An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/148 page 60
    [60] IV.—OF DOCTORS AND DIALECTIC. § 51. The Lancet has said—and thougli a very bad iudee of reasomng It maybe accepted for the nonce-^^ In m Jsem- blage for discussion, do we meet with such jjroof of uttee want % t°';o^i'' °1o^^f^'''''l,°^ ^^ ^ -^^^^'^^^ Societies'' (ieb. 19th, 1853). This dialectical diarrhoea nowhere finds more prominent outlets than in the anti-teetotal diatribes of the Lancet itself which, for twenty years, has retailed a series of chemical and physiological fallacies that science, year by year has as regularly refated and rejected. From its December article, just out, we cite three passages to show what it writes lor the lewd and baser fellows of the Profession.' _ If these/amafc could be impressed with the conTiction of the immmsc mjury_ which they do to the cause they advocate, by their wholesale and indiscriminate statements, they might sland aghast at the evils which thcii are tnflichng upon the community.* -^j^-io If, because water is natural to man, he should confine himself to water as a beverage, why should he not at once return to what is naiural to him in other respects ?t Man m the state of nature clothes himself in the rude habili- ments of the savage; he haunts the woods, and lives upon food which is rwt suitable to the wants of civilized mankind. The fact, in short, amounts to this: thenwst itnpractical people m theworld arc those possessed ofacrotchcL Ihey look not upon mankind as they are, but as the enthusiasts themselves would desire them to be. j '' The truest friends of temperance are to be found in the ranks of the medical profession. || The reason for this is obvious: they are caUed daUy to ♦om^iil^o^ff^ Medical-men, by their prescriptions, do not thwart our temperance efforts, do our cause good ? And how wiU our affirming the truth so rastS SiTft^'?'' community ? WiU the Lancet translate its big and ambiguous wordl^tj + The abstainer does not ' confine himself to water'-for he takes water and tea, and coflee, and cocoa, and milk, and fruit-juices, and itrefermented wine. Neither does he believe that natural cold, and natural conditions, are always best. He leaves the Lancet to muddle itselt with such equivocal words. As he abstains from alcohoUcs because they are injurious (not because they are either natural or unnatural), so he takes all kinci 01 lood that are suitable, whether natural pine-apple, or cooked apple-pie ■ whether ripe-plums or boiled-pudding. WJiy, O logician of the Lancet, should a man who rejects imsmtable drink, therefore rush to the use of unsuitable food? Why, because ha refuses raw-rum, should he swallow r.aw-carrots 1 t Do abstainers do less work than other people ? Do they do it less well ? What does the Lancet mean by unpractical? It is simply this—that we will not give ud out irreat truth for the iancet'g great falsehood. ^ li Yes I—in the ranks : but what we regret, is, that the rankt are not our friends, bnt our deadliest foes. We know of no service that the ' rank and file' (or rather, lookinff at the language of the Lancet,taxik and vile,) have rendered to the cause-whatever a few of the ' Officers' may have done. No doubt, Mr Coroner Lankestkr ' witnesses the evil effects of intoiication,'—but how does drinking and lauding alcohol get rid of the effects ?
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