The evolution of physiological and chemical science in a natural system of medicine, vs. the theories and fallacies of popular medicine / J.D. Stillman.

  • Stillman, J. D. (John D.)
Date:
1893
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evolution of physiological and chemical science in a natural system of medicine, vs. the theories and fallacies of popular medicine / J.D. Stillman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    scientific physician, which requires chemical and physiological skill in the adjustment of such food and medicine as fully will secure this object, involving a sacred responsibility to the laws that govern human life. Alcoholic Stimulants are a class of deceptive agents which physicians can no longer claim fulfills this purpose, since Sir Ashley Cooper and Dr. Benjamin Richardson have demonstrated that liquors paralyze the minute capillary vessels that always become congested, which gradually de- stroys the power they naturally possess to keep up circulation ] thus stimulants impoverish and change the tissues to produce disease by preventing both formative and alterative processes. The use of liquors produces heat which accelerates activity by the combustion of the hydro-carbon elements, this exhausts the oxygen from the blood and thus checks the natural oxygenic changes of life and leaves the deadly carbonic acid gas and other refuse products in the system, the same as the lamp leaves the deadly vapor and the lamp-black in the room where it burns. These products clog the brain, the nerves and tissues of all or- gans that maintain life, they reduce the normal oxygenic and electrical supply of the nerves, that thus induces still more their cry for aid which the deluded victim interprets must be secured by renewing stimulated activity, which only leaves accumulated burdens to still more increase the desire for the transient effects they produce. Alcohol is only one of the many remedies unnatural to the system that produce exhaustion and abnormal appetites, simply because they have only afforded palliative relief to present suf- fering without restorative nourishment. Cathartics palliate costiveness, but they tend to increase habitual constipation by an overaction of nerves to produce a lessening of intestinal circulation which creates a con- stant demand for them from the induced intestinal inactivity that is the result of their use; opiates palliate suf-