Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why

“A healthy stomach is able to destroy germs of all sorts, hence the best protection from malaria is the boiling of all drinking water, and the maintenance of sound digestion and purity of blood by an aseptic dietary.”

Dr. J. H. Kellogg says in The Voice: —

“It must be understood, however, that fruit in malarial regions, especially watermelons, may be thickly covered with malarial parasites and the parasites may sometimes find entrance to the fruit when it becomes over-ripe, so that the skin is broken. It is evident, then, that care must be taken to disinfect such fruit by thorough washing, or by dipping in hot water, which is the safer plan. The same remark applies to cucumbers, lettuce, celery, cabbage and other green vegetables which are commonly served without cooking. Not only malarial parasites but small insects of various kinds are often found clinging to such food substances, their development being encouraged by the free use of top dressing on the soil, a process common with market gardeners.

“The treatment of malarial disease is too large and intricate a subject for proper treatment in these columns. We will say briefly, however, at the risk of being considered very unorthodox, that the majority of cases of malarial poisoning can be cured without the use of drugs of any sort. In fact, in the most obstinate cases of chronic malarial poisoning, drugs are of almost no use whatever. Quinine, however, is certainly of value as a curative agent in these cases, either in destroying the parasites, or in preventing their development; but as it does not remove the cause, its curative effect is likely to be very transient. The practice of habitually taking quinine as a preventive of malarial disease is a most injurious one, as quinine is itself a non-usable substance in the system, and therefore must be looked upon as a mild poison, to be dealt with by the liver and kidneys the same as other poisons. By habitual use it may itself become a cause of disease. One or two periodical doses of quinine often prove of great service in interrupting the paroxysms of an intermittent fever, but other treatment must also be employed to develop the bodily resistance, and fortify the system against disease. The morning cold bath, followed by vigorous rubbing, is a most excellent measure for this purpose, but the old-fashioned German wet-sheet pack is one of the best remedies known. The paroxysm itself can generally be avoided by means of the dry pack, begun before the chill makes its appearance; but this requires the services of an expert nurse. In not a few cases it is wise for a person who suffers frequently from malarial disease to seek a change of climate to some non-malarial region.

“Col. T. W. Higginson of the First South Carolina Volunteers, in 1862, said of Dr. Seth Rogers, an eminent Southern physician, who was surgeon of the regiment: ‘Fortunately for us, he was one of that minority of army surgeons who did not believe in whisky, so that we never had it issued in the regiment while he was with us, and got on better, in a highly malarial district, than those regiments which used it.’”

Maternity: – Dr. Ridge says: – “It is one of the greatest mistakes to make use of alcoholic beverages to ‘keep up the strength’ during labor. It is, of course, impossible to predict at the commencement how long the labor will last; if then brandy, or other similar drink, is resorted to early, it acts most injuriously. The desire for food is often entirely removed; the demand of the system being therefore unperceived, and so not supplied, a state of weakness and prostration is in time produced, if the labor should be protracted, which may be really serious. The nervous system becomes exhausted by the repeated action of the alcohol. If a fatal result is not occasioned, yet the prostration of body and mind after delivery is aggravated, and convalescence thereby retarded. Alcoholic drinks produce paralysis and congestion of the blood-vessels, and in this way largely increase the liability to flooding after the labor is over. Alcohol also increases the liability to a feverish condition.

“It is necessary to take small quantities of plain, nourishing food at regular intervals, and nothing is of greater value than well-cooked oatmeal: other farinaceous food may be substituted, if preferred. If there is much prostration, meat extracts or beef tea are of great value. Tea tends to produce flatulence and to prevent sleep.

“After the labor is over, the best restorative is a cup of hot beef tea or an egg beaten up in warm milk or a cup of warm gruel. Rest, and absence of excitement and worry are essential and alcohol is specially injurious.”

Menstruation, Painful: – Young girls often resort to the use of brandy during the monthly period, and parents ask anxiously, “What can they use instead of the brandy?”

The very best thing that can be done is to go to bed, wrapped in flannels, with a hot-water bottle or other hot application to the abdomen, and to the feet. Take hot ginger tea, or pepper tea.

A warm hip-bath taken at the beginning may give relief, or a large hot enema retained for half an hour or so. Rest is necessary.

For those who must go to work, Dr. Ridge recommends five drops of oil of juniper, to be taken on sugar.

Neuralgia: – “The principal cause of neuralgia is defective nutrition of the nerves. Disorders of digestion are very often accompanied by neuralgia in various parts of the body. It may also result from taking cold, from loss of sleep, from dissipation, and also from the use of tobacco, alcohol, tea and coffee.

“The patient’s general health must be improved by a wholesome, simple diet, and the employment of tonic baths, as a daily sponge bath, and massage in feeble cases. Sun-baths and exercise in the open air are of first importance. Ordinary neuralgia may almost always be relieved by either moist or dry heat. In some cases, cold applications give more relief than hot. As a rule, abnormal heat requires cold, and unnatural cold requires hot applications. In many cases it is necessary to give the patient a warm bath of some kind. Electricity often succeeds when all other remedies fail.

“For facial neuralgia apply hot fomentations, together with the use of sitz baths, or hot foot baths. The head may be steamed by holding it over hot water, adding pieces of hot brick occasionally to keep water steaming, head being covered.

“There is no complaint, perhaps, in the treatment of which the use of port wine will be more strongly urged by kind friends, with the assurance that it is impossible to get well without it. This is quite untrue, as thousands can testify.” – Dr. Ridge.

“Avoid opiates of all sorts. ‘It is better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.’ The pangs of neuralgia are as nothing to endure compared with the sufferings of an opium wreck. Build up the general health, and the neuralgia will disappear.”

Nausea. – “A feeling of sickness is not uncommonly due to indigestion. If it is caused by rich food take a pinch of bicarbonate of soda in a little water, or a teaspoonful of fluid magnesia. The acidity of the food will thus be neutralized, and this course is far preferable to benumbing the stomach with brandy. If indigestion is the cause, it is often salutary to miss one or two meals, so as to allow the stomach to recover.

“When due to pregnancy, a little aërated water, or soda water is useful; sometimes a small wafer or a crust, eaten before rising in the morning, will check it. An early morning walk, if the weather is pleasant, is helpful.

“The moist abdominal bandage is a very excellent means of relieving nausea during pregnancy. It should be worn constantly for a week or two, and then omitted during the night. Daily sitz baths are also of great advantage. In many cases electricity relieves this symptom very promptly. In very urgent cases in which the vomiting cannot be repressed, and the life of the patient is threatened, the stomach should be given entire rest, the patient being nourished by nutritive injections. Fomentations over the stomach, and swallowing small bits of ice, are sometimes effective when other measures fail.” – Dr. J. H. Kellogg.

Outgrowing the Strength: – “There is sometimes debility or weakness in rapidly growing boys and girls which is attributed to this cause. It is popularly supposed that port wine or beer, is the great remedy; but nothing can be worse. It is true that gin given continuously to puppies will keep them small, but no one would advocate the amount of spirit required in proportion by a lad or girl to produce the same effect. If the growth could be checked by chemicals it would be most injurious to do so.

“In the treatment of such cases fresh air by day and night is essential; cold sponging, followed by friction with a rough towel, and exercise are desirable.”

PNEUMONIA

Dr. Julius Poheman says in Medical News: —

“The effect of alcohol upon nearly all the organs of the body has been carefully investigated. But, strange to say, literature contains only a few straggling hints upon the action of alcohol on the pulmonary tissue. It has long been known that the abuse of alcohol is a predisposing cause of death when the drinker is attacked with pneumonia. No experimental evidence has been published of the action of alcohol in producing pathological conditions in the lungs. In order to determine this action, a series of experiments was made upon dogs in the winters of 1890-1891 and 1892-1893. The dogs were a mixed lot of mongrels gathered in by the city dog catchers. They varied in weight from fifteen to twenty-five pounds, and were apparently in good health. In all, thirty animals were experimented on.

“The experiments were performed as follows: – A carefully etherized animal had injected into his trachea just below the larynx a quantity of commercial alcohol varying from one dram to one ounce in amount. The effects of equal amounts of alcohol upon animals of the same weight varies greatly. Two dogs, weighing twenty-five pounds each, were injected with two drams of alcohol. One died in one hour, and the other in six hours after the injection. Four other dogs, two weighing twenty-four pounds each, another eighteen pounds, and the fourth fifteen pounds, were all injected with the same amount, two drams. All four survived, and were as well as usual in four weeks. Another dog of eighteen pounds died five minutes after an injection of two drams, while another of fifteen pounds took one ounce and recovered.

“The symptoms in the dogs were all alike, dyspnea, increasing as the inflammation increased, until the accessory muscles of respiration were called into play. The stethoscope showed that air had great difficulty in entering the bronchi and air vesicles, and showed also the tumultuous beating of the heart in pumping blood through the lung. It was impossible to take the temperatures. Post-mortem examinations showed the lungs dark, congested and solid in some places. The air passages were filled with frothy, bloody mucus, even in the dog that died in five minutes. On section, the lungs were dark, congested, and full of bloody mucus. This shows how acutely sensitive the respiratory passages are to the action of alcohol. On microscopic examination of the lungs, the air tubes and vesicles were found filled with immense numbers of red and white corpuscles and much mucus. The same picture was presented as in a slide from the lungs of a broncho-pneumonic child.

“The striking similarity between the two is enough to prove that the pathological condition is the same, and that alcohol has produced a lesion very closely resembling, if not absolutely like, that of broncho-pneumonia in the human subject. This to some extent explains why drunkards attacked by pneumonia succumb more readily than the temperate. The sensitive lung tissue is enveloped in alcohol – flowing through the capillaries of the lung on one side, and exhaled, filling the air vesicles and tubes on the other. The condition must create a state of semi-engorgement or of mild inflammation, similar to the drunkard’s red nose, or his engorged gastric mucous membrane. Such a state will reduce the vitality of the pulmonary tissue, and its power of resistance to external influences. Add to this an inflammation such as a pneumonia, and the lungs find themselves unable to stand the pressure.”

As previous chapters contain much showing the reasons why alcohol is dangerous in pneumonia, space need not be taken here to do more than indicate briefly some points of non-alcoholic treatment.

Pneumonia is generally supposed to result from a cold; it is ushered in by the symptoms of a chill, followed by fever, headache, shortness of breath, pain in chest, etc. It sometimes occurs as a complication of typhoid fever and other acute diseases.

“It is not a very fatal disease in young and healthy subjects, but in weak children, old persons and habitual drinkers, it is a very fatal malady.”

Nature Cure recommends a vapor bath immediately upon the appearance of the first symptoms, together with copious drinking of hot lemonade, and a good supply of pure fresh air in the room, together with the application of alternating hot and cold compresses, and no drugs.

Dr. Kellogg says: —

“Cool compresses or ice-bags, alternated every three hours by hot fomentations for ten minutes, should be applied to the chest, particularly to the affected side, the seat of pain. The hot fomentations relieve the pain, and the cold compresses check the diseased process. The compresses should be wrung out of cold water, and changed every five to eight minutes, or as often as they become warm. Although the cool compresses are not usually liked by the patient, they will soon give relief if their use is continued, and they do much towards shortening the course of the disease. Care should be taken to keep the patient’s body from being wet except where the treatment is applied. The cold compress is much used in the large hospitals of Germany. When the pulse becomes as rapid as 95 to 110 or more, cool sponging, the wet-sheet pack, the cool full bath or the cool enema should be employed. When much chilliness is produced by the contact of water with the skin, the cold enema is a most admirably useful measure. The amount of water required is from half a pint to a pint. The temperature may be 40 to 60 degrees. The apartment should be kept as cool as possible without discomfort, and an abundance of fresh air should be continually supplied.

“The diet of the patient should consist of milk, oatmeal gruel, ripe fruit, and similar easily digested food. No meat, eggs or other stimulating food should be allowed.

“Discontinue the cold treatment after the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If the surface is cold, apply hot sponging or a hot pack. Avoid causing chilliness.”

Pre-Natal Influence of Alcohol: – “The use of beer as a medicine during pregnancy is without doubt perilous to the health and vigor of the offspring. Children born under such conditions are sickly and feeble, and suffer from disease more severely than others, or die early. Alcoholic prescriptions to pregnant women are, from all present knowledge of the facts, both dangerous and reprehensible in the highest degree.” – Dr. T. D. Crothers, Hartford, Conn.

“M. Fere, an eminent French physician, recently reported to the Biological Society of Paris the results of experiments which he had been conducting for the purpose of throwing light upon this question. These experiments demonstrate that the exposure of hen’s eggs to the influence of the vapor of alcohol, previous to incubation, retards the development of the embryo, and favors the production of malformations. It is evident from these experiments that alcohol may act directly upon the embryo when there is no marked influence of alcoholism in the parent.”

Pain After Food: – “This may occur in acute or chronic gastric catarrh, or in a neuralgic or oversensitive condition of the stomach, or in ulcer or cancer of that organ. In all these it comes on soon after food has been swallowed; but, if occurring a long time after a meal, it is probably due to atonic dyspepsia. Alcohol will undoubtedly sometimes relieve this kind of pain by deadening the nerves of the stomach so that the pain is not felt so much; but this effect soon passes off, and if the cause of the malady is not removed by other means, increasing quantities of alcohol will be required to give relief. Many cases of drink-craving have originated in this way. Medical aid will generally be required. A small mustard poultice over the pit of the stomach is often useful, especially in inflammatory cases, or any other outward application of heat. Food should be fluid, or semi-fluid, and digestible. Ginger tea, or peppermint water, may serve to disperse gas.”

POISON, ANIMAL

The following by Dr. Chas. H. Shepard, of Brooklyn, who introduced the Turkish bath into America, is taken from the Journal of the A. M. A., for Nov. 13, 1897: —

“Animal poison is by no means uncommon, and so quick and mysterious is its action that a prompt remedy is a vital necessity. There is good reason to believe that the numerous remedies that have been recommended from earliest times as antidotes for animal poison are worthless, as they have not the properties commonly ascribed to them. The paucity of remedies is so great that alcohol is the one which comes most quickly to the mind of those who have been taught in the traditions of the past, and who are not fully aware of its action on the human system. We shall endeavor to show that the action of alcohol is not helpful, but on the contrary is really detrimental; and also that there is a better way out of the difficulty.

“If we get a splinter in the body, vital energy is aroused to get rid of the offending substance, inflammation is set up, and sloughing goes on until the splinter is voided. If the splinter is covered with acrid material, the same process is intensified, and nature endeavors to eliminate the offending substance through the natural excretions. Upon the peculiarity of the material depends the direction of this elimination.

“It is well known that some poisons are thrown off by the kidneys, some by the lungs, while others again are attacked by all the emunctories. The difference in the power of the system to absorb different substances, appropriate whatever can be utilized, and throw off whatever can not be used, is sometimes called idiosyncrasy, but more properly it may be called vital resistance, and upon the integrity of this power rests the ability to combat disease in all its forms, whether it be the absorption of any animal virus or the poison resulting from undigested food. This ability is in proportion to the integrity and soundness of every tissue and organ of the body. This may be illustrated by the fact that with a person suffering from kidney disease, which necessarily impedes elimination, the ordinary effects of a poison are intensified; therefore whatever aids in the promotion of good health, or in other words, the normal action of all the functions, will contribute to the safety of the individual in any and every emergency.

“When a person dies from the effect of poisoning, it is simply because the system was unable to eliminate the offending substance and was exhausted in the effort. There is a tolerance of some substances which frequently results in chronic disease, and again it is shown in what is called the cumulative effect or acute disease.

“Those who would hold that a substance is at one time a medicament, and at another time a poison, have much trouble in drawing the line between the beneficial and the poisonous effect. The idea that poisonous substances act on the system is responsible for many grave mistakes, whereas always, and under all circumstances, it is the system that does all the action.

“There might be some excuse for the idea that disease is an entity, from the facts that have been brought to light by the germ theory, but this theory is of recent date, while the entity theory is as old as superstition.

“Snake poison, which may be cited as a type of other animal poisons, takes effect through the circulation, and acts by paralyzing the nerve centres, and by altering the condition of the blood. In ordinary cases death seems to take place by arrest of respiration, from paralysis of the nerves of motion. The poison also acts septically, producing at a later period sloughing and hemorrhage.

“Dr. Calmette, a noted French scientist, claims that what is poisonous in the snake’s bite, is not the venom absorbed into the blood, but a principle which the blood itself has developed out of the poison. This would necessitate very quick action when the poison is inserted in one of the large veins, as that is followed by instant death.

“The following cases fairly represent some of the tragedies that are occurring in our everyday life.