Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - Martha Meir Allen (readict books txt) 📗
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Depression of Spirits:—“Learn the Delsarte exercise for the ‘blues,’ and practice them daily. Hot air baths. Avoid rich food. Take out-door exercise.”
Diarrhœa:—“This is a symptom of the presence of an irritant of which the stomach is trying to be rid. Do not arrest it prematurely, but assist it. If it persists, arrowroot, or corn starch, or flour, mixed with cold water to the consistency of cream may be taken, a tablespoonful at a time. 2. Bread charcoal with cold milk. 3. A tablespoonful of cinnamon water with a teaspoonful of lime water, mixed, every one, two or three hours. Smaller dose for a child. Diet should be confined to toast, milk toast, milk, cold or boiled. Tea, broth, meat, etc., are sure to renew the trouble. Diarrhœa in infants is generally due to errors in feeding, either over-feeding or the use of improper kinds of food. Boiled milk thickened with flour is a simple remedy in light cases. Alcoholics are utterly unnecessary in diarrhœa, and to order them for young children is quite wrong. A full enema of water, as hot as can be borne, will remove offending substances from the bowels.
“Beware of diarrhœa medicines containing opium in any form. They are unnecessary and dangerous, particularly for young children.”
Dysentery:—“At the beginning of the disease the stomach should be relieved by the use of a large warm-water emetic. The quantity of food should be restricted to the smallest amount compatible with comfort. Ripe fruits, especially grapes, and most stewed fruits, may be used in abundance to keep the bowels regular. Salads, spices and other condiments, fats and fried foods should be strictly avoided, together with tea, coffee, alcoholics and all other narcotics.
“The diet should consist chiefly of simple soups, well boiled oatmeal gruel, egg beaten with water or milk, and similar foods. In many cases regulation of the diet is sufficient. Either the hot or the cold enema may be employed.
“The use of opium, which is exceedingly common in this disease, is not advisable, as it produces a feverish condition of the system, decidedly prejudicial to recovery. Herroner, an eminent German physician, very strongly discourages the use of opium in this disease.”—Dr. J. H. Kellogg.
Dyspepsia:—“It is commonly supposed that a little good whisky or brandy aids digestion, while on the contrary it has been proved conclusively by observing the processes of digestion upon persons who have fistula of the stomach, or by evacuating the contents of the stomach by means of a stomach-pump about an hour after taking a meal—in one instance after taking an ounce of alcohol, and in another where no alcohol was taken—that alcohol coagulates the albuminoids, throws down the pepsin, decreases the acidity (the combined chlorin and free hydrochloric acid), and increases the fixed chlorids. Any one can make the observation upon himself, that a meal taken without alcohol is more quickly followed by hunger than one with it.
“Blumenau says: ‘On the whole, alcohol manifests a decidedly unfavorable influence on the course of normal digestion even when ingested in relatively small quantities, and impairs the normal digestive functions.’
“Dr. Chittenden, professor of physiologic chemistry in Yale College, as a result of some investigations made by himself and Dr. Mendel, states in the American Journal of Medical Sciences, that he finds that as small a quantity as three per cent. of sherry, porter, or beer lessens the activity of the digestive powers.”—Bulletin of A. M. T. A.
“It should be observed that doses of alcohol which have no appreciable effect in delaying digestion, are so small as to be practically useless for any beneficial action.”—Medical Pioneer.
One doctor writes:—
“What makes dyspepsia so hard to cure? This very alcohol taking. The best cure is to refuse all alcoholic drinks, at meals and all other times, and drink nothing but water.”
The causes of dyspepsia are various; errors of diet being the most common. Others are mental worry, care and anxiety, and the use of drugs. An eminent writer upon this disease says:
“My main object in the treatment is to prevent the sufferers from resorting to drugs, which in such cases, not only produce their own morbid conditions, but also confirm those already existing.
“The extensive and often habitual use of alkalies for acidity, of purgatives for constipation, nervines and opiates for sleeplessness, and after-dinner pills to goad into action the lagging stomach, has been a potent factor in the production of a large class of most inveterate dyspepsias.”
Underdone bread, cake, and pie, are unfit for any stomach, yet are seen upon many tables. “Breakfast foods,” cooked for ten or twenty minutes, are also dyspepsia producers. All breads, cakes, pies and cereals, require thorough cooking to fit them for digestion. Most cereals are better for supper than for breakfast, as they should be cooked in a double boiler for several hours. A young man, troubled with dyspepsia, learned to his amazement that the oatmeal, which he supposed was his best food, had much to do with the giddiness which often overcame him. He was advised to use dry foods, such as toast, zwieback and shredded wheat. This diet, together with the abandonment of nostrums, led to a cure. Zwieback is bread sliced, and dried in a moderate oven until light brown. Whole wheat bread is best. It is very delicious and is quite easily digested. In the case of the young man, it is probable that the difficulty with the oatmeal was the lack of sufficient cooking. Oatmeal made into gruel, well cooked, and diluted with a large quantity of scalded milk is easy of digestion.
Eating between meals, and excess in eating, lead to stomach derangement.
“The best remedy for acidity of the stomach is hot-water drinking. Two or three glasses should be taken as hot as can be sipped, one hour before each meal, and half an hour before going to bed. The effect of the hot water is to wash out the stomach, and so remove any fermenting remains of the previous meal. Heartburn may be treated the same as acidity.”
Persons troubled with slow digestion are better to eat only two meals a day. The writer has personal knowledge of a goodly number of women who have been benefited wonderfully by adopting the two meal a day plan.
Some persons, much troubled with dyspepsia, have adopted the plan of prolonged fasting advocated by Dr. Dewey, and testify to a cure by this method. While heroic, it is certainly more rational than drug treatment. For acute dyspepsia a fast is requisite.
All that alcoholics can do for dyspepsia is to allay the uneasy sensations for a time, while adding to the trouble. It has been abundantly proved that alcohol must pass from the stomach before digestion can begin.
Dr. Ridge says:—
“Many cases which seem to be relieved by the use of beer are really benefited by the hop, or other bitter, which the ale or beer contains. Hop tea is a useful stomachic, and a quarter of a pint, or half that quantity, may be taken cold. It is made in the same way as tea, using a handful of hops to a pint of boiling water. Make fresh every day.”
Dr. Kellogg says:—
“In cases of chronic dyspepsia the use of alcohol seems to be particularly deleterious, although not infrequently prescribed, if not in the form of alcohol or ordinary alcoholic liquors, in the form of some so-called ‘bitters,’ ‘elixir’ or ‘cordial.’ Nothing could be further removed from the truth than the popular notion that alcohol, at least in the form of certain wines, is helpful to digestion. Roberts showed, years ago, that alcohol even in small doses, diminishes the activity of the stomach in the digestion of proteids. Gluzinski showed, ten years ago, that alcohol causes an arrest in the secretion of pepsin, and also of its action upon food. Wolff showed that the habitual use of alcohol produces disorder of the stomach to such a degree as to render it incapable of responding to the normal excitation of the food. Hugounencq found that all wines, without exception, prevent the action of pepsin upon proteids. The most harmful are those which contain large quantities of alcohol, cream of tartar or coloring matter. Wines often contain coloring matters which at once completely arrest digestion, such as methylin blue and fuchsin.
“A few years ago I made a series of experiments in which I administered alcohol in various forms with a test meal, noting the effect upon the stomach fluid as determined by the accurate chemic examination of the method of Hayem and Winter. The result of these experiments I reported at the 1893 meeting of the American Medical Temperance Association. The subject of experiment was a healthy young man whose stomach was doing a slight excess of work, the amount of combined chlorin being nearly fifty per cent. above normal, although the amount of free hydrochloric acid was normal in quantity. Four ounces of claret with the ordinary test meal reduced the free hydrochloric acid from 28 milligrams per 100 c. c. of stomach fluid to zero, and the combined chlorin from .270 to .125. In the same case the administration of two ounces of brandy with the ordinary test meal reduced the combined chlorin to .035, scarcely more than one eighth of the original amount, the free hydrochloric acid remaining at zero. Thus it appears that four ounces of claret produced marked hypopepsia in a case of moderate hyperpepsia, whereas two ounces of brandy produced practically apepsia.”
Fainting or Syncope:—The following letter from the late Sir B. W. Richardson was addressed to a lady who had sought the great physician’s advice on the subject:—
“25 Manchester Square, W., July 18, 1896.
“Dear Madam: There is no substance which acts as a substitute for alcohol, nor is anything like it wanted. The human body is a water engine, as I have often described it, and alcohol plays no part in its natural motion. The idea that when it begins to fail, a stimulant has to be called for, springs merely from habit, and if, whenever any of the symptoms of fainting you speak of occur, the person merely lies down on the side or back and drinks a glass of hot water, or hot milk and water, all that can be done is done. In the London Temperance Hospital I have been treating the sick for diseases of all kinds and during all stages, and have never administered a minim of alcohol, or any substitute for it, and we have got on better than when I—feeling it at all times at command—made use of it in the ordinary way.
“I am, dear Madam, faithfully yours,
“B. W. Richardson.”
Treatment:—“Lay the patient down in a current of air with the feet raised higher than the head, preferably on one side in case of sickness occurring, or bend the head down to the knees, to restore the flow of blood to the brain. Loosen all clothing. Rub the limbs, chest and over the heart with the hand or a rough towel. Sprinkle cold water on the head and face. Smell ammonia, strong vinegar, smelling salts or any pungent odor. Put hot bottles to the feet, and in severe cases a
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