Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/373

Rh "I think the medical profession could get along perfectly well without the use of alcohol, except as it is needed in the manufacture of drugs. As a therapeutic agent, ft has very little value. I do not suppose I have used a pint of alcohol in the last ten years. I think the tendency of the medical profession throughout, the country is to give up alcohol in the treatment of disease.”—, Dean of the Medical Department of the University of Buffalo, N. Y.

“I very seldom prescribe alcohol as a medicine, and think its effects are positively harmful in the vast majority of medical cases.”—, Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Buffalo, N. Y.

“At the Baptist Hospital I have not ordered alcohol for a patient in several years. At the Massachusetts General Hospital, in the out-patient department, I never prescribe it.”—, of Harvard Medical School, Boston.

“Alcohol is used much too freely in the treatment of the sick, especially in such conditions as mild typhoid fever, neurasthenia and early tuberculosis. It should be prescribed only when there is definite indication for it, and then in definite dose for a limited period in the same manner as any other powerful and potentially harmful drug.”—, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

“It is seldom necessary to prescribe alcohol as a medicine.”—, Professor of Medicine in Rush Medical College, Chicago.

“As I have said but little about the use of medicine in the treatment of typhoid fever, save for one symptom, I may add, for the purpose of definiteness, that I use none except for special symptoms. The rare exceptions are stimulants such as strychniastrychnine [sic], in less marked indications coffee. Alcohol as a routine drug I have entirely abandoned, having found that the doses formerly given before or after the bath are altogether unnecessary. Hot milk internally, or hot water bags externally, more than replace spirits according to my experience.”—Dr. George Doek, New Orleans.