Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - Martha Meir Allen (readict books txt) 📗
- Author: Martha Meir Allen
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In its liquid light,’
has come grandly to our rescue in this crusade against alcohol in the sick room. Water has become a favorite—nay, even a fashionable—medicine! The most conservative physicians freely prescribe it in the very cases where some form of alcohol was the specific so long. To be sure, they give it hot, but we do not object to that, since ‘water hot ne’er made a sot,’ and it cures dyspepsia and all forms of indigestion as whisky never did, but only made believe to; while its external use as a fomentation is banishing alcohol even for old folks’ ‘rheumatiz’ where, as a remedy, it would be likely to make its final stand.
“Farewell, thou cloven-foot, Alcohol! Thou canst no longer hide away in the home-like old camphor bottle, paregoric bottle, peppermint bottle or Jamaica-ginger bottle; and a tender good-by, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, for be it known to you that the wonderful discovery stumbled over for six thousand years has in our day been made, namely, that hot water will soothe the baby’s stomach-aches and the grown people’s pains, and drive out a cold when all else fails. Jubilate! Clear out the cupboard and top shelf of the closet now that the sideboard has gone. Let great Nature have a glance to ‘mother up’ humanity with the medicine, as well as the beverage, brewed in Heaven.”
THE RED CROSS HOSPITAL.A philanthropic young woman, Miss Bettina A. Hofker, entered Mount Sinai Training School for Nurses in 1891. Her desire was to fit herself as a nurse for the poor. After her graduation in 1893, she met Mrs. Charles A. Raymond, a benevolent lady, who offered her pecuniary assistance in her work. Miss Hofker suggested that she would like to institute a Red Cross Hospital and Training School for Nurses. Mrs. Raymond succeeded in interesting others in the proposition. The name of Red Cross however could not be used without permission of the officers of the society bearing that name, but after consultation with Miss Barton, permission was granted. Several years previous to this, Dr. A. Monæ Lesser, Dr. Thomas McNicholl and Dr. Gottlieb Steger had opened a small hospital under the name of St. John’s Institute. This was now amalgamated with the Red Cross, and Dr. George F. Shrady and Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, two of New York’s leading physicians, were requested to act as consulting physicians.
The hospital does not confine itself to service in its building alone, but sends its workers wherever called, to mansion or tenement. The “Sisters” are trained for field service or for any national calamity such as floods, earthquakes, forest fires, epidemics, etc. When neither war nor calamities require their presence, they devote themselves to the service of the needy poor, or wait upon the rich, if called. The heroic service rendered by the surgeons and nurses from this hospital in the Cuban War, brought their work into great prominence.
At the suggestion of Miss Barton, the medical department of the hospital was commissioned to treat diseases without the use of alcoholic liquids.
Dr. Lesser, the executive surgeon, is a German, and of German education, having received his medical education in the Universities of Berlin and Leipsic. In a conversation with a press representative, Dr. Lesser said some time ago:—
“We have been convinced that the use of alcohol can be entirely eliminated from our medical practice, and this has been practically accomplished at the Red Cross Hospital. We find that where stimulants are required, such remedies as caffeine, nitro-glycerine and kolafra take the place of alcohol, and are even more satisfactory. The main use of alcohol is to stimulate the action of the heart in various ailments. The blood is thus forced to the remote parts of the system, and poisonous substances carried away. But, besides serving this good purpose, the drug tears down and ultimately destroys the cellular tissues of the body. A relapse is certain to follow the application. The drugs that I have mentioned serve exactly the same purpose without the disastrous results. We are proving this every day at the Red Cross Hospital.
“Only a few days ago a boy was brought in, apparently at the point of death. He was put into bed and watched by the nurse. After a little ammonia had been given to him as a stimulant, he unconsciously expressed himself to the effect that it was not the same as they gave him in another place, and gradually when it dawned upon him that no alcohol was administered by the Red Cross, he said, ‘Gin has allers made me better.’ The doctor in charge, who already suspected that the boy was pretending illness for the sake of the drink, was not surprised an hour or two afterwards to learn that he had demanded his clothes, dressed himself, and left the hospital most ungratefully, but apparently quite well.”
Dr. George F. Shrady, one of the consulting physicians, is famous as having been in attendance upon both President Garfield and President Grant. He is the editor of the Medical Record, one of the most important medical journals published in America. While not a non-alcoholic physician, he says of the medical use of intoxicants:—
“There is altogether too much looseness among physicians in prescribing alcohol. It is a dangerous drug. There is much more alcohol used by physicians than is necessary, and it does great harm. Whisky is not a preventive; it prevents no disease whatever, contrary to a current notion. Another thing, we physicians get blamed wrongfully in many cases. People who want to drink, and do drink, often lay it on to the physician who prescribed it. * * * * * I think that in most cases where alcohol is now used, other drugs with which we are familiar could be used with far better effect, and with no harmful results.”
Dr. Steger, another physician of the staff, says:—
“I don’t use alcohol at all in my practice. I used to use it, but my observation has been that other drugs do the same work without the harmful results. Alcohol over-stimulates the heart, and tears down the cellular tissues of the system, besides causing other deleterious effects. The use of alcohol is simply a superstition among physicians. They have used it so long that they think they always must. I am not a total abstainer, but that only shows that I take better care of my patients than I do of myself. It is not good for a healthy man to drink, but sometimes folks like myself do things which had better be left undone. I have seen patients in hospitals made absolutely drunk by their physicians.”
The following interesting items in regard to practice in this hospital are culled from the report of 1897:—
“Temperature was never reduced by active drugs known as antipyretics.
“Water was allowed freely after all kinds of surgical operations and in fevers.
“Alcohol was never used as an internal medicine.
“The free use of water in saline solutions directly injected into the tissues was found of great service. Quarts have been injected that way with most satisfactory results.
“Antipyretics were altogether discarded as it is well known that their action diminishes the tone of the heart. Artificial reduction of temperature only deludes one into the belief that the drug has improved the condition of the patient, while in reality, it has no beneficial influence on the disease, and has reduced the vital resistance of the patient. In no case has high temperature harmed a patient and there was every evidence that in some instances a high temperature was preferable to a low one.
“Special attention has been given to the use of alcohol in disease, not with any desire to approve or disapprove it, but solely for the purpose of discovering the truth, for nothing seems of greater public interest from a medical standpoint than the truth regarding a subject for which so many virtues are claimed on the one hand, and so many destructive elements proven on the other. * * * * *
“We criticise the treatment of no institution, antagonize no school of medicine, claim no unusual or peculiar scientific virtue, but what we do maintain and insist upon is this: that the human body may be ever so afflicted, ever so reduced, the heart ever so feeble, and the spark of life ever so dim, the conscientious student of medicine can secure as good results without as with administration of antipyretics, sparkling wines, beers or liquors.
“Experience teaches that true science does not antagonize nature. In surgical cases, in septicæmia, in pneumonia, or in any of the fevers, water freely administered has proven to be a real source of comfort, and an aid to recovery. It is amazing how favorably diseases terminate under this beneficent beverage. The withholding of food does not retard, but rather hastens convalescence.
“In the conduct of our Red Cross patients, irrespective of their condition when admitted, it can be truly said that after treatment began, delirium has not been witnessed in a single instance, and as our hospital reports indicate, our mortality has been unusually small.
“Alcohol has not figured as a life-saver in our institution. Cases of extreme collapse following major operations, cases of pneumonia, where the pulse ranged from 160 to 220, patients suffering from pernicious anæmia, septicæmia, pyæmia, cholera infantum and typhoid fever, some of whom when first seen were in the worst stages of delirium and collapse have without alcohol regained consciousness, overcome delirium and made excellent recoveries.
“The following cases very forcibly illustrate the results of non-alcoholic treatment:—
“Case No. 1. A child, aged nine months, under treatment for six days for pneumonia, came under our notice on the seventh day. The temperature was 106 5-10; pulse was 220; respirations 90. Whisky, which had been given previously to the extent of two ounces daily, was stopped. Carbonate of ammonia, caffeine salicylate, nitro-glycerine and 1-10 of a drop of aconite were given internally; camphorated lard applied externally; with the result that on the ninth day temperature stood 99; pulse 100; respiration 20. The child made a complete recovery.
“Case No. 2. L. was a child aged eight months, suffering from a very violent attack of entero-colitis. For three weeks previous to coming under our notice the patient received brandy, stimulating foods and alkaline mixtures. Fearfully emaciated, temperature 106, feeble pulse 182, frequent bloody discharges from the bowels, numbering as much as thirty in a day and constant vomiting, the child was considered beyond hope. Under these circumstances, and at this time we first saw her. Brandy and all foods were stopped; bowel flushings were given, 1-12 of a drop of tincture of aconite was administered every half hour and salicylate of caffeine every two hours. In twenty-four hours the temperature was 105 and the pulse 160. In two days, temperature was 102 and the pulse 140. In one week, temperature was 99 5-10, pulse 110. In three weeks, the patient was discharged cured.
“Case No. 3. Mrs. C., aged forty-three, who had been under treatment for
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