Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why

“But, if alcohol is not a real food, what is the significance of its oxidation? It has been long known that the liver produces oxidases and that it is the site of active oxidation of mid-products of katabolism of toxins and of other toxic substances. Alcohol, usually formed as an excretion of the yeast plant, is also found as a mid-product of tissue katabolism. On a priori grounds we should expect alcohol to be oxidized in the liver along with leucin, tyrosin, uric acid, xanthin bodies, and various amido bodies. There have recently appeared two most important papers based upon extended researches upon man and lower animals. These researches practically clear up this knotty question.”

Dr. Hall then reviews the work of Dr. Reid Hunt and Dr. S. P. Beebe, and continues: —

“The value of this work can hardly be over-estimated. In the first place the rapid oxidation of the alcohol in the liver is explained. Alcohol itself being one of the toxic substances which reach the liver from the alimentary canal is at once attacked by the liver, and if the oncoming tide of alcohol is not too great it will practically all be oxidized.

“But the liver oxidation of other toxic substances is impaired in the meantime so that they get past the liver to the tissues, where they may do injury. Some of these toxins are excreted unoxidized by the kidneys. There are three ways of accounting for this condition: (1.) The oxidation capacity of the liver is limited. The physiological limit of alcohol ingestion is that amount which taxes the oxidation capacity of the liver to its limit. When thus taxed all other toxic substances including uric acid and the xanthin bodies pass through the liver unoxidized to appear in the urine. (2.) The presence of alcohol in the blood, through its toxic action upon the liver cells, impairs the hepatic oxidation capacity and thus permits toxic substances to pass unoxidized. (3.) A combination of these conditions may represent the real situation. It is hardly conceivable that the relation of alcohol to the liver activity is not covered in the hypotheses above formulated.

“We may therefore accept it as practically demonstrated by the researches of Beebe, Hunt, and others that the oxidation of alcohol in the liver is simply one of the defensive activities of that organ, i. e., it is a protective oxidation and belongs strictly in the same category with the oxidation of uric acid, xanthin bodies, leucin, tyrosins, and the amido acids.

“The next question which arises is, why does the liver select alcohol first and oxidize that substance to the exclusion of other toxic substances up to the oxidation capacity? The answer is probably to be found in the chemical composition of alcohol.

“It oxidizes very easily, much more so than any of the other toxic substances which gain access to the liver. Its early oxidation may be due to this fact alone, or in part to an actual selection on the part of the liver. Another question of importance: Is the energy liberated in the oxidation of alcohol in the liver available for the use of the muscles, nervous system, or glands?

“If this question is answered affirmatively, then alcohol is a food. If negatively then alcohol is not a food. Let us reason together. All body oxidations may be classified in two groups: (1.) Active oxidations which take place in the active tissues – muscles, nervous system, or glands – and take place incident to action. It is under the perfect control of the nervous system and is proportional to normal activity. (2.) Protective oxidations which take place in the liver. This class of oxidation processes is wholly independent of the usual tissue activity and is proportional to the ingestion of toxic substances and quite independent of muscle action, brain action, or gland action, other than liver action.

“If the oxidation of alcohol in the liver belongs to class 1, the following consequences should be found: (1.) The ingestion of alcohol would lead to an increase in muscular power and in the working capacity of the brain or glands. (2.) The ingestion of alcohol would serve to maintain body temperature in the healthy individual subjected to low external temperature. (3.) The accession of muscle, brain, or gland activity would be proportional to the amount of alcohol ingested, but laboratory observations and general experience show that none of these things are true; i. e., the ingestion of alcohol decreases muscle, brain, and gland work, and depresses body temperature when external temperature is low.

“In the nature of the case there can be no proportional relation. The oxidation of alcohol does not therefore belong to class 1. If the oxidation of alcohol in the liver belongs to class 2, the following consequences would be found: (1.) The ingestion of alcohol would be followed by its early oxidation in the organs in question. (2.) If the oxidation capacity of the liver is limited this capacity may be overloaded by exceeding the physiological limit of alcohol. (3.) If the oxidation capacity of the liver is taxed nearly to its limit in the oxidation of uric acid, xanthins, and other toxic substances, the introduction of alcohol may seriously interfere with this protective oxidation by overtaxing the capacity. (4.) If the oxidation capacity is overtaxed, an excess of uric acid, xanthin bodies, and other toxic substances will get by this portal and reach the active tissues or the kidneys. Now all of these things take place, so we are forced to the conclusion that the oxidation of alcohol is a protective oxidation. In the light of this presentation the significance of Dr. Hunt’s work becomes very clear. The alcohol given to the animals taxed the oxidation capacity of the liver to the limit and left the organism defenseless against bacterial or other toxic substances.”

CHAPTER XVII.

MISCELLANEOUS

Alcohol Baths: – The action of alcohol upon the surface of the body is that of a refrigerant. Alcohol baths for debility, weakness, and states of exhaustion are opposed by non-alcoholic physicians. The old custom of bathing a new-born babe with whisky was simply a superstition, and a dangerous one, because the infant should not have a refrigerant applied to its body so soon after leaving the warm nest where it had been sheltered so long. Warm water is the proper liquid for a baby’s bath until it becomes hardy. There is nothing of strength imparted by an alcohol rub; the ‘rub’ is good, but vinegar, or water, or olive oil can be used according to what is desired. Alcohol is not necessary internally nor externally. Its proper use is for mechanical purposes and to give light and heat.

Wilhelmina Lemonade: – Take four or five rough-skinned oranges (according to size) and two pounds of sugar, in big lumps. After having cleaned the oranges, rub the sugar with them, till the oranges are quite white – the sugar yellow. Place the sugar in a big earthernware pan or jar, and add three pints of cold water. Then cover it up and let it stand two days, stirring it occasionally to help the melting. Now take two ounces of citric acid, dissolved in a little boiling water, and add it to the syrup, stirring the whole. Then strain the whole through a fine sieve, covered with muslin, so that it becomes perfectly clear. In well-corked bottles it will keep for more than a year. Mix one-third of the lemonade with two-thirds water. [Instead of the oranges five or six lemons may be used.]

Beverages for the Sick: – Unfermented Grapejuice. Hot milk. Egg cream, made as follows: Beat the white and yolk separately, add milk and sugar, and stir well, flavor to suit taste. Egg lemonade – beat yolk and sugar thoroughly, add lemon and water, shake well, then add white, beaten stiff. Barley water, made by boiling pearl barley five or six hours, and straining the water from it; add milk or cream if wished. These are used in the National Temperance Hospital of Chicago.

Baths: – “If all people understood the value of water to cool, cleanse, invigorate and sustain life, and how to use it, and would use it, one-half of all the afflictions from disease would be removed; and the other half might be banished if all the people understood how and what to eat, how to breathe, and the necessity of daily vigorous exercise. A daily towel bath will do more to counteract disease, and restore the body to its normal health condition, than any other method or remedy yet discovered. After the bath, the body should be thoroughly rubbed with a crash or Turkish towel. Rub until a warm glow is produced. This bath is a fine tonic if taken upon rising in the morning.”

Hot Water as a Medicine: – “One is never,” says a physician, “far from a pretty good medicine chest with hot water at hand. It is a most useful assistant to the mother of a family of small children, who is frightened often to find herself confronted by a sudden illness of one of her flock, without her usual dependence – the family doctor. If the baby has croup, fold a strip of flannel or a soft napkin lengthwise, dip into very hot water, and apply to the child’s throat. Repeat and continue the application till relief is had, which will be almost at once. For toothache, or colic, or a threatened lung congestion, the hot-water treatment will be found promptly efficacious if resorted to. Nature needs only a little assistance at the first sign of trouble to rally quickly in the average healthy child, and often hot water is all that is wanted.”

Alcohol Injurious to the Insane: – Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, whose valuable paper on “The Evolution of the Mind” appeared in the December number of the Journal of Hygiene, in a recent report of the Asylum for the Insane in London, Canada, makes the following statement concerning the use of alcohol in the institution over which he presides: —

“As we have given up the use of alcohol, we have needed and used less opium and chloral; and as we have discontinued the use of alcohol, opium and chloral, we have needed and used less seclusion and restraint. I have, during the year just closed, carefully watched the effect of the alcohol given, and the progress of cases where, in former years, it would have been given, and I am morally certain that the alcohol used during the past year did no good. With humiliation I am forced to admit that in the recent past my noble profession has been to an alarming extent, and is still too much so, guilty of producing many drunkards in the land, directly or indirectly, by the reckless and wholesale manner in which so many of its members have prescribed alcoholic stimulants in their daily practice for all the aches and pains, coughs and colds, inflammations and consumptions, fevers and chills, at the hour of birth and at the time of death, and all intermediate points of life, to induce sleep and to promote wakefulness, and for all real or imaginary ills.”

Tobacco and the Eyesight: – “Prof. Craddock says that tobacco has a bad effect upon the sight, and a distinct disease of the eye is attributed to its immoderate use. Many cases in which complete loss of sight has occurred, and which were formerly regarded as hopeless, are now known to be curable by making the patient abstain from tobacco. These patients almost invariably at first have color blindness, taking red to be brown or black, and green to be light blue or orange. In nearly every case, the pupils are much contracted, in some cases to such an extent that the patient is unable to move about without assistance. One such man admitted that he had usually smoked from twenty to thirty cigars a day. He consented to give up smoking altogether, and his sight was fully restored in three and a half months. It has been found that chewing is much worse than smoking in its effects upon the eyesight, probably for the simple reason that more of the poison is thereby absorbed. The condition found in the eye in the early stages is that of extreme congestion only; but this, unless remedied at once, leads to gradually increasing disease of the optic nerve, and then, of course, blindness is absolute and beyond remedy. It is, therefore, evident that, to be of any value, the treatment of disease of the eye due to excessive smoking must be immediate, or it will probably be useless.” —Journal of Inebriety.

“Dr. Isaac Fellows was for many years a prominent physician in Los Angeles. A temperance man, he was persuaded by an old physician whom he loved to try for a year substituting alcohol in drop doses in water for such patients as demanded alcoholic stimulants. He was delighted with the result. When his patients found they could not have wine, beer or brandy under the guise of medicine, but must take it in drop doses in water, as they did their other medicines, they speedily learned to do without ‘a stimulant.’” —Pacific Ensign.

ADVERTISED “CURES” FOR DRUNKENNESS

“Poudre Coza, an English product, is sold at $3.00 for thirty powders. On analysis these powders were found to contain an impure form of sodium bicarbonate, together with a little aromatic vegetable matter. Gloria Tonic was examined by the Massachusetts Board of Health, and found to consist of sugar of milk and cornstarch, with a small quantity of ground leaves resembling those of senna. White Ribbon Remedy was found to be made of milk sugar and ammonium chloride. Of course such things are clearly frauds, as they can have no power to destroy a craving for liquor. The Infallible Drink Cure was 98 per cent. sugar and 2 per cent. common table salt. Another ‘cure’ was made of chlorate of potash and sugar. Cases of poisoning by chlorate of potash are on record. Another ‘cure’ contained tartar emetic, a dangerous poison. Most of the liquid ‘cures’ for drunkenness sold prior to the passage of the National Pure Food Law contained large quantities of cheap alcohol. It is safe to say that practically all of the secret cures for drunkenness are fraudulent, and some are dangerous.

“If a man wants to quit drinking, he can be helped by a proper diet, and by frequent use of the Turkish bath, or even of the ordinary hot bath at home, with a quick cold sponge or shower bath each morning as a tonic. The hot bath is to draw out impurities from the system. The diet should consist of plenty of fruit, nuts, grains and vegetables. It is better to eat no meat. It has been fully demonstrated in Lady Henry Somerset’s work with women drunkards that a vegetarian diet is a great help in allaying the alcohol crave. The Salvation Army, in England, have also found by experience that a meat-free diet is a great aid in overcoming the drink habit.

“Dr. T. D. Crothers, who has for years conducted a large sanitarium for the cure of inebriety, at Hartford, Connecticut, says that a valuable remedy to break up the impulsive craze for spirits is a strong infusion of quassia given in two-ounce doses every hour. As desire for liquor abates the quassia can be given less frequently, until it is no longer needed.

“Dr. Alexander Lambert, of Bellevue Hospital, New York, has been treating drunkards and other drug habitues successfully of late. A description of his treatment may be found in Success for November, 1909.”

Medical Puffs of Whisky and Other Alcoholics: – “Every medical man knows how he is pestered with advertising circulars of so-and-so’s genuine whisky, and what-do-you-call-em’s extra stout, to say nothing of the tempting offers of wines and spirits on sale with special discounts to medical men. Other enterprising firms send samples or offer to send them with the implied understanding that a testimonial is to be given, or that at least the wares in question will be recommended to patients. Even our medical papers have not always been incorruptible. We have little expectation ourselves of being favored with an offer of full-page advertisements of extraordinary wines and spirits. We are not prepared to recommend them except as vermin killers. Nor are we prepared to remain silent as to their alleged virtues. The whole system of testimonials is a huge imposture. Granted that the sample is all that it is described as being, who can guarantee that what is served to the public in the face of severe competition will be up to the sample?

“But there is another and a sadder view of the case. We cannot believe that all the eulogies of all the medical trumpeters of the wines and the spirits are wilfully false or even exaggerated. It is a lamentable fact that a vast number of doctors have a genuine faith in the value and virtue of these pernicious drinks. It is not simply a question of medicinal use, though even on that we should join issue. These things are vaunted as valuable for the promotion of health in spite of all the accumulating evidence to the contrary. We wish that these doctors would carefully study this evidence. The pity of it is that the very worst offenders are the least likely to study it. We suppose they must die out, and be replaced by men less prejudiced and bound by the chain of alcoholic habit. We can only regret that they should be doing so much harm in fastening the fetters of drink on other people, and hindering their emancipation from the evil customs which play havoc amongst us.” —Medical Pioneer.

Alcohol and Children: – “Parents often labor under the delusion that alcoholic drinks are good for children and act as tonics. Mothers will put drops of brandy into the milk with which their children are fed, increasing the quantity with the age of the recipient. In the illness of children the same is given to meet disturbances of the stomach or to increase growth and development, without taking the advice of any medical man as to the wisdom of the practice. This is all erroneous. The excitement of the central nervous system under alcohol, excitement which seems to be a relief to weariness and to give strength, is nothing more than temporary at best, and injurious, causing in fact symptoms of alcoholic poisoning, abnormal excitement, ending, in extreme cases, in convulsions succeeded by exhaustion of body and mind, and inducing a kind of paralysis. Many cases of stomach and gastric catarrh in children followed by emaciation and debility are due to the early administration of alcoholic drinks; and impediment of growth from the same cause is thereby produced. The most serious derangement is that of the nervous system, and the development in the young, under the influence of alcohol, of what is known as nervousness, to which is added the moral paralysis with which the habit of alcoholic drinking smites its victims in the very spring-time of life.” – Prof. Demme, of Berne, Switzerland.

“The action of the New York Board of Health, in recommending to tenement house parents, that on the hottest days of summer a few drops of whisky be added to the water or food of their infants, has received a strong protest and rebuke in a meeting at Prohibition Park, where the opinions of eminent physicians, collected by the Voice, were read, condemning such a course. A resolution of protest was also adopted.” —Sel.

“For nineteen years we lived with a physician whose success may be estimated from this one item: He had between 1,600 and 1,700 labor cases, and never once lost the mother, and only twice the child, and what seems still more remarkable never used instruments. When other physicians, as often happened, would come to him to know how he did it, he always answered, ‘A woman will do anything if you only encourage her.’ Nor was obstetrics his specialty – he had none.

“In a fifteen years’ practice in Chicago and New York, where these diseases are so very fatal, and he was much sought after to treat them, he did not lose a case of scarlet fever, diphtheria or cholera infantum which he managed himself, and saved many a one where he was called in consultation, or after some other physician. Now when such a man after an experience more than fifty years long and as wide as the continent, gives it as his unqualified opinion that wines, beers, liquors of every kind, alcohol itself, are not medicines and should never be used as such, for scientific reasons, not to mention moral, is not his opinion entitled to a hearing? Isn’t it probable it weighs more than the doctor’s you were just quoting? Is it too great a risk to act upon it?” —Pacific Ensign.

“A lady, Mrs. A., tenderly nurtured, refined, cultured, moving in an influential position, belonged to a family in whom the tendency to intemperance existed. Realizing the danger, she, for seven years of her married life, adhered to total abstinence. Illness came, and the doctor ordered wine; and her husband, deaf to her arguments, insisted on her taking it. She fell into habits of intemperance. Her husband died, and for a time she pulled up and trained as a hospital nurse; but temptation prevailed, and she fell from bad to worse. Loving hands received her time after time, and at last placed her in an Inebriate Home. For a short time she did well, but soon became unmanageable. After another desperate period she entered a 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 lifetime. 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: —

“A Birmingham physician has had an amusing experience. The other day a somewhat distracted mother brought her daughter to see him. The girl was suffering from what is known among people as ‘general lowness.’ There was nothing much the matter with her, but she was pale and listless and did not care about eating or doing anything. The doctor, after due consultation, prescribed for her a glass of claret three times a day with her meals. The mother was somewhat deaf, but apparently heard all he said and bore off her daughter, determined to carry out the prescription to the very letter. In ten days’ time they were back again, and the girl looked a different creature. She was rosy-cheeked, smiling and the picture of health. The doctor congratulated himself on his diagnosis of the case. ‘I am glad to see that your daughter is so much better,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ exclaimed the excited and grateful mother. ‘Thanks to you, doctor! She has had just what you ordered. She has eaten carrots three times a day since we were here, and sometimes oftener – and once or twice uncooked – and now look at her!’”

The Rest Cure: – “After all, the veneer of civilization is quite thin. Scratch most people, and very near the surface you come on the savage. This is specially true when they are sick. They at once want charms and miracles to restore them to health, and come to the doctor or ‘medicine man,’ as they look upon him – with this demand: ‘I want something, doctor, to fix me up.’ But he, unhappy man, has not wherewith to satisfy them, unless he is a quack.

“He knows that in most cases all he can do is to give advice as to how best Nature may be allowed to effect a cure; for Nature is the great physician, and the doctor’s main duty is to stand by and see that she gets fair play. Nature’s chief cure, in a large number of the diseases to which flesh is heir, is rest. The tired man needs rest. The tired brain, the tired stomach, the tired liver and kidneys, need the same rest.