ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 372, 18 June 1926, Page 8

ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

SOME DOCTORS OPINIONS.

“Alcohol produces fatty degeneration of the heart, hence cannot he a food to the heart-muscle.” “Alcohol has no place in the treatment of the sick.” “Alcoholic liquors are rarely used as medicine except by foreigners and some of the Drs. in high service.” “Non-alcoholic treatment of pneumonia saves lives.” “Alcohol is passing as a popular remedy.” “Alcohol is rapidly going out of use as a medicine.” “As a medicine alcohol has been a failure.” “1 have seen a patient killed by whisky given to him by a friend In a case of Bright's disease. I seldom hear of liquor being ordered by physicians nowadays.”—Pres. County Med. Assn., New Jersey. “If alcohol users nearly all die when attacked bv pneumonia, as is the case, why use alcohol in trying to cure this disease.” “Increased vitality is mvessary to resist infection. Alcohol lowers vitality. You cannot free the system of disease by clogging it as alcohol will.*’ ,4, n pneumonia the use of alcohol •olds a poison to a system already poisoned by the disease.” “Alcohol is useless and harmful in _ pneumonia. I have not used alcohol In typhoid or pneumonia for 25 yea rs.” “The world would be infinitely better off if then* were no alcoholic liquor in it.” “I believe that alcohol has no important uses in medicine, and I should rejoice to see prohibition come.”—Prof, of Med., Harvard. “Whisky is entirely unnecessary in the treatment of pneumonia excejd in the case of those who have been daily chronic users of alcoholics r f some sort. I do not try to reform these men during a serious pneumonia. but apart from this, in a practice of over thirty years in Denver I have not made use of alcoholics of any sort in pneumonia because I have not felt that I was increasing my patient’s chances of recovery by their use.”—Dr. Clinton G. Hickey, Denver. Colorado.

“Whisky has no rightful place in the treatment of disease.”— Dr. Oscar Dowling, Shreveport La., Secretary State Roaid of Health.

“I believe there are other drugs which may fully take the place of alcohol.”—Dr. George H. Jones, Secretary Missouri Board of Health.

“I am frank to say that if alcohol ever had any oalue as medicine I do not know what it i.»." —Dr. J. N. Jackson, Kansas City, Missouri.

“There is absolutely no place for alcoholic liquor in any form which cannot Is* replaced by something better and without danger to life or morals.”— Dr. J. R. Bridges, Secretary Clark County Medical Society, Kansas City, Missouri.

“I do not think alcohol necessary and scarcely ever desirable in the treatment of sickness. I am well content with the state law forbidding the sale of whisky as medicine.”

Dr. L. A. Brown, Portland, Maine. “I am glad to say that the laws of our state restricting the use of alcoholics are no handicap in my practice. 1 practiced for twenty years under the impression that whisky or brandy was a necessity in certain cases. I know now that this was entirely erroneous, and for ten years 1 have seen no indication for the internal use of alcohol in sickness.”—Dr. B. R. Veasey, Wilmington. Delaware.

“I feel quite confident that if the bone-dry law existed throughout the country the medical profession woulxi soon find remedies that would serve as well, maybe better, than alcoholic drugs which can be successfully used, meeting all the requirements that liquor was at one time supposed to meet.”- C. I). Bodine, M.D., Portland, Oregan.

“I do not use whisky, brandy or wine in my medical practice, and 1 do not feel that the welfare of my patients has suffered as a consequence of this exclusion.”—Dr. W. Wayne Babcock, Philadelphia. “I never found it necessary to use alcohol in the practice of medicine.” Dr. F. M. Pottinger, Monrovia, California.

“I scarcely, if ever, resort to alcohol in my practice.”—Dr. Sherman G. Bonney, Denver, Colorado. “It is many years since 1 prescribed a dose of alcohol in any form. There is no condition, in my opinion,

in w’hich its use is a benefit.”—Dr. W. F. Milroy, Omaha, Nebraska. “I have not for many years used any alcohol in the treatment of disease, as, in my opinion, its alleged therapeutic effects can l* 1 accomplished very much better by other means.” Dr. Thomas McCleve, Oakland. California.

“In my judgment alcohol has no practical value in the treatment of disease." —Dr. Walter L. Bierring, Des Moines. lowa,

“I very seldom prescribe alcohol. Its use as a medicine is limited and decreasing.”—Dr. H. B. Anderson, Toronto, Canada.

“It is my experience that our state laws regarding the dispensing of alcohol and alcoholic beverages have w'orked no hardship whatever upon any patient of mine. When I need stimulants I have always used other and more positive drugs.”—E. A. Rich, M.D., Tacoma, Washington.

“I have not had a patient in whose case the Oklahama law prohibiting the prescribing of alcohol was, in my opinion, objectionable from a purely scientific point of view'. Aside from the moral and social considerations. I do not see how any fair-minded physician can fail to appreciate the great physical benefits that have come with the lessened consumption of alcohol under prohibition.”—W. A. Fowler, M. 1)., F.A.C.S., Oklahoma City, Ok la.

“1 do nut find that the state law which forbids the sale and prescription of alcohol and alcoholic beverages as medicine is any hind nance to success in my medical practice.” Leo Ricen, M.D., Portland. Oregon.