Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/275

Rh until the heart stops, paralyzed, as that two and two make four.

"After an ample clinical field of observation in both hospital and private practice for more than fifty years, and a continuous study of our medical literature, I am prepared to maintain the position that the ratio of mortality from all the acute general diseases has increased in direct proportion to the quantity of alcoholic remedies administered during their treatment. How can we reasonably expect any other result from the use of an agent that so directly and uniformly diminishes the cerebral respiratory, cardiac and metabolic functions of the living human body?"

The Medical Pioneer of January, 1896, contained a very interesting article by Dr. J. H. Kellogg upon "The Influence of Alcohol upon Urinary Toxicity, and its Relation to the Medical Use of Alcohol." He gives the results of many of his own experiments to determine the effects of alcohol in hindering the elimination of poisonous matter by the kidneys. The subject of one experiment was a healthy man of 30 years, weighing 66 kilos. For fifty days prior to the experiment he had taken a carefully regulated diet, and the uro-toxic coefficient had remained very nearly uniform. The urine carefully collected for the first eight hours after the administration of 8 ounces of brandy diluted with water, showed an enormous diminution in the uro-toxic coefficient, which was, in fact, scarcely more than half the normal coefficient for the individual in question. The urine collected for the second period of eight hours showed an increase of toxicity,