NON-ALCOHOLIC MEDICATION.
Susan Dodds, M. D., of St. Louis, Mo., writes thus to the Union Signal concerning her experience in treating disease without the use of alcohol:— "So far as my own personal experience is concerned, and that of my sister-in-law, with whom I am associated, I would say that during the twenty years that we have been in practice we have treated successfully both acute and chronic diseases without using alcohol in any form. "When the 'crisis' comes in a fever—and we have had the very worst forms of it to deal with—instead of applying the whip (alcohol) to rouse the jaded and temporarily exhausted energies of the system, we follow the very reverse method. We let the patient rest; this is the supreme moment, when the doctor, if he is wise, will prescribe persistent let aloneativeness. 'Masterly inactivity' is what is needed more than anything else, save good nursing. "The system needs quiet; it has been undergoing the greatest activity for days, perhaps for weeks, in the powerful effort to expel poisons from the vital domain—for that is just what a fever means; it is an action of the system to throw out impurities. "The climax, then, having been reached, Nature calls a halt; the object has been accomplished, and there follows a period of repose; the temperature lowers; the pulse weakens; the strength (apparently) is gone. It is just here that the mistake is usually made; the 'let-down' (rest) is mistaken for collapse, when it is really nothing of the sort. It is Nature's breathing spell. She is tired out; sleep is wanted. "Then it is time to keep hands off, to let Nature have her way; all will turn out well; the patient will pull through. And, greatly to the astonishment of friends (and others), instead of there being a tardy, feeble recovery, there will be a prompt and vigorous reaction; no set-back, 'no relapses,' but a steady progress back to life and health. "How often have I seen it in typhoid fever, diphtheria, bronchitis, scarlatina, inflammation of the bowels, pneumonia, brain fever, and the rest. "So rapid, indeed, is the recovery, that lookers-on remark, after it is all over, 'Why, there was not so very much the matter after all.' "This, the rapid recovery, is as it should be. Convalescence ought to be prompt, and it would be if it were not interfered with. Stimulants (in the opinion of the writer), of whatever kind, have no place in Nature's materia medica, not even in so-called prostration. When Nature pulls in the check rein, then is the time to stop. "Unfortunately, that has not been the custom; it has been the other way; and many lives have been lost in consequence. At the very moment when exhausted Nature says, 'Rest,' wine or other stimulant is resorted to, and the vital powers, rousing to a final effort, work themselves to death. The embers of life are stirred, until the fire is extinguished forever."