Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why
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This knowledge encouraged those possessing it so that they began to refuse alcoholics as remedies in their own households, and rarely did they find physicians unwilling or unable to supply another agent when asked to do so, and thousands of women can now testify to the fact of having recovered from ill health without the wine, beer or brandy they were advised to take. So the W. C. T. U. discovered several good reasons for opposing alcohol in medicine.
1. Its liability to create or revive an uncontrollable appetite.
2. A considerable number of the leading physicians of America and of Great Britain discard it from their list of remedies, considering it harmful rather than helpful.
3. The lessened mortality consequent upon its entire disuse demonstrated by the London Temperance Hospital.
4. By their own experience they knew that alcohol is not necessary to the restoration of health, nor to the upbuilding of strength.
The first active work touching the medical use of alcohol was a memorial from the National W. C. T. U. to the International Medical Congress of 1876, which met in Washington, D. C. This memorial was suggested by Miss Frances E. Willard, and co-operated in by the National Temperance Society. It asked for a deliverance from the Congress upon alcohol as a food and as a medicine.
The Congress was divided into sections for the more thorough discussion of the various topics. Upon the program was a paper on “The Therapeutic Value of Alcohol as Food, and as a Medicine,” by Ezra M. Hunt, M. D., delegate from the New Jersey Medical Society. This paper was read before the “Section on Medicine,” and, after earnest discussion, the conclusions of the author were adopted “quite unanimously” as the sentiments of the Section on Medicine. As such they were reported for acceptance to the General Congress, and by it ordered to be transmitted as a reply to the memorialists.
The report was published in full by the National Temperance Society, and may be obtained from it in paper binding for twenty-five cents. As it makes a book of 137 pages the conclusions only will be quoted here. They are as follows: —
1. “Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food value by any of the usual methods of chemical analysis or physiological investigation.
2. “Its use as a medicine is chiefly that of a cardiac stimulant, and often admits of substitution.
3. “As a medicine it is not well fitted for self-prescription by the laity, and the medical profession is not accountable for such administration, or for the enormous evil arising therefrom.
4. “The purity of alcoholic liquors is in general not as well assured as that of articles used for medicine should be. The various mixtures when used as medicine should have definite and known composition, and should not be interchanged promiscuously.”
It is matter for sincere regret that this deliverance was not, in some way, brought prominently before every physician in the land. There are, doubtless, thousands of physicians who never heard of it, and, consequently have never been influenced by it to doubt the utility of the popular brandy bottle.
In 1883 Mrs. Mary Towne Burt, President of New York State W. C. T. U., in her annual address, suggested that a department of work be created to endeavor to induce physicians to not prescribe alcohol, unless in such cases as allowed of the use of no other agent. Mrs. (Rev.) J. Butler, of Fairport, was the first superintendent of this department, which was named, “Influencing Physicians to not Prescribe Alcoholics as Medicines.” The National W. C. T. U. adopted the department in 1883, but soon dropped it. In 1895 it was reinstated and Mrs. Martha M. Allen, New York’s superintendent, was made national superintendent. In 1905 the name of the department was changed from Non-Alcoholic Medication, which it had borne for fifteen years, to Medical Temperance.
The objects of this department of work are:
1. To inform the public of the objections to the medical use of alcoholic drinks now held by many successful physicians.
2. To show the dangers in the home-prescription of alcohol and other powerful drugs.
3. To expose fraudulent and dangerous proprietary and “patent” medicines and liquid “foods,” the main ingredients of which are alcohol and morphine.
4. To use persuasion with publishers of newspapers and magazines against fraudulent medical advertising. Also to seek legislation which shall hinder such advertising.
5. To endeavor to win the attention of physicians who prescribe alcoholic liquors to the teachings of great leaders in their profession who have abandoned such practice.
6. To bring to the attention of nurses the same teachings, and to seek their co-operation in education against the self-prescription of alcohol.
7. To work for legislation which shall correct the evils of the whisky drug-store, the whisky-prescribing doctor, and the dangerous “patent” medicine.
8. To gather the opinions upon alcohol of well-known physicians who do not use it, and publish them.
This department originated the public agitation against injurious and fraudulent “patent” medicines which later was so ably carried on by Collier’s Weekly, and the Ladies’ Home Journal. That its early work in this direction was not better known to the general public was due to the fact that religious as well as secular papers were reaping large revenues from the advertising of these nostrums, and consequently refused to publish anything which might injure the trade. Indeed, in accepting some of this advertising, newspaper managers had to sign a contract that they would not publish any reading matter opposed to the nostrum business.
The Christian Advocate of New York city deserves special mention for having published in 1898 two articles written by Mrs. Allen under the caption, “The Danger and Harmfulness of Patent Medicines.” These were in the fall of that year published in pamphlet form, and a copy sent to every local W. C. T. U. in the United States for study. Tens of thousands of copies of this and other leaflets on that theme were distributed within a few years, some local unions placing them in every home in their community. Medical journals took note of this work and commended it highly. When Mr. Bok began his campaign of education in the Ladies’ Home Journal, for which he deserves lasting gratitude, the American Druggist said he was “bowing to the clamor of the W. C. T. U.”
This department which began in weakness, and was for years regarded as fanatical even by many members of the W. C. T. U. has entered upon an era of victories. The National Pure Food Law requires the percentage of alcohol in patent medicines, and the presence of different dangerous drugs, to be stated upon the label. The prohibition law of Georgia forbids physicians to prescribe alcoholic beverages, absolute alcohol only being permitted. Kansas has amended her law so that whisky drug-stores are eliminated. If physicians prescribe alcohol the law forbids charge for it. Alabama forbids the sale of liquor for everything but the communion. The Internal Revenue Department has examined a large number of “patent” medicines and has listed them as intoxicating beverages. Two state medical societies and some county societies in 1908 passed resolutions to discourage the medical use of alcoholic liquors. Two national societies of druggists and pharmacists in 1908 passed resolutions against whiskey drug-stores.
These are some of the results of Medical Temperance agitation. Much more may be expected in the next decade if the work is as faithfully and fearlessly carried on as in the past.
This book contains much of the teachings of the department of Medical Temperance. When these views are generally accepted the liquor-problem will be well-nigh solved.
CHAPTER III.
ALCOHOL AS A PRODUCER OF DISEASE
That alcohol is a poison is attested by all chemists and other scientific men; taken undiluted it destroys the vitality of the tissues of the body with which it comes in contact as readily as creosote, or pure carbolic acid. The term intoxicating applied to beverages containing it refers to its poisonous nature, the word being derived from the Greek toxicon, which signifies a bow or an arrow; the barbarians poisoned their arrows, hence, toxicum in Latin was used to signify poison; from this comes the English term toxicology, which is the science treating of poisons. Druggists in selling proof spirits usually label the bottle, “Poison.” Apart from the testimony of science in regard to its poisonous nature, it is commonly known that large doses of brandy or whisky will speedily cause death, particularly in those unaccustomed to their use. The newspapers frequently contain items regarding the death of children who have had access to whisky, and drunk freely of it. Cases are reported, too, of men, habituated to drink, who after tossing off several glasses of brandy at the bar of a saloon have suddenly dropped dead.
Dr. Mussey says: —
“A poison is that substance, in whatever form it may be, which, when applied to a living surface, disconcerts and disturbs life’s healthy movements. It is altogether distinct from substances which are in their nature nutritious. It is not capable of being converted into food, and becoming a part of the living organs. We all know that proper food is wrought into our bodies; the action of animal life occasions a constant waste, and new matter has to be taken in, which, after digestion, is carried into the blood, and then changed; but poison is incapable of this. It may indeed be mixed with nutritious substances, but if it goes into the blood, it is thrown off as soon as the system can accomplish its deliverance, if it has not been too far enfeebled by the influence of the poison. Such a poison is alcohol – such in all its forms mix it with what you may.”
Dr. Nathan S. Davis said in an address given in 1891: —
“When largely diluted with water, as it is in all the varieties of fermented and distilled liquids, and taken into the stomach, it is rapidly imbibed, or taken up by the capillary vessels and carried into the venous blood, without having undergone any digestion or change in the stomach. With the blood it is carried to every part, and made to penetrate every tissue of the living body, where it has been detected by proper chemical tests as unchanged alcohol, until it has been removed through the natural process of elimination, or lost its identity by molecular combination with the albuminous elements of the blood and tissues, for which it has a strong affinity.
“The most varied and painstaking experiments of chemists and physiologists, both in this country and Europe, have shown conclusively that the presence of alcohol in the blood diminishes the amount of oxygen taken up through the air-cells of the lungs; retards the molecular and metabolic changes of both nutrition and waste throughout the system and diminishes the sensibility and action of the nervous structures in direct proportion to the quantity of alcohol present. By its stronger affinity for water and albumen, with which it readily unites in all proportions, it so alters the hemaglobin of the blood as to lessen its power to take the oxygen from the air-cells of the lungs and carry it as oxyhemaglobia to all the tissues of the body; and by the same affinity it retards all atomic or molecular changes in the muscular, secretory and nervous structures; and in the same ratio it diminishes the elimination of carbon-dioxide, phosphates, heat and nerve force. In other words, its presence diminishes all the physical phenomena of life.
“I say, then, that from the facts hitherto adduced, whether from accurate experimental investigations in different countries, from the pathological results developed in the most scientific societies, from the most reliable statistics of sickness and mortality, as influenced by occupations and social habits, or from the life insurance records kept on a uniform basis through periods of ten, twenty, thirty or even forty years, it is clearly shown that alcohol when taken into the human system not only acts upon the nervous system, perverting its sensibility, and, if increased in quantity, causing intoxication or insensibility, but it also, even in small quantities, lessens the oxygenation and decarbonization of the blood and retards the molecular changes in the structures of the body. When these effects are continued through months and years, as in the most temperate class of drinkers, they lead to permanent structural changes, most prominently in the liver, kidneys, stomach, heart, blood-vessels and nerve structures, and lessen the natural duration of life in the aggregate from ten to fifteen years. Consequently there is no greater, nor more destructive error existing in the public mind than the belief that the use of fermented and distilled drinks does no harm so long as they do not intoxicate.
“Another popular error is the opinion that the substitution of the different varieties of beer and wine in the place of distilled liquors promotes temperance, and lessens the evil effects of alcohol on the health and morals of those who use them. Accurate investigations show that beer and wine drinkers generally consume more alcohol per man than the spirit drinkers; and while they are not as often intoxicated, they suffer fully as much from diseases and premature death as do those who use distilled spirits. Again, the beer drinker drinks more nearly every day, and thereby keeps some alcohol in his blood more constantly; while a large percentage of spirit drinkers drink only periodically, leaving considerable intervals of abstinence, during which the tissues regain nearly their natural condition. The more constant and persistent is the presence of alcohol in the blood and the tissues, even in moderate quantity, the more certainly does it lead to perverted and degenerative changes in the tissues, ending in renal (kidney) and hepatic (liver)dropsies, cardiac (heart) failures, gout, apoplexy and paralysis.”
Sir B. W. Richardson says: —
“Alcohol produces many diseases; and it constantly happens that persons die of diseases which have their origin solely in the drinking of alcohol, while the cause itself is never for a moment suspected. A man may say quite truthfully that he never was tipsy in the whole course of his life; and yet it is quite possible that such a man may die of disease caused by the alcohol he has taken, and by no other cause whatever. This is one of the most dreadful evils of alcohol, that it kills insidiously, as if it were doing no harm, or as if it were doing good, while it is destroying life. Another great evil of it is that it assails so many different parts of the body. It hardly seems credible at first sight that the same agent can give rise to the many different kinds of diseases it does give rise to. In fact, the universality of its action has blinded even learned men as to its potency for destruction.
“Step by step, however, we have now discovered that its modes of action are all very simple, and are all the same in character; and that the differences that have been and are seen in different persons under its influence are due mainly to the organs, or organ, which first give way under it. Thus, if the stomach gives way first, we say that the person has indigestion or dyspepsia, or failure of the stomach; if the brain gives way first, we say the person has paralysis, or apoplexy, or brain disease; if the liver gives way first, we say the man has liver disease, and so on.
“All persons who indulge much in any form of alcoholic drink are troubled with indigestion. When they wake in the morning they find their mouth dry, their tongue coated, and their appetite bad. In course of time they become confirmed ‘dyspeptics,’ and as many of them find a temporary relief from the distress at the stomach, and the deficient appetite from which they suffer by taking more liquor, they increase the quantity taken, and so make matters much worse. * * * * *
“There are a great number of diseases caused by alcohol, some of which are known by terms that do not convey to the mind what really has been the cause of the diseases.” They are:
(a) Diseases of the brain and nervous system: indicated by such names as apoplexy, epilepsy, paralysis, vertigo, softening of the brain, delirium tremens, loss of memory and that general failure of the mental power called dementia. (b) Diseases of the lungs: one form of consumption, congestion and subsequent bronchitis. (c) Diseases of the heart: irregular beat, feebleness of the muscular walls, dilation, disease of the valves. (d) Diseases of the blood: scurvy, dropsy, separation of fibrine. (e) Diseases of the stomach: feebleness of the stomach and indigestion, flatulency, irritation and sometimes inflammation. (f) Diseases of the bowels: relaxation or purging, irritation. (g) Diseases of the liver: congestion, hardening and shrinking cirrhosis. (h) Diseases of the kidneys: change of structure into fatty or waxy-like condition and other changes leading to dropsy. (i) Diseases of the muscles: fatty changes in the muscles, by which they lose their power for proper active contraction. (j) Diseases of the membranes of the body: thickening and loss of elasticity, by which the parts wrapped up in the membrane are impaired for use, and premature decay is induced.
But it constantly happens that when deaths from these diseases are recorded and alcohol has been the primary cause, some other cause is believed to have been at work.
While drinking parents by virtue of a strong constitution sometimes escape the penalty of their bibulous habit, it is not uncommon to see their children suffering from some disease or nervous weakness such as is caused by alcohol, “the sins of the father being visited upon the children.”
Erasmus Darwin says upon this point: —
“It is remarkable that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation, gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family become extinct.”
Prof. Christison, of Edinburgh, in answer to inquiries from the Massachusetts State Board of Health, says of general diseases due to alcohol: —
“I recognize certain diseases which originate in the vice of drunkenness alone, which are delirium tremens, cirrhosis of the liver, many cases of Bright’s disease of the kidneys, and dipsomania, or insane drunkenness.
“Then I recognize many other diseases in regard to which excess in alcoholics acts as a powerful predisposing cause, such as gout, gravel, aneurism, paralysis, apoplexy, epilepsy, cystitis, premature incontinence of urine, erysipelas, spreading cellular inflammation, tendency of wounds and sores to gangrene, inability of the constitution to resist the attacks of epidemics. I have had a fearful amount of experience of continued fever in our infirmary during many epidemics, and in all my experience I have only once known an intemperate man of forty and upwards to recover.”
Professor Christison also claims that three-fourths, or even four-fifths, of Bright’s disease in Scotland is produced by alcohol.
Dr. C. Murchison, in speaking of alcohol as a preventive of disease, says: —
“There is no greater error than to imagine that a liberal allowance of alcoholic liquids fortifies the system against contagious diseases.”
In a paper read before the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, Oct. 22, 1872, Dr. W. Dickinson gave the following conclusions: —
“Alcohol causes fatty infiltration and fibrous encroachments; it engenders tubercles; encourages suppuration, and retards healing; it produces untimely atheroma (a form of fatty degeneration of the inner coats of the arteries), invites hemorrhage, and anticipates old age. The most constant fatty changes, replacement by oil of the material of epithelial cells and muscular fibres, though probably nearly universal, is most noticeable in the liver, the heart and the kidneys. Drink causes tuberculosis, which is evident not only in the lungs, but in every amenable organ.”
Dr. William Hargreaves says: —
“Brandy is not a prophylactic. To the temperate it is an active, exciting cause. It is well known that a single act of intemperance during the prevalence of cholera, will often produce a fatal attack. The sense of warmth and irritation (called stimulation) produced by alcoholic liquors, has led to the erroneous notion that they may prevent cholera. But the contrary we have seen is the truth, for the effects of alcoholics are to reduce the temperature of the body, and instead of stimulating, they narcotize, and reduce the life-forces, and predispose the system to all kinds of disease.”
The following testimonies are culled from the writings of eminent physicians: —
Sir Andrew Clark, M. D., F. R. C. P., London, Physician in Ordinary to the Queen, Senior Physician at the London Hospital: “As I looked at the hospital wards to-day, and saw that seven out of ten owed their diseases to alcohol, I could but lament that the teaching about this question is not more direct, more decisive and more home-thrusting. * * * * * Can I say to you any words stronger than these of the terrible effects of alcohol? When I think of this I am disposed to give up my profession, and go forth upon a holy crusade, preaching to all men —Beware of this enemy of the race.”
Sir William Gull, F. R. S. (late Physician to her Majesty): “I should say, from my experience, that alcohol is the most destructive agent that we are aware of in this country. I would like to say that a very large number of people in society are dying day by day, poisoned by alcohol, but not supposed to be poisoned by it.”
Dr. Abernethy: “If people will leave off drinking alcohol, live plainly, and take very little medicine they will find that many disorders will be relieved by this treatment alone.”
Dr. Forel, of the University of Zurich, Switzerland: “Life is considerably shortened by the use of alcohol in large quantities. But a moderate consumption of the same also shortens life by an average of five to six years. This is consistently and unequivocally seen in the statistics kept for thirty years by English insurance companies, with special sections for abstainers. They give a large discount, and still make more profit, as not nearly so many deaths occur as might be expected under the usual calculations. According to federal statistics in the fifteen largest towns of Switzerland, over ten per cent. of the men over twenty years of age die solely, or partly of alcoholism.”
Dr. J. H. Kellogg, Battle Creek, Mich.: “Every organ feels the effect of the abuse through indulgence in alcohol, and no function is left undisturbed. By degrees, disordered function, through long continuance of the disturbance, induces tissue change. The most common form of organic or structural disease due to alcohol is fatty degeneration, which may effect almost every organ in the body. * * * * * No class of persons are so subject to nervous diseases due to degeneration of nerves and nerve-centres as drinkers. Partial or general paralysis, locomotor ataxia, epilepsy and a host of other nervous disorders, are directly traceable to the use of alcohol.”
One of the visiting physicians of Bellevue Hospital, New York, states that at least two-thirds of all the diseases treated there originated in drink.
Dr. W. A. Hammond: “It is of all causes most prolific in exciting derangements of the brain, the spinal cord, and the nerves.”
CHAPTER IV.
TEMPERANCE HOSPITALS
THE LONDON TEMPERANCE HOSPITALIn 1865 Dr. S. Nicholls, medical officer of the Longford Poor-law Union, published a report of the results of non-alcoholic treatment of disease as practiced by him for sixteen years in the institutions under his control. The figures for 1865 were: —
The treatment was altogether without wines, spirits or alcohol in any form.
The death-rate reported by Dr. Nicholls was so small that some of the more observing and progressive physicians were led by it to begin similar experiments in the disuse of alcohol in other hospitals. Among these was Dr. James Edmunds, senior physician at the Lying-In Hospital, London. The experiments continued a year with a reduced death-rate among both mothers and children. But the great brewers of London, who contributed largely to the support of this hospital raised such a storm of opposition to the discontinuance of alcoholic liquors that the experiments had to be abandoned.