the interest of the millions to
read them and heed them. In tempest the
shipwrecked mariner who finds himself going
overheard, with the life-boat on one side of
him and the sheet anchor on the other, natu-
rally cings to the buoyant craft instead of the
sinking iron, and in like manner the invalid
with Il choice between fiery poison and salu
brious antdote will be likely to reject the
bane and accept the balsam.
The recent exposures of the mysteries of
liquor mixing, which have been made through
the newspaper press might properly be styled
the retriJutiue justice Of Science. Chemical
research led to the discoveries which have en-
abled unprincipled men to pervert the pro-
ducts of the still and simulate pure stimulants
with perniciOus compounds, and chemical
analyses conducted by men of principle have
laid bare the mystery of iniquity and put
society on its guard against cunningly devised
pOs0Ds.
One thing is certain, viz: that however bene-
fetal pure diflusive stimulant might be in
certain varieties of disease, or as a safeguard
against malaria, or the effects of change of
water, an excitant charged with poison must
always be injurious. Even poisonous water is
less dangerous than empOiSoned liquor, and for
the sufficient reason that the alcoholic princi-
pie carries the poison almost instantly into the
circulation, whereas water does not possess the
same diff'usive power. But when, as in Hos
letters Bitters, thoroughly rectified spirit is
made the vehicle of the most hygeian herbal
juices the effect of the compound is necessarily
healthful.
All that chemistry has revealed to the public,