ALCOHOL AND INFLUENZA.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 286, 19 April 1919, Page 7

ALCOHOL AND INFLUENZA.

Mrs M. A. Alien, Superintendent oi the Medical Department of tlu World s ’V.C.T.U., writes that the cry that ardent spirits is necessary te “cure” the influenza or accompanying pneumonia does not come from physi cians, but from the laity who in tinu of illness such as this re always reach to give medical ad’ricc unasked.

When l.i grippe the coiinu.v many years ago the mi dual prof'.;ion gave spirits a full trial, and tin* **utci'ine was that mam physicians unqualifiedly condemned alcohol it liquors for the disease, saving that deaths "ere more' frequent where given than where it was not used. Thus l)r. Nathan S. Davis, Dean of Northwestern Cniversitv, Chicago, told the American Medical Association his treatment of pneumonia in Mercy Hospital during 30 years. While in other hospitals using whisky in pneumonia all had death rates ranging f r om jN to jX jkt cent., Merc) Hospital, with no alcohol had only al2 j»er cent, death late. Dr. Alexander I.amhert, of New Yoik, said that the death rate* in his pneumonia division of Bellevue Hospital was 10 per cent, highci when alcoholic liquor 'vas used.

Dr. T, enrv Koplik has also cxpeii menteu with and without whisky in pneumonia in Bellevue Hospital, and has abandoned the' use of that agent because it did n<»t save* life. (Sec* Joui nal of th<* American Medic al Asociation for November i/, 1917.) Last year the writer of this attic le sent out a questionnaire to thousands of physicians asking- their opinion of alcoholic liquors in pneumonia. Nearly all the answers said that alcoholic liquors arc dangerous in pneumonia because alcohol lowers resistane e to disease and weakens the heart-al-ready weakened by the disease. Sir Benjamin Ward Richaidsun, M.D., when Connected with the LOl don Temperance Hospital, said that 111 pneumonia ammonia was the onh medicine used. He gave a three or

five grain mplet ol hi< arbotiat 1 * of am

rnenia dissolved in .1 tup of coffee with aulk and sugar.

In Cornell M'dical School, New Yoik C ite, Professor Meara teaches his students not In advice whisk) in pneu nionia. In a lettn to me. Professor Meara said: “Alcohol h.ts been much used in pneumonia, I believe, without justification. ! believe that it is nevei a true stimulant, but a depressant. 11 It lias been asserted that alcohol, as an antiseptic, was useful in epidemics, biii careful physicians have noted that it*- use is followed b\ greater deques ion and mam new and complex symptoms. Patients who survive take longei to recover. If alcoholic liquor wen* .1 “t uic*' foi pneumonia why is it that it is not a preventive? It is a well attested fact that hea\' drinkers are usually fatal cases in tins dise ase*. Those vvl o find ihormelv. s with colds that may prove to be* influenza may and quit k relief by taking ,1 hot bath, going to bed, and drinking quantities of hot lemonade. The London “Lancet' advised the free use of orange jui"* when the epidemic of la grippe was on ;n IX9O, as the orange juice hindered the .cndency to pneumonia.

The American Medical Association at dits annual meetings in New York in June-, 1917, declared that the* use of alcohol 111 therapeutics “as a tonic, or a stimulant, or as a food, has no sc ientific basis," and “the use of alcohol as a therapeutic agent should be discouraged.*’

As Sir Vie tor Horsley, the* gieat I ondnn surgeon, said: “No one* who has closely investigated the* action of alcohol in recent years prescribes alcohol. . . . Kvery one will feel relief when it is abandoned.’' Dr. DcWctt (». Wilcox, Boston, Mass., l.i his presidential address before the American Institute of Homoepathv in 1914. said :■-“Alcohol has no place in medicine. . . . Instead of

being a preventative of any disease it is the best possible persuader of all

diseases because it lowers the opsonic index ••rid the bodily resistance. That it ha-tens <1 fatal termination of all pulnmnarv diseases is likewise prov c*n. Lieut.-Col. C. 11. Connor, I S A., Medic al Coips, \ssistant Direc toi G«*n eial of Department Military Relied, sa\.> “ I he* hirst Aid Division of the* American Red Cross doe** not approve of the* use of alcohol as a stimulant, a tonic, 01 a therapeutic agent.”