PROGRESS IN TEMPERANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43107, 20 June 1907, Page 1

PROGRESS IN TEMPERANCE.

CHANGED VIEWS ON ALCOHOL.

By Professor G. Sims Wood- I head in the “ Christian Worid ” ! | Jubilee Number. . ?|1

(Continued from last issue) M

Fifty years ago a man “ on j the roadwho did not drink with his customers over a bar- :: gain would have been looked?; upon as a curiosity. To-day - he has many companions, and of? the better sort, and the number is rapidly increasing. / Alcohol in disease. . ?8

As a medical man, I should?! like to think that physicians! and surgeons had been leaders, in drawing attention to the|| evils arising out of the con?3j sumption Of alcohol, but I ami bound to confess that in tLisl matter we have been followers 1 not leaders. Nevertheless, I I believe this refers to the pastil only, and that in future the ef«|| forts of the doclor : , will be di£|j| rected against the drink fiend ;|| and although the advice of. the ! doctor is seldom taken when it I

is not asked for, and ;is" not I always acted upon even when it a is sought, he will in future havef§| a great share in moulding public J opinion on this matter. Within J the last fifty or sixty years 1 alcohol was looked upon as being essential to the proper treatment I of typhoid fever, pheumonia, : 1 consumption and other infective |1 fevers- Its exhibition in surgij a cal cases was a matter of routine ;lf| indeed, the ; traditions in the j profession were so strong that afl doctor who did not give , alcohol |j to a dying patient was looked- j upon as being little better - than|J a murderer. I In 1845 Sir Thomas Watson IJ wrote: “If the patient ” (in|l continued fever) “ relishes andl|l wishes for the beef tea, or the I wine, that is no small warrant JB of the propriety and usefulness ■ of its administration.” But he also writes: “If plenty of beef4§|l tea does not suffice, you must ?fl give the p.itieut wine, and that §1 sometimes to a considerable I

amount, or even brandy; the; egg-flip of the for instance, the mistura vini % gillioi. The object is to keep him alive, to keep the heart in | motion uutil the depressing in*sl fiuence of the exciting cause of I the disease shall have passed by./? If the wine should flush or ex-$f cite him, or render the pulso . hard, it must be diminished n quantity, given less frequently,?! or omitted altogether.” He’,

fiuishes with the very commons

sense advice: “ The great art y of getting a fever patient i through a bad attack is to have if him judiciously and perpetually t watched by night and by day,- i The remedy that is proper one h ur may do harm if pushed' ; through the next.” Pi. Todrp| went much beyond this aud gave I alcohol as part of a routine | treatment in all eases of fefer 3 and pheumonia. !§ Diminishing- use by doctors. Some fifty years later HiltbmT'f Fagge and Pye-Bmith give a 1 much more cautious recommend* J ation of alcohol To meet special symptoms aud conditions . they recommend the u e of ; “ brandy frequently aud in f measured doses, but increased if necessarv up to 12,15 and 20 ounces iu the day. Children | and young adult? seldom need it but there are few patients above v forty, and probably none above fifty, who do not need stimulants $ iu larger or smaller quantitesl from very early in the disease.;! Sometimes port wine or champague suits better than brandy; I The kind of stimulant may be I decided by the patients feelings,.?§ but the quantity and frequency | must depend on the state of the pulse and the first sound, of the;! heart. (To be continued) ..:/|||