Year: 1864

, .g RUM AS A MEDICINE. t..,..


The great increase of intemperance in
the United States is attracting the atten-
tion and arousing the fears of all who
love their country, and who desire not
only that it may live through its present
desperate struggle, but that it may be
worthy to live The country may as well
perish by rebellion as by intempcrance.
Between nation of rumsellcrs and rum.
drinkers and q nation of Shareholders and
slaves the choice is not worth a sixpence.
Unless we can save the country from rum
it is of no use to save it from treason.
The ship of state may as well split on the
Scylla of secession as be engulfed in the
Charybdis of drunkenness. 10 seek out
and remove the causes of increasing in
temperance is then prime duty of every
patriot, and in our judgment one of the
most potent causes is the use of rum as a
medicine Of course, VIC use the word
rum" in this connection as general
and convenient term, including everything
that can intoxicatc. |


That rum has been and is more exten-
sively used as medicine than it ever was
before, no one who has given any attcn-
ton. to the subject can doubt. 1t is not
only the favori:e medicine of those who
doctor themselves, but it is prescribed by
physicians in multitndes of cases where
something else or nothing at all would


doubtless be much better Especially has
this been the case since the prevalence of
new diseases, such as diptheria and the
more recent and more frightful disease
which attacks the brain and spinal mar
row. Everybody gets into panic when
ever new disease makes its appearance,
and applies to the doctor for something to
keep it off. The almost invariable pre-
scription is rum in some of its forms


A while ago we were in u village which
was threatened with diptheria, and were
assured that almost every family on a
long street was drinking Bourbon whiskey
as a preventative. We shall be greatly
surprised if some who escape diptheria
do not fall by worse disease-drunken-
ness 1t takes no long time to acquire an
appetite for rum, particularly when it is
in form that is agreeable to the taste,
and the man who begins to drink Bour-
bon whiskey as a preventative Of dipthe-
ria, will be very likely to continue to
drink as preventative of the blues or of
something else. Nor will he limit him
self to the original dose. The tea spoon
full will be exchanged for table spoonful,
from that he will 30 on to the wine glass,
and thence to the tumbler. and before the
man is aware of it. he is a drunkard.


This is not the language of mere idle
apprehension. 1t is we'll warranted by far
too great multitude of facts. Macaulo
! says that the drunkenness of Pitt, the
great statesn; of England, was unqucs-
tionably occasioned by the use of port
vine as medicine in early life. And an
, American statesman, second to no Other
in England or America, who became .
slave to the bottle. and drenched in bran
rdy the noblest- intellect in the land, took
', the first step in obedience to a physician
. who prescribed wine as "a daily tonic
Nor is there any lack, would that there


we're. Of similar instances in private life
, A few years ago. an elderly gentleman in
, atown not far from this, was advised by
his physician TO take moderate gIsss o