CHAPTER III.

STIMULANTS.

Supposed need-Effect of habit-Call out reserve-Medical use no argument -Loose prescriptions-Medical condemnation-Oxford Medical Conference Consensus of opinion-Stimulants not required-Dr. Yeo on Stimulants-Moderation defined-Dr. Parkes on Spirit Ration in Ashantee Campaign-An interesting experiment-Great Western Railway-Anchorsmiths-Arctic experience-Tropical experience— Athletic feats without stimulants-Samson, Angus Cameron, Grace, Weston, Captain Webb, Cavill-Conclusion.

One of the commonest excuses for drinking intoxicating liquors is the supposed need of a stimulant. Many a "moderate drinker” attempts to justify his practice on the ground that his constitution requires it. He declares that he has no appetite for his meals, and requires to have his stomach fortified with a "nobbler " or a glass of wine in order to arouse it to healthy exercise. He insists that even if there is no good in the liquor itself it enables him to relish his food, and so serves a purpose both essential and useful. In this respect he takes somewhat different ground from the labourer, who believes that his beer gives him strength. The latter fallacy has already been exposed by the proof that alcohol is neither good for food nor fuel to the human system, but in dealing with the one error the other will necessarily still further be discussed.

In many cases the craving for stimulants is nothing more than the effect of habit. Human nature rapidly accustoms itself to certain rules. When it has been regularly wound up to concert pitch or a little over at a given time for a few days together, if the stated hour passes by there will be a sense of want, uneasiness, and dissatisfaction. The machine is run down, the man is depressed, he feels an uncomfortable sinking, he "needs a stimulant," and the easiest way is to yield to the craving. As he does so the mechanism starts on again with a temporary renewal of vigour, and as he feels the reviving glow he exclaims that let teetotallers talk as long as they like, his constitution evidently needs a little support. Very possibly he feebly tries, some time or other, to break the chain, but weakly yields without persevering long enough for any firmlyformed habit to be overcome, and thereafter declares he has tried total abstinence and found it did not agree with him. In nine cases out of ten, were the effort honestly and persistently made its result would be manifest improvement in evenness of temper, cheerfulness of spirits, physical health, and mental clearness.

Undeniably there are occasions when a man needs to call out

D

his reserve of strength. Mercantile men have sometimes to draw on the last farthing of their capital and credit, and even hypothecate their future gains to tide them over a season of panic. Military commanders now and then need to bring their last bayonet into action for a final rush. But these are desperate remedies to avert an imminent catastrophe, and he would be no better than a fool who rashly adopted them without sufficient cause. The man who employs stimulants to call up his reserves of force to-day will assuredly be bankrupt when to-morrow's equal demands have to be met. He has not added to his capital, but has laid violent hands on Nature's sacred hoard, and nothing less than impoverishment can be the result,

It involves no weakening of the argument to admit that stimulants have their uses as medicines. When the action of the heart is enfeebled by disease, and the nerve centres need spurring to keep them awake, in the hands of a skilful physician stimulants judiciously administered may prevent collapse and save life. Not that even then they supply strength. The physician's action is analogous to that of an engineer who uses up the last fragments of coal in the bunkers to generate steam and urge the labouring vessel through the stormy sea to a haven where shelter and a fresh supply of fuel may be obtained. Were all that is claimed for alcohol as a medicine fully admitted, it would prove nothing concerning its value as a food. Even allowing that it may be useful in the hands of a skilful medical practitioner, as much may be said for other poisons, such as arsenic and morphia, and its indiscriminate employment cannot be too strongly condemned. Unfortunately, it is generally close at hand. Of all prescriptions it is, to the majority of patients, the most agreeable, and is recommended far more frequently than is either necessary or justifiable.

There seems no room to doubt that medical men, by their loose prescriptions of alcoholic drinks, are responsible to a very considerable extent for the drinking habits of the community. When a patient feels low and out of health he is often simply told to take a stimulant, and he goes on taking the doctor's advice" to the end of the chapter. With a perseverance worthy of a better cause he continues to use the "medicine years after the necessity for it has ceased. A generation ago the practice was more general than it is now, and there is ground for suspicion that the hereditary taste too frequently exhibited may be not unfairly attributed to this cause. Dr. F. R. Lees, in his "Doctors, Drugs, and Drink,” furnishes terrible testimony to the effects of the careless prescription of alcohol. Among others there is this statement from the Rev. Franklin Spencer, LL.D., Incumbent of St. Matthew's, Marylebone "It is with much sorrow I observe that medical men are the great promoters of drunkenness in this land; they are always recommending strong ales, porter, and brandy to invalids." He also quotes the Rev. J. H. Irwin, an Independent Minister, who says

"The number of men, in other respects intelligent, who have been turned out of the good way by the doctors is astounding. I have had to resist, steadfast in the faith that under no conceivable circumstances is alcohol indispensable, or I too should long ago have gone after my brethren in the ministry who were once as enthusiastic teetotallers as myself." These are strong accusations, but it must be remembered that the patient is often as much in fault as the doctor, by demanding the remedies which injure him, persisting in their use when neither prescribed nor needed, and jesuitically interpreting a temporary suggestion to mean a life-long order.

We need not go outside the medical faculty to find strong condemnations of the habit of freely prescribing stimulants, and cautions addressed by eminent men to their brethren in the noble art of healing. Scarcely anything could be stronger than the declaration of Dr. Carpenter Nothing in the annals of quackery can be more empirical than the mode in which fermented and distilled liquors are directed or permitted to be taken by a large proportion of medical practitioners.". Dr. Richardson's judicious caution, if acted upon, would materially lessen the evils complained of—" The scientific physician may, I think, use perhaps all the alcohols with advantage in his treatment of disease, but he ought never to attempt their use except as alcohols, the precise nature of which he understands. Does he want a quickly-acting stimulant, which takes effect rapidly and eliminates rapidly, taking out little force? he has it in methylic alcohol. Does he want an alcohol that will create a more lasting effect? he has it in ethylic alcohol. Does he want to reduce the body, to prostrate it for many hours? he can do that with amylic alcohol, or butylic, or caproylic. But when he is ordering alcohol by the general loose names of gin, rum, brandy, wine, he has no conception of what he is prescribing, nor of the effect of his prescription." Strong testimony is given as to the possibility of dispensing with alcohol altogether by Mr. L. M. Bennett, M.R.C.S., who says "During the last twenty-five years, I have not once used alcohol as a medicine, nor recommended it as a beverage; and, although I have had great experience in the treatment of dyspepsia, fever, exhaustion from loss of blood, and profuseness of purulent discharge, I have found all these complaints and conditions much more easily removed without alcohol. I have, during my practice, attended upwards of 2,000 cases of child-birth, and I have not lost a single case. When a necessity exists for the use of a stimulant in the treatment of disease, a safe, more certain, and effectual substitute can be found." The famous Dr. Mary Walker expresses her grief that medical practitioners prescribe what is of an intoxicating nature, and, with the utmost decision, avers her opinion that under any circumstances such drinks are unnecessary. Dr. Carsen, the President of the Medical Association of Pennsylvania, fully endorsed this opinion when he said- -"Neither wine, malt liquors, nor alcohol are necessary for medicinal purposes, and there are more harmless

agents in the laboratory which have all the virtue attributed to alcohol." That better agents are available is beyond question. Dr. R. B. Thompson says "It is universally admitted by scientific men that alcoholic fluids, when employed in medicine, influence the system in those diseases in which they prove efficacious by their stimulating properties, and here they may be superseded by stimulants possessing equally energetic powers." Similar declarations might be multiplied did space permit, but only one more shall be added; it is that of the venerable Dr. Higinbotham, who after the experience of half a century, during the greater portion of which he practised in the centre of a large and populous town, surrounded by more than forty surgeons and physicians, gives the following remarkable deliverance: "I have amply tried both ways. I gave alcohol in my practice for twenty years, and have now practised without it for thirty years. My experience is, that acute disease is more readily cured without it, and chronic disease much more manageable. I have not found a single person injured by the disuse of alcohol, or a constitution requiring it; indeed, to find either, although I am now in my seventy-seventh year, I would walk fifty miles to see such an unnatural phenomenon. If I ordered or allowed alcohol in any form, either as food or as medicine, to a patient, I should certainly do it with a felonious intent.”

One of the most encouraging facts in connection with the temperance reform is that the medical faculty is turning its earnest attention to the giant evil against which we contend. Science is joining hands with ethics, and doctors with clergymen, in the crusade against intemperance. The Medical Conference held in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on October 30, 1876, showed clearly the direction which men of science are taking. The Conference was held for the purpose of "considering what means can be adopted to check the spread of intemperance," and was largely attended by medical men, clergymen, and laymen of the Church of England, ministers of other denominations, and the general public. As was intended, the medical aspect of the subject chiefly engaged the attention of the meeting. A paper was read by Dr. Richardson, in which he described his researches into the action of alcohol, and summarised his conclusions. An address was also given by Professor Rolleston, and shorter speeches were made by several others. On the question being pressed whether there was a consensus of opinion among the medical men, Dr. Giles is said in the report to have replied "I think I may answer that question, not only for myself, but also for the major part of my profession-that we can do without alcohol." Another speaker added that for the past twenty-five years he had abstained from alcoholic drinks, and found that he could treat maladies commonly supposed to require such drinks more successfully without than with them. In illustration of the non-necessity of stimulants as commonly prescribed, the Rev. W. Ackworth, Vicar of South Stoke, gave his

own experience. He said he had charge of a parish of nearly 30,000 souls, and as an example to them signed the pledge. That very week two hundred did the same, and many of them became sober, serious, and religious men. Shortly afterwards, his health gave way from overwork, and he sought the advice of a well-known physician (Dr. Conquest) of London, who told him his pulse was below par, and he ought to take two or three glasses of port wine a day. He demurred to doing so on account of the bad effect it would have, and the doctor replied, "Oh! if you are inclined to take physic, I can give you physic that will answer the purpose equally well." He thereupon wrote a prescription, which Mr. Ackworth got made up for a shilling, and at the end of a fortnight was pronounced all right. Had he commenced taking port wine, he would probably have continued to that hour.

At the close of the Conference the Chairman (Dr. H. W. Ackland, F.R.S., Regius Professor of Medicine,) carefully and judiciously summed up the results of the discussion. He "heartily congratulated those present on the success of the meeting, and that they should have lived to see such a one in that Theatre. Thirty years ago that was not a subject that would have brought together so large a number of the medical profession to assist in their deliberations. Any person of his age knew that at that time they were taught by experienced teachers that alcohol was thought necessary for not only persons in sickness, but for a large proportion of persons in health. For his own part he never had believed that argument. . . . But Science marched with careful steps. He had come to the conclusion, from such observations as he had been able to make during many years, that a large proporton of healthy persons, except under special circumstances, were not so well if they took any form of alcohol as they were if they took none. One word with regard to the relation of the subject to disease. It was perfectly well known to every ordinarily instructed member of his profession, that the opinion of the profession had undergone a very great change on the subject in two ways within thirty or forty years. Twenty-five years ago people were taught that they could scarcely give enough in many forms of disease. It was equally certain that students of the present day feel that that opinion was exaggerated and mischievous. It had come to be a matter of extreme anxiety to the best instructed members of the profession as to what was the precise dose which ought to be given in many conditions. But as for the old opinion that people in health and living in ordinary conditions could not live or work without wine, it was an opinion no careful or thoughtful physician thought of maintaining, and if he did he should be very happy to battle the subject out with him."

Such being the present general opinion of the faculty, it is peculiarly interesting, as well as instructive, to hear what individual objectors have to say on the other side. There are such objectors,