The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1908-10-15
THE csusAUE AGAINST Drink
PROGRESS MADE by CHAMPIONS
FIGHTING THE RUN DEMON.

the Department OF Medical Tenn
perance For the w. G. II. U.
In the middle of the nineteenth
century the whisky bottle and the
brandy bottle we're the msinstay of
the average physician in his combat
I with disease. To-day alcohol is q
discredited drug; its stimulating and
tonic qualities are doubted or denied,
its strengthening powers are known
to be a delusion resulting from It's
nerve deadening action, and the
claims made for It as a food are
shown by good authority to be no
stronger than might be made for
morphine and various other drugs
which undergo the change In the
body called oxidation.
The influences which have been
instrumen In the dethroning OF al
cohol as the great paneca have been
various. The most important has
been the spirit of scientific research
of the past twenty to thirty years
aided by the invention of instruments
of precision by which the effects OF
drugs upon animal life can be much
more definitely ascertained than
formerly. In the great laboratories
connected with some of the leading
} medical schools of the world, scien-
lists have been studying carefully the
effects OF alcohol upon the various
organs of the body, and although
they differ in their conclusions on
some points, they all agree that for
mer opinions of the usefulness of
alcoholic liquors must be greatly
modified, II not entirely changed. It
is certainly a fact that the physicians
who have familiarized themselves
most thoroughly with these investi-
cations are now making comparative
ly little use of alcohol as a remedy
IL they use 1t at all.
Alcoholic liquors were at one time
considered of great benefit in disor-
ders of the stomach. Different in
vestigators have been experimenting
upon dogs and other animals, and
with foods in test tubes, to deter
mine. II possible, the action of alco-
hol upon digestion. Radzlkowski, a
famous Russian scientist, found that
I although alcohol causes an increased
flow of gastric juice, the gastric juice
thus produced is worthless as a di-
gestive agent because it contains no
pepsin. Professor Chittenden, of
Yale, observed that an equal guam
tity of simple water causes as great
a flow of gastric juice as does alco-
hol, and that the gastric juice pro-
duced by the drinking of water is
possessed of much more powerful
digestive properties than the gastric
! juice produced by the drinking of
| alcohol.
Sir william Roberts, one of Eng
| lands eminent physicians, found in
1 his experiments with alcohol and
| food in test tubes that the liquor
never hastened the digestive process,
but that when it was present in the
! proportion of ten per cent. or more
| 1t caused delay. Food mixed with
sherry wine required three times as
long to digest as the normal. Malt
| liquors were also shown to- retard
| digestion.
| Physicians acquainted with these
and other similar experiments have
naturally ceased to recommend alco.
holic liquors as aids to digestion.
| Alcohol for years was considered
a valuable heart stimulant But the
keen eye of science has discovered
error in that opinion also. Instru'
ments have been invented which
show that the bounding pulse follow
ing a dose of brandy is not the re-
| SCIJ OF auueu IOrce, or VlSOr, DuL Int
result of paralysis of the Iseriphera
! vessels. Tests with the isolated but
surviving hearts of a dog and of g
rabbit have shown conclusiyely thai
alcohol reduces the amount of work
done by the heart, and causes irreg
ularity OF plusation.
At meeting in Atlantic City las
! year during the sessions Of the Amer
lean Medical Association, DR.. Franz
Billings, of Chicago, said that tn,
belief in alcohol as a stimulant /!
rapidly passing away.
English physicians have beer
much more outspoken against alco
hol as medicine than American
| physicians. During the past thre'
years Sir Frederick Treves, King Ed
wards surgeon; Sir Victor Horsley
Sir James Barr, Professor Sim
Woodhead and other leading English
medical men have spoken out 81
strongly against the old views of tn,
utility of alcohol that the LondoI
Times has felt called upon to say
According to recent development
Of scientific opinion 1t is not impos
sible that a belief in the strength
ening and supporting qualities of al
cohol will eventually become as OBJ
| solete as a belief in Witchcraft" q"