Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-02-16
ALCOHOL.
Prof Victor Horsley on It's Use ~ Medi-

ALCOHOL.
Prof Victor Horsley ON It's Use ~ Msdi-
; Prot Victor Horsiey, T. r s., F. r
C. S. in recent speech feperred to the
past position of the medical professions.
and said that medical science, unfort
nnately. from tie vsrynature of hef
general : knowleS ge. was necessarily
Ssiil IN the chains Of empiricism. II
S1s - bound. d eosanho humanity,
to receive the statements of any one
based upon fair evidence, and to try
and test the results which such a one
might claim to have obtained from his
oNh exIafie1ee. Il VAS IN this way
that tie medical profession became
enamotS of. alcoholsas sdrug, more
especislly 3ps the streatment of acute
disease and fevers.
Things had greatly changed. Ply.
Biological science had advanced i'm.
mensely. Physicians were now grad
ualfy freeing themselves from the
slavery to which they were before sub.
ject and knew that the position of al.
cohol. from the medical point of view.
had to be considered in the two op-
posite conditions of food and a drug.
Researches of men like Parkes, who
headed the movement. had given the
medical profession the true scientific
value of alcohol. and the value they
knew to be very nearly zero.
Regarding the popular belief that.
rs the drinking of alcohol existed as a
general custom. it was good thing,
DR.. Parkes, twenty-five years ago.
pointed out that because one thing was
custom it was no evidence of the
truth @-Cannibalism WAS a custom in
some parts of the world, and was it
therefore good?
There was one. scientific point ascer-
tanned beyond all doubt with regard to
alcohol in its first influence upon the
human system and animal body, and
that was. that. in proportion to the
dose, itlchecked the tissue changes OF
the body. Alcohol did, in greater or
less degree, check the activity of these
processes. This could be produced
with even small dose. Carried to a
greater extreme, its effect was not that
of regulator, but it proved an extra
blocker of the machinery. 1T seems"
said the speaker. ga kind of chronic
suicide that they were always to put
the brake onto put the brake on the
of their natural energies.
What they wished to; do without in
ringing the laws Of nature was to get
the greatest amount of energy out OF
their bodies. Why hinder it''
Prof. Horsley alluded to the series OF
experiments on thcinfucnce of alcohol
upon plant life carried out by DR..
Ridge, of Enfield, who found that one.
sixteenth per cent. Of a solution of al
cohol checked the growth of water
cress, and that tenth solution of al.
cohoi killed its seeds. The position OF
the medical profession with regard tc
alcohol as food was becoming more
and-more tlefmed.v s'-es @~-'as-s
Prof. Horsley next drew attention to
the researches of DR.. Hare as to the use
of alcohol rs q medicine, and to the
fact noticedby himAthe large decrease
in the use of alcohol at the London
hospitals. and the largely increased
use Of milk and other, forms of nutri.
ton. At the London Temperance
Hospital. since 1873. the experiment as
to whether alcohol was useful had
bcen tried to the uttcrmost, the evi.
dence was perfectly wonderful, and
the result so far gained was over.
whelmingly contradictory to many
previous notions.
In this hospital. which had admitted
4. 1853 persons as in-patients and 23,ON
as out-patients. alcohol had only been
administered as a drug in four cases.
The cases of recovery had done re.
we'll, and on the whole there
was a mortality of rather less than one
in ten. This mortality was smaller
than the mortality in any other hospi.
tai in London at that period, and there
had net been given to one Of these
drop of alcohol either as diet or medi
cine. and yet a large number ought tc
have died, according to the old view Of
hetreatment of the disease. Figures
speak for themselves. British Medical
Journal.