Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-06-13
Nv. G. T. u. COLUMN.
Motto. .sc.od and Home and Native land,
LIQUOR As MEDICINE.

M I want to say word to- night on a
point suggested by latter clause OF
the thirty-fif verse. ''They have
Beaten me and I felt it not" 1t is
lust this benumbing of the sensibili-
lies that leads many to resort to the
hse of intoxicants both in health and
nd disease and that induces many ply
sicians to prescribe them in a most in
discriminate manner. [ think you
will all agree with me in the assertion
that such an agent should not be en-
ployed as medicine if anything else
would do as well, and certainly not if
Something else will do far better; and
after many years experience in both
lines of treatment, l am prepared to
affirm that this wise rule would ex-
dude Intoxicating liquors from the
category of remedies altogether. [
may here remark that tn ose who fol-
IDw this course have, am sure, been
Greatly misunderstood. Their action
Is not, as many suppose, the result of
prejudice, but they refrain from these
agents because their use is unscientific,
1nwise and hurtful; because the pa
tient gets well quicker and better
without them.
M I speak of this here and now be-
cause the use of intoXicantS in the sick
loom day is one of the greatest i'm
|pediments to the temperance reform.
Many a man has been started on
downward career by his medical ad-
wiser and many a reformed has fallen
|again through the same agency.
lack Hallien,* with whom most of you
IRE acquainted, is case in point. The
papers tell us that Jack, who had not
touched liquor for three months,
needed a surgical operation of the eye,
and the operator gave him a glass of
brandy; this proved his ruin. It was
not the best thing for Jack, it was the
WORST. 1t would not be the best thing
|fcr anybody under like circumstances.
4t was unnecessary, unwise, criminal.
AT was not in accord with medical sci
|Rhce, common humanity or common
Eense, and this is true in ostinstanc
es where intoxicants are used as med
Dimes. Possibly some one may say:
Breach this to the doctors and not to
the public. But the doctors and the
bublic both need the preaching.
The doctor is strangely tempted in
Ibis direction by the state of public
6entiment A great many still feel
Mat all is not done that might and
thould be done for patient unless he
Isl saturated with liquor, or at least
freely dosed with it. The public have
title conception of the great number
Who have lived sober lives, who actu
lily die drunk.
A When bleeding was in vogue there
Vas similar feeling in the communi-
|y It is recorded that in those days
young lady died of pneumonia, and
neighbor, who was commiserating
18th the friends of the deceased, said,
/Een, you have the satisfaction of
selling that all was done that could
% done, for she was bled twenty sew
b times" Very few realize how Of
Ma the inquiry comes to the physi-
IAN, doctor, don't you think little
fine er brandy would do good?" They
b not importune in that way for cas-
br oil or qiunine. When the public
IL, "doctor, if anything else will do
well, give us something else, ''some-
hing else will speedily be forthcom-
&g. We need to look sharply along
his line and make a general advance |
secure the complete triumph of the
importance reform.-Dr. John Black
Ter at Springfield.
Pack Hallien was sot for many years. He
Pit to Kelley reformatory; was "cured."
Hing eyesight led him to occulist, with !
direful result of becoming once more