Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/379

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.
371

"I seldom prescribe alcohol."—George Blumer, M. D., Yale Medical School, New Haven, Conn.

"Whereas, The study of alcohol from a scientific standpoint has demonstrated that its action is deceptive, and that it does not have the medical properties that we once claimed for it; now, therefore, be it

"Resolved, By the West Virginia State Medical Association, That we deplore the fact that our profession has been quoted so long as claiming for it virtues which it does not possess, and that we earnestly pledge ourselves to discourage the use of it, both in and out of the sick room."—Resolution passed at annual meeting May, 1908.

"I have been actively engaged in the practice of medicine for nearly twenty-five years, in the early portion of which I prescribed alcoholics moderately but yet with considerable frequency. For the past ten years I have been finding professionally less place for alcoholics of any sort in my practise, and for perhaps three years I have scarcely ever prescribed them. I am satisfied that my cases of pneumonia and typhoid come through in better condition without anything alcoholic, even wines, and I no longer prescribe these at all in cases of tuberculosis. I have noted also that among my professional associates of the thinking rather than of the automatic type, the medicinal use of alcohol is rapidly lessening."—C. G. Hickey, M. D., Lecturer on Medicine, Denver and Gross College of Medicine, Denver, Colorado.

"In the thirteen years I have taught in Michigan I have not used alcohol in the treatment of disease in a routine way. Even alcoholic preparations, such as tinctures, have been used in very rare instances. I have occasion to speak on this subject every year to about two hundred students. My reasons for taking this stand are chiefly medical, though I am heartily in sympathy with the ethical and moral phases of the temperance movement." Dr. George Dock, formerly Professor of Medicine, University of Michigan Medical College, now of Tulane University, New Orleans.

"Alcohol is distinctly a poison, and the limitation of its use