Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - Martha Meir Allen (readict books txt) 📗
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Of the researches made by Dr. Abbott referred to in the foregoing lecture Dr. N. S. Davis says:—
“Thus we have another and direct positive demonstration of the fact that the presence of alcohol in living bodies not only impairs all the physiological processes, but also impairs their vital resistance to the effects of all other poisons. It was hardly necessary, however, to trouble the rabbits to obtain proof of this; for such evidence may be found in abundance by examining the vital statistics of every civilized country. The late Frank H. Hamilton, in his valuable work on military hygiene, gives an interesting account of an experiment executed, not on a few rabbits, but on whole regiments of human beings, who were being exposed to the inhibition, not of the streptococcus pyogenes, but to the infections of malarial and typho-malaria fever. And, as many were attacked with sickness, it was thought by some of those in authority that if the soldiers were given a specified ration of alcoholic liquor two or three times a day, it might enable them to resist the morbid influences to which they were exposed. The proposed ration was accordingly ordered, and Dr. Hamilton informs us that the soldiers taking the liquor ration succumbed to the morbific influences surrounding them so much more rapidly than before, that in less than sixty days the order was countermanded, and the liquor ration stopped. And that eminent surgeon and sanitarian added, with peculiar emphasis, that he wished never to see the same experiment tried again.”
Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, has learned through his experiments that alcohol not only hinders the leucocytes in their war upon disease germs, but also tends to the multiplication of germs. Of this he says:—
“The antagonism of alcohol to the fundamental functions of life is further exhibited by its action on the cellular elements of living tissues and the free cells or leucocytes of the blood. Dr. Lionel Beale long ago pointed out how it affected the protoplasm of cells, and diminished the movements of amœbae, to which leucocytes are apparently analogous.
“But while alcohol is thus injurious to living protoplasm, or constructive protoplasm as it may be called, that which builds up, and forms all kinds of structures, and living beings of all higher types, I accidentally discovered that in minute quantities, under about one per cent., and even in such almost incredible amounts as 1 part in 100,000, (1/10 millilitre in 10 litres) it favors the growth and multiplication of many microbes whose function is antagonistic to the protoplasm of organized beings, and which may therefore be called destructive protoplasm. We know that these microbes are kept at bay by the vitality of the tissues; if this vitality is lowered they may prevail: as soon as life departs they set to work, and decomposition is the result. It is, therefore, not very surprising that an agent, like alcohol, which, we have seen, lowers the vitality of constructive protoplasm, should, on the other hand increase the vitality of destructive protoplasm. At any rate such is the fact. In the presence of these minute quantities of alcohol, decomposition goes on more rapidly, and the micrococci and bacilli, thrive and swarm more abundantly. This is easily demonstrable by the more rapid, and thicker, cloudiness of any clear decomposable liquor in the course of a day or two, or in a few days, according to circumstances. But I have demonstrated the more rapid multiplication of some forms by means of plate cultivations, of which I show specimens. It is true of the bacteria of decomposition, of the streptococci, and staphylococci of pus, and of diphtheria. Time alone has been wanting to demonstrate this in other cases, which I hope to do.”
The Medical Week some time ago contained this paragraph:—
“Dr. Viala, in collaboration with Dr. Charrin, says: ‘I have carried out a series of researches on the toxicity of various alcoholic beverages in common use, such as wines and brandies of all brands, from those which are reputed the best to those of very inferior quality. All these products have been analyzed with the greatest care. Our experiments were carried out on fifty animals. Intravenous injections confirm Dr. Daremberg’s statement that liquors considered as the best are the most toxic, more particularly as regards their immediate effects.’”
Although the foregoing statement directs the reader’s attention to the comparative effects of different alcoholic liquors, it also plainly implies several facts of great importance. The first is, that all alcoholic liquors, fermented or distilled, are toxic or poisonous; and the more pure alcohol they contain, the more poisonous are they, the qualities of liquor differing only in the rapidity of their injurious effects.
In the same number of the Medical Week, Professor Gréhant states that after injecting a quantity of alcohol into the venous circulation of a dog equal to one twenty-fifth, or four per cent., of the estimated weight of the blood of the animal, he found by several analyses at different times that it required “a little over twenty-three hours for complete elimination of the alcohol from the blood.” If we consider these results obtained by Viala, Charrin, Daremberg and Gréhant, with those obtained by Dr. A. C. Abbott, showing the direct effect of alcohol in diminishing the normal vital resistance of the living body to infection, we see excellent reasons why the liberal use of alcohol in the treatment of such infectious diseases as diphtheria, typhoid fever and pneumonia, under the supposition that it was a cardiac tonic, has resulted in so great a mortality as from thirty to sixty per cent.
Dr. A. Pearce Gould, a London hospital surgeon of the first rank, has made special study of the surgery of the blood-vessels, and of the chest. He was one of the earliest to practice and advocate the careful removal of the axillary glands in all operations for cancer of the breast.
He is a strong believer in the value of total abstinence as promoting robust health of body and mind. He regards the value of alcohol in disease as exceedingly small, and prescribes it only very rarely. He thinks that alcohol increases the activity of cancer and other malignant growths, an opinion which is of great importance from one with such exceptional opportunities for observation in these complaints.
Dr. N. S. Davis in the American Medical Temperance Quarterly of January, 1895, gives reports of cases which came under his observation as a consulting physician, where the use of alcoholics throughout an extended illness favored the continuance of delirium, or mild mental disorder, after convalescence was established. In each case the withdrawal of the alcohol was followed by a cessation of the mental delusion.
One of these cases may be taken as an example:—
“The third case was that of a woman over sixty years of age, who had suffered from a mild grade of fever and protracted diarrhœa, somewhat resembling a mild grade of enteric typhoid fever.
“As she became much reduced in strength during the latter part of her diarrhœa, her friends began to give her wine, and sometimes stronger alcoholic drink, under the popular delusion that these could strengthen her. Her mind soon became wandering, and she was troubled with illusions, which were attributed to her weakness, and the so-called stimulants were increased. But the mental disorder increased also, and continued after the fever and diarrhœa had ceased, until the question was raised concerning the propriety of her removal to an asylum for the insane.
“Being consulted at that time, and listening to an accurate history of the case, I suggested that the anæsthetic effect of the alcohol on the cerebral hemispheres, in connection with its effect on the hemoglobin, and other elements of the blood, in lessening the reception and internal distribution of oxygen, might be the cause of both the perpetuation of her weakness, and her mental disorder. I advised a trial of its entire omission, and the giving of only simple nourishment, and moderate doses of strychnine and digitalis, as nerve tonics. My advice was followed, though not without much hesitation on the part of her friends. The result, however, was entire recovery from the mental disorder, and some improvement in her general health.”
Puerperal mania resulted in one case cited, from the use of a moderate amount of wine at mealtimes; when the wine was abandoned the mania subsided.
CHAPTER XII. WHY DOCTORS STILL PRESCRIBE ALCOHOLICS.Workers in the department of Medical Temperance of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union are told repeatedly by the better class of physicians that they would be glad often not to prescribe alcohol if patients and their friends would not insist upon its use. There is a deep-rooted prejudice in favor of alcohol as a remedy in the minds of the great multitude of people, and they are ready to distrust as fanatical, or incompetent, any physician who does not use it. Dr. Norman Kerr, a well-known physician of England, says, that during a ten years’ residence in America, he found people unwilling to pay him as much for his services as they were willing to pay one who prescribed alcoholics. Even those who were abstainers from liquors as beverages distrusted him for not using these things as medicines. Indeed, this prejudice goes so far with many that they will refuse to employ a non-alcoholic physician, if they know him to be such. In consequence of this latter fact, there are great numbers of skilful physicians who say nothing about alcohol lest they be considered “faddists,” and lose practice, but who never prescribe it unless it is asked for by the patient or his friends.
Again, consulting physicians will sometimes insist upon the use of alcohol, and thus seeds of distrust of the non-alcoholic physician will be sown.
Dr. J. J. Ridge says of medical prescriptions:—
“Hundreds of medical men order alcoholic liquors from habit, from ignorance of their real effect, from fashion, or from a desire to please, or not to offend, their patients. Port-wine is constantly being ordered when persons are recovering from various diseases; day by day they regain their strength, and the port-wine gets all the credit of it, especially since each glass seems to diffuse a comfortable glow over the whole body. They forget that the process of recovery would have gone on without the port, and that hundreds and thousands of people do get well without it. They often ignore the fact that they are taking real tonics in addition. They are misled by the sensations which the alcohol causes; they do not know that it relaxes the blood-vessels instead of improving their tone; that it exhausts the heart by making it beat away more rapidly to no profit. Hence the convalescence is actually more prolonged than it would otherwise be. Gentle exercise, regulated baths, good food, balmy sleep, these are the true restoratives of the exhausted system, and no jugglery with sedatives, such as alcohol, can produce the desired result.
“It is by its sedative action that alcohol has obtained its position in public opinion. It will render persons insensible to various uneasy sensations, and the majority prefer to continue the bad habits which produce the uneasy sensations, and then to take them away by a dose or two of some alcoholic liquor, or, indeed, to take this before the uneasy sensations come on. In this way they do themselves injury and make themselves unconscious of it. Dr. Beaumont, who had the opportunity of examining the interior of Alexis St. Martin’s stomach, and of seeing how digestion went on, was astonished to see how inflamed the mucous membrane could be without any consciousness of it. He
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