ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 378, 1 August 1874, Page 3

ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.

Mr. H. Sludge, surgeon, of Bod win, speaking at a public meeting, said : — He believed the temperance movement lost hundreds, if not thousands, of its adherents, through what he called the flippant recommeneudatiou of alchoiic drinks in sickness. He was a member of the Board of Guaixlians of the Uuion in which he resided. They had there a gentleman who acted as surgeon both to the workhouse and country gaol for many years. In one o£ those establishments no drink, whatever was allowed ; in the other, several persons were always taking it on the recommendation of the surgeon. lv one case, that of a woman, there was no ailment whatever. She had been found very useful in the house and had been actually induced to remain in the house, after she would otherwise have left, by the payment of 12s 6d per quarter, and the remaining of her name on the sick list for a Lttie porter daily. The speaker said that he had called on a Devonshire clergyman on his way from Cornwall, aud had found lain in a very weak state. On inquiry as to the treatment to which he was subjected, he found that he had been ordered to take a strong oyiate draught every night, and to diiuk wive every day to counteract its eff&cts. This was jusb like completely exhausting a man's physical energy, and then rousing him by means of ,a horsewhip. Dr. Mudge went on to state that a French physician, some time since, proved to demonstration that alcohol was not assimilated with the human body, but left in precisely the same form in which it entered it. lie contended that if alcohol was to be used as niediciue at all, it should be dispensed as other medicines, and asserted that it eon Id be so dispensed. It was not, he said,, for him to set, aside the drugs obtained from Apothccaries's Hall, and send his patients to the brewers for their medicne, with a prescription that meant anything ornothing. Referring to the fact that many teetotallers imagine that alcohol is a necessity in case of illness, he said that he had lost the confidence and the practice of temperance families because of his known determination not to recommend its use. He contended, however, that the doctor was wanting in the skill and knowledge necessary to his profession Avho could not provide a substitute for alcohol whenever some such stimulant was supposed to be necessary. The speaker recommended the establishment of small free dispensaries, at which medicine might be dispensed on condition that alcoholic liquors were not to be used by th,e patients ; he felt sure that a mass of valuable evidence bearing on this question might be accumulated by such means. As a. proof of tlio efficacy of the anti-alcoholic treatment, he said that in a large establishment in Glasgow the death-rate in cases of typhus had been at once reduced from 25 to 10 per cent., and this where the whole number was some hundreds.