Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-02-08
WHISKY FOR HOSPITALS.

z The argument conducted for sev : eral days regarding whisky confis cAted by the government, which Dis trict Attorney Clyne wanted to give { to the hospitals, had absurdity beat zen by several city blocks. The hos ! pitals, all of them reputable, service.
 able institutions, wanted the whis Z ky. It is used in many cases, says
 the Chicago Tribune.
 A very simple matter produced
 what almost might be called an up. roar, with Dr. Robertson and his
 city hall assistants hearty and fore. < most in the roar, physicians who say
 they do not prescribe whisky de < claring that physicians who dc
 should not and ought not to be all : lowed to.
 s The prohibition does seem to thing that if they do not dislodge
 liquor from medical practice they
 have lost moral battle and have gleft the hard stuff in possession of s1the field, claiming vindication as an occasionally useful factor in life Our own. pr. Evans maintains that there is nothing whisky does for a
 sick person that some other stimu-
 lant can not do better, but other
 physicians do prescribe whisky and
 many of them regard it as having
 emergency value.
 In the fight between docs the point
 that physician has the right, with. in the ethics of his profession, to
 decide how he will attack disease was lost sight of and so also was
 the fact that the hospitals have. car ried and want to carry supplies of
 alcoholic beverages for use when l, in the judgment of attending physi- clans they are needed. ( With such a supply available free lin Chicago, and with the Chicago hospitals needing it, Dr. Robertson ] goes to the mat with the demon rum sto get fall which would decide d Squestion upon which physicians do snot agree, and which properly could .xbe left to their own judgment and Sdiscretion.
 It was an exhibition of moral humbug. Many persons who have sInade the fight after an operation, ssuffering from shock and the anes- thetic and struggling to rally, know | that champagne was the only thing ~they could take into their stomachs Sto give them any strength to make Sthe fight. Champagne may now be immoral socially, but it is not im- moral medically.
 x The patient who knows he is helped by an alcoholic stimulant as prescribed by a physician or who thinks he is, and is in fact ire benefited in the measure { he thinks he is, will have small use for the substitutes His physical and moral we'll being is not being 
 We believe that the physicians who would hesitate to use whisky Ito get g stimulating reaction when one was needed in an emergency are very few and that there are thous- ands who smile when they read that the government says they may pre- scribe whiskey only to save life. Must they wait for the death rattle 2
 As a justification of prohibition, we point with pride to the diminish ing guest list at the bridewcll, the diminishing number of petty arrests, and the decrease in the number of Clark street bums. We are saving the lives of buns and improving their social conduct by not permit. ting them to drink themselves .ol )death. That salvage of the worth less is sufficient recompense for the Interference in the habits of decent kAtAAShS 0HV WCAC uOt UuuS anu ulu mot intend to become buns and would not become buns.
 This great mass of people is en- tirely negligible and there is not much of kick from 1t. These pco- pie are submitting. If weddings and unfortunates, alcoholics and inebri- ates can not be saved except by al general surrender of custom. person al decision and individual habit to their necessities, the surrender will hsSSe to be made, but when prohibit ton tries ltoI interfere with repu- table physician's judgment of what will aid or relieve patient, it isl sacrificing the sick to the buns.
 That moral humbug will be odious. lt is strsnge distortion of values tol