Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/421

Rh life, to induce sleep and to promote wakefulness, and for all real or imaginary ills."


 * —"Prof. Craddock says that tobacco has a bad effect upon the sight, and a distinct disease of the eye is attributed to its immoderate use. Many cases in which complete loss of sight has occurred, and which were formerly regarded as hopeless, are now known to be curable by making the patient abstain from tobacco. These patients almost invariably at first have color blindness, taking red to be brown or black, and green to be light blue or orange. In nearly every case, the pupils are much contracted, in some cases to such an extent that the patient is unable to move about without assistance. One such man admitted that he had usually smoked from twenty to thirty cigars a day. He consented to give up smoking altogether, and his sight was fully restored in three and a half months. It has been found that chewing is much worse than smoking in its effects upon the eyesight, probably for the simple reason that more of the poison is thereby absorbed. The condition found in the eye in the early stages is that of extreme congestion only; but this, unless remedied at once, leads to gradually increasing disease of the optic nerve, and then, of course, blindness is absolute and beyond remedy. It is, therefore, evident that, to be of any value, the treatment of disease of the eye due to excessive smoking must be immediate, or it will probably be useless."—Journal of Inebriety.

"Dr. Isaac Fellows was for many years a prominent physician in Los Angeles. A temperance man, he was persuaded by an old physician whom he loved to try for a year substituting alcohol in drop doses in water for such patients as demanded alcoholic stimulants. He was delighted with the result. When his patients found they could not have wine, beer or brandy under the guise of medicine, but must take it in drop doses in water, as they did their other medicines, they speedily learned to do without 'a stimulant.' "—Pacific Ensign.