Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/333

Rh localized anaesthesia. After a time insomnia supervenes, and the patient displays a curious hesitancy, and an inability to arrive at a decision on even the most trivial subjects."

Dr. F. Coley says later on in the article before referred to :—

"There is another combination which, though utterly absurd from a therapeutical point of view, is not in itself quite so dangerous as coca wine. It will probably do a larger amount of mischief, however, because more people take it. I refer to the various preparations, so largely advertised, which profess to be compounded of port wine, extract of malt, and extract of meat. To the medically uneducated public this doubtless seems a most promising combination: extract of meat for food, extract of malt to aid digestion, port wine to make blood. Surely the very thing to strengthen all who are weak, and to hasten the restoration of convalescents. Unfortunately what the advertisements say—that this stuff is largely prescribed by medical men—is not wholly untrue.

"I do not suppose that any physician of anything like front rank would make such a mistake. But busy general practitioners may be excused if they prove to be a bit oblivious of physiology, and so become attracted by a formula which is more plausible than sound. In the first place, we all know that extract of meat is not food at all. From the manner of its production, it cannot contain an appreciable quantity of protein material. It consists mainly of creatin, and creatinin, and salts. These are, it is needless to say, incapable of acting as food. Extract of meat, and similar preparations, have their uses however; made into 'beef-tea,' their meaty flavor often enables patients to take a quantity of bread, which would otherwise be refused; or lentil flour, or some other matter may be added. In this way, though not food itself, it becomes a most useful aid to feeding. It is besides, a harmless stimulant, especially when taken, as it always should be, hot. It should be needless