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Temperance

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

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Temperance.

There Are Doctors and Doctors.

RATHER more than a year ago, a lady was prevailed upon to sign the total abstinence pledge. She had been in the habit of regularly drinking a little wine daily; so little that she hardly thought that she could do any good by ceasing to take it. But to her surprise she found the influence of her example, as a pledged abstainer, powerful enough to induce more than a hundred persons to sign as she had done.
After a year of happy work as total abstainer, she was taken ill, and she sent for her medical man. He found her weak and exhausted and altogether out of sorts, and asked her what she had been doing with herself to bring her down so low.
She confessed that during the last year she had taken no stimulant of any sort; she had become a teetotaler.
"Ha! I thought as much," exclaimed the doctor, "and I assure you that it will not do for you. You must give it up at once. You are just committing suicide. You absolutely require a gentle stimulant. There are constitutions that can do without it, but yours is not one of them. You have always been accustomed to a little, and you must take it, just a glass of bitter beer with luncheon, and a little wine at dinner to assimilate your food. It is absolutely necessary to you."
The lady felt very sorrowful, very unwilling to do what would, she knew, more than nullify the effect of all her endeavors during the past year, and would put a complete stop to her excellent work among her poor neighbors.
After earnest, prayerful thought, she decided to take another opinion.
She went up to London to consult Sir Andrew Clarke. He examined into her case, and questioned her very carefully, and at last inquired, "Do you take stimulants at all?"
"No," she replied, timidly, "I was in the habit of taking a little, but for the last year I have taken none at all—and—"
"I am glad to hear it. Never touch stimulants of any sort; it is the very worst thing you can take."
"Oh, doctor!" she exclaimed eagerly, "will you write that down and put your signature to it?"
"Very willingly," he replied.
Armed with her precious document, she returned home, and when next she saw her own medical man, she showed it to him.
He took it up, read it and looked at the signature.
"Ha! Sir Andrew Clarke! H'm, yes, he is a great man, and can say these things. We country doctors can't afford it."—Watchword.