The Monitor-register., 1897-04-23

converted into force. This work some.
how seems very useful to the advocates
of alcohol. When alcohol is first admin
istered there is a slight increase of tenn
p~eratute as there is in a cold bath as a
result of the shock, but this is very soon
succeeded by a cooling off, so that for a
time doctors administered alcohol for the
sake of this effect. Artic explorers had
by actual experience almost forestalled
this conclusion of the doctors. Consider
ing these things one might think perhaps
that alcohol is a good thing to cool off
with in a hot climate. Julian Hawthorne
says in a recent article in the Century
Magazine that in Jamaica whose sits in
the shade and absorbs cooling drinks is
due to die in two years, while If liquor is
left alone and exercise taken, one is not
surprised to find himself alive and alert
at ninety or upwards. Workmen brought
there from the United States nearly all
die in two years from rum. But to re-
turn, if the alcohol were being consumed
in the body and thus generating heat
and force more oarbonic acid should be
exhaled after the alcohol has been imbibed,
but the contrary effect has been demon
strated by Richardson and others. TIE
fact is that the greater part of alcohol
leaves the body unchanged in itself, but
leaving many a sad token of its having
been present in the different parts of the
body to which it has been dissipated
almost Immediately after inhibition.
An argument advanced in favor of beer is
that it makes fat. believe it has never
been proven that pure alcohol admins
tered in regular doses has any tendency
to such a result, and aver IL beer does
cause a person to grow stout that is no
| proof that he is not a great deal the
worse for it. Alcohol tends to fatty de-
generation of the organs and as it is
claimed that it retards metamorphosis of
matter which should be cast off to make
room for new and healthy tissue is re-
tanned in the system, causing the bloated,
unhealthy appearance of many beer
drinkers, and putting the body into a
suitable condition to fall a prey to the
first disease or accident that appears.
The International Medical Cor held
in Philadelphia came to the conclusion
that "Alcohol is not shown to have a
definite food value by any of the usual
analysis or physiological investigation"
AS to the use of alcohol in the s%trictest
sense as a medicine we find that many
eminent and successful physicians dis
card it here also. DR.. Richardson
always made some slight use Of the pure
Ethylic alcohol, but he says:'I could do
very well without it, since there are
other substances which take it's place"
Alcohol has been largely used as a
cardiac stimulant, but it's real value as
such seems extremely doubtful. DR..
Austic himself comedies that this popu- /
lar belief as to the stimulating effects of
alcohol is erroneous. Alcohol seems to
be, in fact, never a stimulant, but always
an ana sthetic and organic sedative. But
there are so many other things more use
full as ar sthetics that no one tn inks of
using alcohol in place of them. DIR.
Davis, of Chicago, President of the In.
ternational Medical Congress held in
Washington in 1886 says: ''The effects of
alcohol are simply those of an al sthetic
or organic sedative. Like ether or chic
reform, its preseI ce diminishes the sensi- |
bility of the nervous systems and brain,
thereby rendering the individual less
conscious of all outward or exterior i'm
pressions." So the man ia kes alcohol to
make him cooler, as food when he is
hungry, and to assuage his grief when he
is in trouble and the reason for this is
that he thus drugs himself into partial or
complete unconsciousness of his dis
tresses. DIR. James Edmunds, of EGG
land, says: "Alcohol is never a stimu-
liant at all when we come to examine it.
1t never acts like anything but a para
lyzer." Professor G. Bringe, of the
Chair of Physiological Chemistry in the
University of Basic, Switzerland, says:
SIN general, let it be understood that all
the workings of alcohol in the system,
which usually are considered as excite !
ment or stimulation, are only the indica-
tions of paralysis" Now how do the
results of non-alcoholic treatment of dis
sease compare with the results of treat
ment of the same diseases where no su oh
rules are followed. DIR. Richardson in
an address before the faculty of the
London Temperance Hospital in 1898,
after an experience of nineteen years and
a half, reported $500 in patients, 4 1852
out PATIENTS: "We have only used alcohol
in seventeen cases, nearly all of which
proved fatal; death list only six and two
tenths per cent. out of the whole fifty
Thousand, and that, in the treatment of
all classes of diseases, l regard is I'M.
paralleled by any hospital in the world
where alcohol is used" DR.. N. s.
Davis, ST., of Chicago, the foremost man
in America iu medical ethics, gave up |
the use of alcohol in his practice about
forty-fve years ago, and he says that in
all his experiences he has found no dis !
ease which cannot be subdued more
readily without alcohol than with it.
AS to the need of alcohol in preparing
o ther medicines for use, DR.. James r.
Nichols. editor of the Boston Journal Of
Chemistry, says: "The ground taken is
that if the natural venous Preventative
process should cease, and the art of dis
t~illation become a lost art, not a life
would be sacrificed in consequences, not
a case of disease would be retarded in the |
process of cure, not a pain would be ag-
gravated, and not one of the art processes
suffer detriment." Further he says: "a
careful survey of the contents of a we'll
appointed modern pharmacy leads to the
conclusion that there is no one of the in
~dispensable medicinal preparations
which requires alcohol as a free consti-
tuent." Also he says: "Alcohol is a
laboratory product it is a chemical
agent which belongs to the laboratory; it
is the handmade of the chemist, and SO
long as it exists should be retained with
in the walls of the laboratory" DR..
Richardson and other physicians in the
London Temperance Hospital have en-
deavored to find another solvent than
alcohol to take it's place in the prepare