Temperance and teetotalism : an inquiry into the effects of alcoholic drinks on the human system in health and disease.
- William Benjamin Carpenter
- Date:
- 1849
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Temperance and teetotalism : an inquiry into the effects of alcoholic drinks on the human system in health and disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![shall presently attempt to show) in which no other agents can have the same beneficial effect, and the difference may even he one of life or death. The proper course we apprehend to be, that those who take the total abstinence pledge should promise not to take alcoho- lic liquors, except when these are ordered by a qualified medical practitioner; and it is the obvious duty of the medical profession to refrain from ordering them, except where the indication of benefit to be derived from their use is of the plainest possible kind. We believe that if the question of the therapeutic use of fermented liquors be placed in the same aspect as that on which we have on former occasions attempted to show that the action of almost all our remedies must be at present viewed,— namely, as quite open to that new kind of investigation which consists in the comparison, not of different methods of treatment one with another, but of the results of each method of treatment with the natural course of the disease,—a great deal of evil of various kinds will soon be done away with. At present, nothing in the annals of quackery can be more truly empirical than the mode in which fer- mented liquors are directed or permitted to be taken by a large proportion of medical practitioners. If their physiologi- cal action be really as grossly misunder- stood as we deem it to be,--if their bene- fit can be looked for in little else than their stimulating effects, and the belief in their permanen tly-supporting character be really ill-founded,—if we are to distrust the grateful sensations which commonly follow immediately upon their use, and to look for evil in their more remote con- sequences (as the experience of the results of their habitual employment would lead us to do,)—then it is obvious that a great change will be needed in our usual prac- tice in this respect, in order to bring it into confoimity with the mere corporeal requirements of our patients, to say nothing of its bearing upon their moral welfare. We shall not presume to attempt a full exposition of all the cir- cumstances in which the therapeutic use of fermented liquors is indicated; but we shall endeavour to lay down a few general principles, based upon the data which we may derive from the pheno- mena of their physiological action, and from practical experience as to their habitual or occasional use in the state of health. In the first place, then, we may lay it down as a general principle, that as alcohol cannot serve as a pabulum for the healthy tissues of the body, so it cannot give any direct support to the system in furnishing the materials of those morbid products, which frequently constitute a drain upon the system that may become most serious from its amount and con- tinuance. But it will be said that ample experience has shown that the administra- tion of fermented liquors, in cases of excessive purulent discharge (for ex- ample,) is the only means of sustaining the feeble powers of the system ; and we are not disposed to deny that benefit is derivable from them. But we believe that this benefit is to be looked for in their stimulating action upon the digestive ap- paratus, which enables it to prepare and introduce into the system such an amount of the nutriment that constitutes its real pabulum, as it would not otherwise be able to assimilate. We believe it will be found that if our chief trust be placed in fermented liquors in such cases, failure is almost inevitable; and that the power of the system will depend, not upon the quantity of wine or porter that can be poured in without intoxicating effects, but upon the amount of solid nutriment which the patient can digest by their assistance. The quantity of alcohol given should therefore be carefully regulated by this indication ; and it should be reduced in proportion as the demand for nutriment is lessened, and the tone of the stomach improves. There is another large class of cases with which practitioners in large towns are especially familiar, in which it is of the utmost importance to sustain the powers of the system for a time against some depressing influence, even though there be no considerable demand for ma- terial in the form of an extensive suppura- tion or the like. Such cases present them- selves especially in ill-fed and intemperate subjects, especially among such as have been exposed to the additional depressing influences of bad ventilation and drainage. Almost every disorder in their frames has a tendency to assume the asthenic form ; and it is of the greatest consequence, as in the instance already alluded to, to obtain the assimilation of nutritious matter. Here, too, we believe that fermented liquors are indicated, not so much as genera] stirr uiants, but as exercising upon the digestive apparatus an influence which no other remedy with which we are acquainted can so forcibly exert. But](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24919901_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
