Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/157

Rh where the treatment was simplest, such as external warmth with plenty of diluents. He had given creasote largely.

5. Its injuriousness during the stage of reaction. The reactive fever following collapse caused a great number of deaths. In this stage alcohol was absolutely poisonous. He could recall many such cases in which he had given alcohol through ignorance, and always with disaster.

"Brigade-Surgeon Pringle said that when he went out to India he thought alcohol was something to stand by, but he had soon found out his mistake; he had himself suffered from it. He could confirm what Dr. Richardson had said as to the demoralization produced by alcohol to which men resort to keep up their spirits, and men seized under these circumstances were in the greatest danger. Nature effects a cure in many cases without assistance, and often with wonderful rapidity. People apparently dead and about to be buried, he had known to get up and recover. When alcohol is given during collapse there is often no absorption until reaction occurs, and then the quantity accumulated speedily produces intoxication. It was the same with opium; he had found pills unchanged in the stomach for hours. He recommended hot drinks; he had tried every kind of medicine and had little faith in it. The nursing was very important, and it was important that the nurses should abstain.

"Dr. Morton said it was easy to see that on physiological grounds alone, alcohol, with its strong affinity for water and its tendency to lower temperature, could not be a useful drug in the treatment of cholera collapse, and with its powers of paralyzing vascular inhibition and checking elimination of effete matter, could not be otherwise than harmful in the stage of reaction. As these conclusions were corroborated by practical experience he did not think members would hesitate to banish it from their equipment against cholera.

"Dr. Ridge said it should be remembered that Doyen had made experiments on guinea-pigs and had found they were proof against cholera, unless they had previously had a dose of