Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/426

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418
ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.
 

second home, but after leaving she yielded again, was twice in prison, and fell into the lowest degradation and utter ruin, surely deserving our deepest pity. Her doctor and her husband had persisted in working her fall in spite of her own strongest convictions."—Selected.

They did not Die." Dr. Lord of Pasadena suffered from rheumatism of the heart for more than half of a long life-time. No doctor ever felt his pulse (which intermitted) without exclaiming, 'Why, doctor, you have no business to be alive with such a pulse,' or something similar. For nineteen years his wife never retired without having at least one medicine she could put her hand on in the dark, the ammonia bottle within reach, the electric battery ready to start like a fire-engine, and preparations for heating water in less than no time. His acute attacks usually came in the night an uninterrupted night's sleep was something unknown to either the doctor or his wife in all these years.

"They lived in sight of an open grave, and seldom a week passed when it did not seem as if death had actually occurred. If ever a case called for alcoholic stimulants this one did. But none were ever administered, none were ever kept in the house. The doctor's standing orders were: If all the doctors in the country order you to give me liquor, and say my life depends upon it, don't do it. Tell them I know more about it than they do. It won't save my life; it will only lessen what little chance I have.' All who knew about this case, and hundreds did, were driven to the conclusion that if these two people, one in this condition and. the other feeble, could live all alone as they did, miles from a doctor, and neighbors not near, and could get along without alcoholics of any kind, everybody can do the same everywhere. And the doctor finally wore out his heart trouble and died of another disease."—Pacific Ensign

An English weekly journal is responsible for the following anecdote:—