A Deceitful Medicine

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 5, 1906

A Deceitful Medicine

In a recent issue of American Medicine, Nov. 18, 1905, Dr. T. D. Crothers states that for a long time all the leading authorities on therapeutics regarded alcohol as a valuable stimulant and tonic, and supported their claims by many exhaustive studies until it appeared that its therapeutic power was established beyond question. In small doses alcohol was said to be a tonic and stimulant, while in larger doses it depressed and lowered vitality. Modern research has failed to confirm this theory, but has indicated the action of alcohol to be that of an anesthetic and narcotic.

The studies of Professor Kraepelin, of the University of Heidelberg, showing the depressing action of spirits and its narcotic properties to cover up pain and discomfort, fully confirm the work of Richardson and others who, a few years ago, announced that alcohol must be considered a narcotic, and any medicinal action it had was entirely due to this power. The good results obtained in some of the clinical researches of the older physicians are now explained by the modern physician as due to this anesthetic and narcotic action. This kind of medication, like that from the use of opium, covers up the symptoms of pain and discomfort at the peril of injury to the metabolism and vitality of the body.

Within the last few years alcohol has become less and less popular as a drug in public hospitals, and where used has been

chiefly employed for external applications, as a bath in fevers. Formerly alcohol was thought to be very useful as a tonic for worn-out elderly persons. This theory is also rapidly passing away. Nearly all the old people's homes and hospitals for the aged have abandoned spirits as a tonic.

It seems to be a settled conviction that alcohol used medicinally or as a beverage is depressive and lowers vitality, lessening the oxygen-carrying properties of the blood corpuscles and increasing the waste of the system. Several authorities urge with great positiveness that the use of alcohol favors the growth of toxins and bacterial products in the body, by its disturbing action on nutrition.

Strange to say, in view of the above-mentioned facts, quite a large class of physicians continue to use alcohol as a stimulant, and in cases in which vitality is low, for the purpose of increasing the heart's action, and particularly in collapse. This practise has proved to be especially dangerous in many ways, notably in the collapsed condition of persons found on the street, and to whom spirits are given as heart stimulants. Should such collapse and coma be due to cerebral hemorrhage, the action of spirits on the heart would cause a sudden flow of blood through the arteries, thereby increasing the hemorrhage, and practically making a fatal condition that might have been overcome otherwise. . . .

One of the recent conclusions, which is confirmed by daily experience, is that alcohol, taken either as a drug or as a beverage, has cumulative action. The apparent good results are misleading, and the invalid who has taken spirits in moderation for a long time, with the belief that he is regaining health and vigor, is suddenly seized with acute inflammation of the lungs or kidneys, which he attributes to some trivial cause. A sclerotic (hardened) condition of the arteries, combined with a feeble heart action, culminates in a fatal issue. The inference is very clear that the connection between the continuous anesthetic and narcotic action of alcohol and the final collapse is far more intimate than we realize.

This every-day experience confirms, and it is seen in the low vitality and feeble power of resistance of all persons who use spirits either as a drug or as medicine. The mortality of moderate or excessive users of spirits is a well-known clinical fact. Constant anesthesia of the nerve-centers going on for a long time must inevitably result in organic changes. If this condition follows when its use began in health, its effects will be much more complete when used on diseased tissue and degenerative processes.

“In the exhaustion of old age,” says the author, “the dangerous prescription of alcohol in some form still continues to be given, and the results are always fatal. . . . I know of but one use of alcohol in the sick-room that is thoroughly scientific — that is its use, as a refrigerant, to cool off the skin in fevers.”—Current Literature.