Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/229

Rh the reception and internal distribution of oxygen, by which we will most effectually prevent further fatty or granular degeneration of cardiac and other structures. The language of the paragraphs I have quoted, fairly assumes that alcohol is a stimulant capable of relieving nervous exhaustion and cardiac failures, regardless of the causes producing those pathological conditions, and consequently its use is necessary in the 'majority of cases' of typhoid fever.

"Can such an assumption be sustained by either established facts, or correct reasoning? Can nervous and cardiac exhaustion, induced by the presence of toxic agents in the blood, with deficiency of both hemoglobin and oxygen, be relieved by a simple stimulant, that neither neutralizes nor eliminates the toxic agents, nor increases either the hemoglobin or oxygen? That alcohol does not neutralize or destroy toxic ptomaines, or tox-albumins, is proved by abundant clinical experience, and also by the fact that chemists use it freely in the processes for separating these substances from other organic matters for experimental purposes. That its presence in the living body retards metabolic changes generally, and thereby aids in retaining instead of eliminating toxic agents of all kinds, has been so fully shown in the pages of preceding numbers of the Medical Temperance Quarterly, that the leading facts need not be repeated here. That its presence does not increase the hemoglobin, or favor oxy-hemoglobin or increased internal distribution of oxygen, but decidedly the reverse, has been equally well demonstrated by numerous and reliable experimental researches in this and other countries.

"Then it must be conceded that alcohol is not capable of fulfilling either of the important indications presented in the treatment of typhoid fever as stated above. Nevertheless, the advocates of its use apparently recognize but two ideas or factors in these cases, namely, the popularly inherited assumption that alcohol is a stimulant, and as the patient is in danger from nervous and cardiac weakness, therefore the alcohol must