Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors.

Date:
[1874?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and every now and then he was induced to take a little more. That went on for five years, when the stroke came so heavily that he nearly died. When able to be moved he was carried to a hydropathic estab- lishment. Ten years later, when on a visit, I saw him in that establish- ment a healthy man at sixty-five ; and two years ago I saw him again, a healthy man at seventy-five. He had never put a drop of alcohol, in any form, inside his lips from the time he had that paralytic seizure ; so that while the alcohol could not prevent it, the water kept it from returning for twenty years. (Cheers.) I will tell you another remark- able fact: six years after his first attack he had a very slight symptom of sleepless nights, which alarmed his wife. She sent for the doctor who had done him so much good before. He took him out of bed, and poured two buckets of tepid water over his head in a tub. He then had him rubbed with a rubbing-sheet, and put him to bed, where he slept for sixteen hours without waking—(laughter)—and when I saw him last, which was fourteen years after he had that slight symptom, he told me that he had not had another symptom of the kind since. I believe he is now alive and well, at seventy-seven, and I should think from what I saw of him, though his hair has got white, that he is likely to live, humanly speaking, some years yet to come. I will give you a remarkable medical testimony the other way. Some eighteen or nineteen years since, I was dining with a large party at Cheltenham. After the ladies left the table, the gentlemen began discussing this question, because I did not drink any wine, and they declared that at least elderly people could not give it up without danger, if they had been accustomed to it. There sat at the table one of the most eminent physicians in the place, but he said nothing. I did not think of appealing to him, because I thought in those days the doctor was sure to give the verdict against me. One of the gentlemen at last appealed to him. To my astonishment, he took my side, and he gave these facts as his reason. He said, “ I have had for years among my patients here, old Indians, and old retired officers, and others, of perhaps from sixty to seventy years of age, who have been invalids, and I have honestly told them that, as they had been in the habit of taking something all their lives, it would not at that time of life be safe to give it up, and therefore I encouraged their taking a moderate amount of wine. During the last few years I have seen so many of my patients that I honestly gave that advice to go to Malvern, and return in a few months looking stronger and healthier by far, that I have asked them, ‘ Do you take any wine?’ They have replied, 'No.’ I have then asked them, ‘ Do you feel any evil effects from not taking it?’ and the reply has also been ‘No’ ; and I have seen those men live alongside of me in better health than before ; so that I cannot, as an honest man, but allow that even old men, however much accustomed to it, can give it up with benefit.” (Cheers.) That was a very rare testimony from a physician seventeen or eighteen years ago, I am And now I would say a word about the tenfold danger of moderate drinking to females. We know that intemperance is increasing sadly amongst women, and often it has had its first beginning in the pre-
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