New-York tribune., 1869-05-12
IPrsm The Eev.YOrS ...s..,, ',
NEW LIGHT ON AN IMPORTANT SUB.
JECT-AN ESSAY FOR INvALIDs. C'


There is no fact better established than that
Diffusive Stimulants are required for medical
purposes The most strenuous advocates for
Prohibtory Liquor Laws concede this; every
statute prohibiting the sale of alcoholic fluids
to the community at large contain saving
clause permitting their sale for the use of the
sick, under the guarantee of the physicians GER
tifcate Thousands of invalids in every State of
the Union are now taking these stimulants daily
under the advice of professional men. They
form part of the remedial stock of all public
and private hospitals; 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 restOratives should
be pure and uncontaminated. No member 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 consclen-
tious men, with due sense of their response
bilities, they say, Get the very best" But
where is O pure or even a safe article to be
gotP Price, it seems. is not the measure of
value. Brandy sold at the rate OF seven dol
lars q bottle ought not to be charged with
amy!e or fuseL OIL, ,or impregnated with ascetic
acid, tannin and plum iuice but Chemistry
says it 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 at is, contains not one
drop of the spirit of grape; but is a compound
of half-rectifed alcohol, water and variety of
havorng substances. And on comparing its
constituents with those of "ten cent rum,' it
is found that as regards unwhOlesomeness there
is nothing to choose between them.
There is. however. one stimulant and tonic,
not sold or used as beverage, which may be
prescribed with safety for all who need a
stOmachic and invigorant; and its vast and
continually increasing sale argues well for the
common sense Of the people, and for the cause
of temperance. Many eminent physicians in
all parts of the United States and in Spanish
America have discarded the liquors of COM
merce from their medical repertory, and adopted
Hostetter's Stomach Bitters in their stead. In
thus following the lead of an Obseryant and
uDprejudced public, they have done we'll and,
perhaps in the fullness of time, the whole pro-
fession will follow their example. The reasons
given by the physicians who have taken the
initiative in this matter for giving this we'll
known vegetable tonic preference over all
other stomachics are these: That they believe
its stimulating basis to be unadulterated; that
its botanical ingredients produce o permanent
tonic effect; that it has powerful anti bilious
properties; that it has a mild aperient quality
that it has composing influence on the nery-
Gus system; and last, but not least, that 1t
does not create that craving for excitants which
is inseparable from the frequent use OF un-
medicated liquors. - ~ = 'f
Surely it is important that facts like these
should be universally known. If it is to the
interests of the manufacturers and proprietors
of the articles to publish them far and wide, it
them and heed them. In q tempest, the ship
wrecked mariner who finds himself going over
board, with the life-boat on one side of him
and the sheet anchor on the other, naturally
clings to the buoyant craft instead of the sink
ing iron and, in like manner, the invalid, with
choice between fiery poison and a salubri-
ous antdote, will be likely to reject the bane
and accept the balsam.
The recent exposures of the mysteries of
which have been made through
the newspaper. press, might properly be styled
the retributve Justice of Science. Chemical
research led to the discoveries which have en-
abled unprincipled men to peTyert the products
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 cpnningly devised pOsons
One thing is certain, viz: that however bene-
fetal a pure difusive stmqlant might be in
certain varieties of disease, or rs safeguard
against malaria, or of tho effects of change
of water, an excitant charged with poison must
always be injurious. Even poisonous water is
less dangerous than empOsoned liquor; and for
tho sufficient reason that the alcoholic princi-
pie carries the poison almost instantly into the
circulation, whereas water does not possess the
same diffusive power, But when, as in Hos
letters Bitters, thoroughly reCtified spirit is
made the vehicle of the most hygeian herbal
juice the effect of the compound is necessarily
healthful.
All that chemistry has revealed TO the public,
under the sanction of authority, in the City of
New York, has long been known to the initiated.
But the wealthier classes have, heretofore, con-
snlnL tLnnnseluns with the helief that althnnOh