MARTHA M. ALLEN.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 376, 18 November 1926, Page 6

MARTHA M. ALLEN.

The “Union Signal” pays the following tribute to the work of Martha M. Allen. Most valuable was the contribution to the temperance cause made by our promoted comrade, Mrs Martha M. Allen, whose heavenly home-going was announced in the latest issue of The Union Signal.” With keen intellect, broad sympathies and a high type of courage she undertook, as far back as 1897, a public campaign against fraudulent patent medicines, especially those containing large quantities of alcohol, and was nstrumental in interesting in the fight “Collier’s Weekly” and “The Ladies’ Home Journal.” The department of the W.C.T.U. of which she was the head put copies of the “Great American Fraud” pamphlet into thousands of public libraries, and sent out thousands of copies to persons of influence. The agitation begotten was a great aid in securing the passage of the National Pure Food Law which requires the stab ment, on the label, of the presence of opiates and the percentage of alcohol. Through the Medical Temperance department Mrs Allen began a crusade against the use of whisky in the treatment of tubercolosis of the lungs, aided by a few experts in that disease who did not believe in the whisky treatment. A poster prepared by Mrs Allen was used by different boards of health in campaigns against tuberculosis and was

enlarged and used in the great International Tuberculosis Congress held in Washington. Appeals to physicians widely circulated by Mrs Allen and her associates had much to do with securing the passage of strong resolutions by the American Medical Association in 1917. Tlmse resolutions had a large influence in the gaining of national prohib’tiou. The hook, “Alcohol a Dangerous ai.il Unnecessary Medicine,” written by Mrs Allen, was placed b\ a philanthropic friend in all medical libraries of the United States and Canada. The agitation kept up by the department under Mrs Allen, with its appeals to physicians and its cireulati>n among them of the best and latest findings against alcohol by practitioners and research workers, has resulted in a great change in hospital practice and in the teaching in medical colleges. Very little alcoholic liquor is now used in the hospitals of this country, and in some ol the largest no alcoholic liquor has In on used since the advent of national prohibition. The best medical school* no longer teach that alcohol is a useful or indispensable medicine, and many warn against its use. To quo’e Mrs Allen’s own words, “When this department began its work, whisky was looked upon as the sheet anchor of the profession in the treatment of pneumonia and typhoid fever. Now it is a completely discredited drug in all infectious diseases. Whisl and brandy were omitted from the US. Pharmacopoeia after this department had sent a memorial to all the members of the pharmacopoeial convention of 1910 asking for this action and assigning as reasons why such aetion should be taken that the best physicians were not using this agent any longer.” Mrs A lien’s influence extended far beyond the limits of her own country, and as superintendent of Medical Temperance in the World’s W.C.T.U . she has directed the white ribboners of many countries. She represented the United States government at tie* World Congress Against Alcoholism in London in 1909, and gave one of the addresses. She attended many World’s conventions.