Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/390

382 and influenced also, I must admit—overwhelmed, indeed—by what I know and what I read daily of the pauperism, domestic wretchedness, crime, insanity and incurable maladies transmitted to innocent offspring, I abandoned entirely, more than three years ago, the use of alcoholic remedies.

"I have endeavored by personal example and earnest council to dissuade my patients from the use of intoxicating beverages and medicines.

"The outcome of this practice, medically and morally, has been satisfactory to myself, and, I have reason to believe, to my patients also.

"Whatever regrets I may feel for my former teaching and practice, I have no apology to offer for my inconsistency except that once given by Gerrit Smith:— 'I know more today than I did yesterday; the only persons who never change their minds are God and a fool.'

"Permit me to add that while there may be an honest difference of opinion regarding the efficacy of legislative enactments in overcoming or restraining the drink habit, there should be little doubt that a whole-hearted, persistent, precept-and-example effort of the medical profession exerted as individuals on their patients and the families of their patients, and as associations on the community at large, would do immeasurable good.

"And the newspapers might aid materially in this beneficent work if, while they continue to spread before our households every day the details of the brawls and fights of drunken men and the horrible murders which they commit, they would discontinue advertising, without warning or dissent, side by side with the atrocities, the 'innocuous beers,' the pure malt whiskies, the genuine brandies, guaranteed to prevent and cure all manner of diseases."

The following testimony from an English physician is significant:—

"Although I know beforehand that their united testimony