MEDICAL TEMPERANCE.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 243, 18 September 1915, Page 4

MEDICAL TEMPERANCE.

Objects of the Department. 1. To inform the public of the objections to the medical use of alcoholic liquors now held by the majority of successful physicians. 2. To snow the dangers in the home-prescription of alcohol and other powerful drugs. p To expose fraudulent and dangerous proprietary or “patent” medicines, medicated wines and liquid “foods,” the main ingredient of which is alcohol. 4. To endeavour to w in the attention of physicians who prescribe alcoholic liquo;„ to the teachings of great leaders in their profession who have abandoned such practice, and to gain their co-operation in educating the public against the common views of the beneficial effects of alcoholic liquors 5. To bring to the attention of nurses the same teachings, and to ask their co-operation in education against the self prescription of alcohol. fi. To use persuasion with publishers of newspapers and magazines against fraudulent medical advertising, and the advertising of “soft drinks” containing habit-producing drugs, such as caffeine, and extract of coca. 7. To work for legislation whi» h shall ‘ correct the evils of the whisky drug store, the whisky-prescribing doctor, and the dangerous “patent” medicine. Medical Temperance Leaflets. Post Free.) Safe Remedies in Illness, Sd per doz. Medical Temperance Quiz, ad per doz. Alcohol Injures Children, 4d per doz.

Trained Nurses and Alcohol, 4d per do*. The Appeal of the Ins.me to the Nursing Profession, 4d per do?. What Can Nurses Do for I'emperanix ? 4d per doz. Alcohol the Young Man’s Greatest Enemy, 4d per doz. Alcohol Drinking Hinders Business Success, 4d per doz. West Virginia Medical Society Against Alcohol, 4d per doz. Medical Men and the Alcohol Question, 4d per doz. Alcoholic Degeneracy, 4d per dozKecent Medical Opinions and Find ings upon Alcohol, 4<l per doz. Save the Babies, 4d per doz. How the Medical Temperance Dept, of the W.C.T.U. Can Help to Bring National Prohibition, 4d per doz. Why Headache Remedies are Dangerous, 4d per doz. Alcohol and Nursing Mothers, 4d ncr doz. Jiou to Avoid Constipation, 4d per doz. Do Weak Hearts Need Alcohol? 4d per doz. Does Alcohol Aid Digestion. 4d per doz. Special Medical Directions for Women, 4d per doz. Alcohol and Tuberculosis, 4d per doz. A New York Physician’s Arraignment of Alcohol, 4d per doz. Should Pledged Abstainers use Alcohol as Medicine? 4d per doz. Medicated Wines an F.asy Road to Drunkenness, 4d per doz How Drunkards Are Made in the Home. 4d per doz. A Patent Medicine Quiz, 4d per doz. Medical Opinions of Alcohol as a Remedy in Disease, 4d per doz. Does the Drug Habit iead to Health or to Disease? 4d per doz. Deaths, Poisoning, anc. Drug Habits Result from Taking Patent Medicines, 3d per doz. Why Patent Medicines Should Not be Advertised or Sold, 3d p *r doz. British Doctors Oppose Alcohol, 3d b* per doi. Alcohol Shortens Life, 3d per doz. 41 Alcohol Baths, 2d per doz. Whv a Lord Mayor of London is a Total Abstainer, 2d per doz. North Carolina Doctors Against A 1 cohol, 2d per doz.

Dear Fellow-Workers, — By the list given above you will notice that our World’s Superintendent has prepared several new leaflets. I ask each member to do her utmost to put these into circulation. The commercial world has at last awakened to the fact that alcohol drinking lowers the efficiency of the individual, but we still have to fight the old idea that aleohol is needed in illness. People who believe that alcoholic liquors are helpful in sickness are not likely to vote against the manufacture and sale of such liquot* From hospital statistics we learn that alcoholic liquors are being used less each year in the best hospitals,

because physicians have found that their patients are more likely to recover from disease if no alcohol is given. We learn, too, that alcohol is no longer regarded as a heart stimulant, but is classed as a depressant, and that instead of being ranked as a Food, as it was formerly, it is now classed as a narcotic poison by close students of its effects. As one medical writer puts it: “There is no use in studying the action of alcohol on ourselves, as it blunts our perceptions, and renders us unable to depend on our feelings. People feel that alcohol warms them, and yet the thermometer shows that they are really colder. People feel that they are doing more Work when thev are taking alcohol, yet the result shows they are doing less. People feel that alcohol improves their sight, hearing, and other senses, yet experience proves that it really injures them all. Alcohol not only chec ks healthy growth, predisposes to sickness, lessens the length of life, awakes hereditary cravings, and weakens the mental powers, but also deceives, making the injury ar apparent improvement. It is only by education and agitation that we can hope to win the people to favour the annihilation of the traffic in alcohol as beverage and medicine. The two must go together, for as long as liquor is £ flowed to be sold as medicine, so long will there be drunkards, for alcohol < reates craving, no matter what name it is called by.—Yours in White Ribbon bonds, CLARA M. NEAL, Pahiatua, Dom. Supt. Medical Temp. Dept.