Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/424

4l6 very worst offenders are the least likely to study it. We suppose they must die out, and be replaced by men less prejudiced and bound by the chain of alcoholic habit. We can only regret that they should be doing so much harm in fastening the fetters of drink on other people, and hindering their emancipation from the evil customs which play havoc amongst us."—Medical Pioneer.


 * —"Parents often labor under the delusion that alcoholic drinks are good for children and act as tonics. Mothers will put drops of brandy into the milk with which their children are fed, increasing the quantity with the age of the recipient. In the illness of children the same is given to meet disturbances of the stomach or to increase growth and development, without taking the advice of any medical man as to the wisdom of the practice. This is all erroneous. The excitement of the central nervous system under alcohol, excitement which seems to be a relief to weariness and to give strength, is nothing more than temporary at best, and injurious, causing in fact symptoms of alcoholic poisoning, abnormal excitement, ending, in extreme cases, in convulsions succeeded By exhaustion of body and mind, and inducing a kind of paralysis. Many cases of stomach and gastric catarrh in children followed by emaciation and debility are due to the early administration of alcoholic drinks; and impediment of growth from the same cause is thereby produced. The most serious derangement is that of the nervous system, and the development in the young, under the influence of alcohol, of what is known as nervousness, to which is added the moral paralysis with which the habit of alcoholic drinking smites its victims in the very spring-time of life."—, of Berne, Switzerland.

"The action of the New York Board of Health, in recommending to tenement house parents, that on the hottest days of summer a few drops of whisky be added to the water or food of their infants, has received a strong protest and rebuke in a meeting at Prohibition Park, where the opinions of eminent