The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1891-03-12
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
DOCTORS AND DRINK.

DOCTORS AND DRINK.
Influence of tho Medical Profession In
Temperance Reform.
Upon no one does responsibility for
the continuance of the widely prevalent,
injurious social drinking usages rest
mo, heavily than upon the members of
the medical profession Medicine, in
the true sense, is preventive as we'll as
remedial. Among the agencies pro-
ductive of disease, physical and moral,
Intoxicating liquors are pre-eminent.
The attitude which physicians as class
assume toward the use of Intoxicating
beverages, personally and professional
ly, therefore involves very largely, for
good or i'll, the interests of the temper
ance reform.
There have been from the beginning,
since the time of DR.. Benjamin Rush,
and are now, few eminent American
physicians who have done much to en-
courage, by both example and precept,
the cause of temperance. But they
have been and continue to be small
minority of the profession as whole.
A very large majority of physicians up
on social and festive occasions, at their
banquets, etc., do not hesitate to pro-
vide freely and to partal1e of intoxi-
cants. The international medical con-
gross, held last year in Berlin, appears
to have been a striking and most I'M
seemly objcct-lesson of this kind. A
Berlin correspondent of the Philadel-
phia Medical and Surgical Reporter
writes: THE disgraceful scenes at the
banquet given by the city of Berlin to
the medical congress were recently the
topic of discussion in council. A coun-
Gilman called it the medical scheutzen-
fest and emphasized the waste of
money. He was not altogether wrong.
The money spent by the city for the
Rathhaus banquet was really enormous,
and the result was the total intoxica-
ton of most of the shining lights of the
profession"
This correspondent, whom we assume
to be physician, and from the high
professional standing of the journal in
which the letter is published, also to
be trustworthy, gives additional details
of the great medical drinking bout in
the German capital as follows: II re-
greet to say that the bigger the man
the more he was inebriated. On pro-
lessor whose name is household word
all over the medical world artificial
respiration was practiced for almost
an hour, and another professor who has
revolutionized one of the most impor-
tant of medical branches had a bad cut
in his head, the result of fall. A
French physician who has made his
name renowned by fighting intemper-
ance through exposure of the injury
inflicted upon the organism by alcohol,
was unable to spell his own name. BY
a queer coincidence I also saw two men
hugging each other who are known as
irreconcilable antagonists in science,
one a leader of German bacteriolo-
gists, and the other well-known Paris
professor who does not believe in ba-
Gill;
Such disgraceful alcoholic excuses
on the part of eminent medical men, if
not thus well-attested, would seem
well-nigh incredible. We may hope
that they would not, at least, in gross
hess and want of common decency, be
equaled at any kindred gathering in
this country. Yet we remember that
the liquor supply for the late Interna-
tional medical congress, held in Wash
ington, AS reported in the journals, was
very large.
Great Britain leads the world at the
present time in intelligent, organized
medical temperance propagandism
The British medical temperance asso-
citation, with DR.. Benjamin Ward Rich
ardson, of London, as it's distinguished
president, and upwards of five hundred
abstaining physicians in different parts
of the united kingdom rs members,
fills very large place of usefulness.
Its organ, the Medical Temperance
Journal, published quarterly, is most
valuable periodical, which physicians
everywhere might read to great ad-
vantage. The need in this country of
the counterpart among American ply
sicians of the British medical temper
ance association is most urgent.
The education which medical stu
dents receive in our colleges, either
concerning the nse of alcohol as cura-
tive agent in the treatment of disease,
or with reference to it's beverage use in
the sphere of preventive medicine, is
very incomplete and superficial There
ought to be some provision for the sup
Elementary training of young ply
sicians especially in this direction. The
London temperance hospital is demon
strating conclusively the practica bility
of the successful non-alcoholic treat.
ment of all the diseases common tc
general hospital practice. But few
physicians on this side of the Atlantic
know, however, of it's important and
eminently successful mission. While
physicians continue indiscriminate and
needless alcoholic prescriptions for
their patients, and themselves indulge
moderately or immoderately in the use
of alcoholic beverages, their influence
must needs be greatly harmful among
the masses by whom they are looked to
as teachers and guides, especially in
matters ,nvolving physical health.
There is a moral side to the physician's
profession, which, with many of its
members, needs greatly to be cultivated
and emphasized, and especially as re-
lated to tina popular beverage use of in
toxicants. National Temperance Ad-
vOcate.
PALA1IAL SALOONS.