ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3908, 17 May 1877, Page 3

ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

In an article upon the vice of intemperance, the New Zealand Herald refers to the views taken by medical men upon the value of alcohol when administered medicinally. ' ' Leading medical men," says the Herald, " are now fast gravitating towards the opinion that alcohol exhibited as a medicine in disease is^-not only not beneficial, but absolutely pernicious. It in no way helps in the removal of disease, Bay they.. . We are told ' syncope, hsemorrhage, fever, the ordeal of great operations, are no justifications for administering it; and it is asserted that persons emerge from all these states all the more quickly and surely when alcohol in every form is withheld. Dr Richarclsoh declares that in its action on the living body, alcohol ' deranges the constitution of the blood, unduly excites the heart and respiration, paralyses the minute blood vessels, increases or decreases, according to the degree of its application, the' functions of the digestive organs, of the liver, and of the kidneys, disturbs the regularity of nervous action, lowers the animal temperature, and lessens the animal power. 1 This is the deliberate opinion of an accomplished gentleman, who has, says the Lancet, ' st«d^, alcohol in all forms, more perhap. tiJN&n any physiologist or physician living. 5 And this witness declares that there is 'no evidence whatever of any useful- service rendered by this agent, in the' midst of much obvious bad service.' Professor Rolleston corroborates this opinion. Dr. Acland declared that he had come to the conclusion from such observations as he had been .able to make during 'many years, that c a large proportion of healthy persons, except under spebial conditions, were not so well if they fcoo'k airy form of alcohol as they were if they fcfcok none.' Respecting its use in disease the same authority described the reaction from the excessive use of alcohol iwenty years ago, and said that it had )ecome ,'a matter of extreme anxiety ivith best instructed members of the profession as to what was the precise dose svhichlought:"to.be given, in many conditions.' " . . - The Herald, quotes the following on the same, subject: from the Lancet : — ' ' Meanime let there; be no mistake about the roice of ".medical practitioners or authoriies on this matter. It is on the side of temperance — of extreme temperance. Anything elsjris. risky. A fine constituion may resist "a- large" quantity of alcohol — we,have^H.' : kn6wh- striking- instances — : mt Jie'is'afoblish person that proceeds on ;he. supposition that he has a fine constitution^' In'the case, of most people the body s a very" exquisite alcoholometer ; its triicturesare changed by it — vital glands, ike the liver and kidney, bloodvessels, oints, digestion, appetite, and sleep are mpaired:; youthfulness is abridged, and ige is accelerated ; muscle is replaced by at, atid mental activity by sloth.