Year: 1874

IhlS Sun1ecC, WHICH lTOlu IlIue W Liiue az
tracts public attention, is again under discus
sion. 1t is a gratifying fact that the best
physicians throughout the country reject the
use of alcoholic stimulants in their practice,
and the sentiment in favor of discarding it
altogether as curative agent in medicine is
becoming stronger among the medical frater-
nity every year. On this subject recent
writer says:


In the present state of medical knowledge,
alcohol may be the best vehicle physicians
possess to hold in solution the medical proper
ties of drugs, yet in and of itself it is doubtful
if it ever could be indispensable either as
medicine or a stimulant. Chemists tell US it
DESTROYS the oxygen, or red globules of the


blood. Liebeg says, "There can be no doubt
that the elements Of alcohol combine with
oxygen in the body that its carbon and hy-
drogen are given OH as carbonic acid and wa,
ter; that the oxygen which has accomplished
this must have been taken from the arterial


blood, for we know of no channel save the
circulation of the blood, Che might have ad-
ded pulmonary by which oxygen can pene-
trate into the interior of the body" Hence
he says, "the arterial blood becomes venous
without the muscles having taken any share
in the transformation" By it, then, this vi
talizing, healthrenewing, building up process
in the system is destroyed, and in its stead is
generated that most destructive agent to ami
NAL life carbonic acid. If we suspend respi-
ration for a short time, we die; but from
what cause? What produces death? 1t is
from the want of oxygen from the atmosphere
to destroy this agent, as sure and deadly in
its effects here as if inhaled from the mine or
we'll. Place any one whose animation has
been suspended in this way by the side of an.
other dead drunk, and it would be difficult to
distinguish the difference, except by the alco.
holic exhalations in the one that would not
be present in the other Both would present
the same bloated, purple appearance, for both
would have perished from the same cause,
viz. poison from carbonic acid Now, if
physicians wish to give their patients the ben
efts of this medicine, let them direct that
they be lowered into one of those old wells,
where these dan,ps exist, and in two minutes
they will be intoxicated, and in five minutes
be dead; and yet the effect of the gas admin
istered in this way, if not too long continued,
would be less injurious to the system than If
generated from alcohol in that great gasom-
etor the stomach. In one case this labora-
tory of life is comparatively undisturbed,
while in the other, it suffers mechanically as
well as chemically, and it does not require
much discrimination on the part of the ply
sician to detect that nine-tenths of all the dis
eases not mechanical, may originate from
gastric arrangements If, then, alcohol be
such disorganizer, destroying the very life
principle in the system, how can it assist ma
ture when contending with disease, and more
particularly with that form Of disease where
it is so generally recommended pulmonary
consump ption? The most important function
of the lungs is to decarbonize the blood, and
to inhale the carbonic acid, and, of course,
this office must be freely, or feebly performed,
in proportion to the number of cubic inches
of air they are capable of containing; but
when these organs become tuburcelous, or
cavities form, their capacity to throw this
poisonous gas from the system is diminished,
with the obliteration of every additional air
cell, so that in this dangerous condition,
where disorganization of the lung is slowly
progressing, and poison is slowly but surely
accumulating as this process goes on, it would
seem sheer folly to prescribe ar agent for the
relief of the patient the action of which is to
generate in the system more of that same poi
son from which, with all its feeble powers it
labors to be freed. As an external applica.
ton, however, from burns or scalds, from
steam, water, or other fluids, where blisters
have not already formed, alcohol has few
equals. Further than this, there can be little
said in it's favor as remedial agent, and its
administration, either in health or disease, is
probably attended with infinitely more harm
than good.