The Scientific Verdict—Weighed and Found Wanting
By David Paulson, M. D.
Search-Light of Science—Physical Bankruptcy—Not Needed in Medicine
TWENTY years ago, when I was graduated from Bellevue medical college, New York City, the wise medical professors taught that alcohol was a most useful remedy in pneumonia, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Any teacher who would express such sentiments in any medical school in the civilized world to-day would be certain to meet well-deserved ridicule from the members of his class. THE SEARCH-LIGHT OF SCIENCE
What has wrought such an amazing transformation in less than half a generation? — Hundreds of thoroughly trained workers in well-equipped laboratories have made thousands of scientific experiments with instruments of precision to determine the exact scientific truth concerning the real nature of alcohol, and the final verdict has in every case been that alcohol in any and all doses is a paralyzer and a destroyer of vital tissues — in short, a poison and only a poison. Professor Kraepelin, of Heidelberg University, Germany, after making thousands of the most careful experiments, has conclusively shown that as small a quantity as a third of an ounce of alcohol produces paralyzing effects on the nervous system that can be detected hours afterward by instruments of precision. The sight is less keen, the hearing is less acute, the sense of touch is either diminished or deranged, and muscular capacity is lessened. Fatigue is experienced sooner, the memory is less retentive, and the reason less accurate. What a startling scientific commentary on the divine declaration that they “have erred through wine, . . . they err in vision, they stumble in judgment”! Isa. 28:7. After taking a small quantity of alcohol, the subject imagines that he can do more work, while the most rigid test with a dynamometer or strength test machine reveals the fact that he is actually not doing as much as before, and endurance tests on a large scale demonstrate the same fact. Dr. Treves, the great English surgeon who was selected to perform a serious surgical operation on the late King Edward, accompanied the British troops on one of their most trying marches in the Boer war in South Africa. Speaking of this experience, Dr. Treves says: “As a work producer, alcohol is exceedingly extravagant, and leads to physical bankruptcy. I was with the relief column that moved on to Ladysmith. It was an exceedingly trying time by reason of the hot weather. In that column of 30,000, the first who dropped out were not the tall men or the short men, or the big men or the little men. They were the drinkers, and they dropped out as clearly as if they had been labeled with a big letter on their backs.” In reality alcohol, as a great German investigator has remarked, “gives no strength, but only a feeling of strength.” What alcohol can do is what morphin and chloroform do — paralyze the higher centers that notify us of fatigue and discomfort, and so the user actually imagines it has refreshed, rested, and improved him. It is this same partial paralysis that prevents the cries of hungry children, the sobs of the broken-hearted wife, and the sweet influence of the Spirit of God, from making any impression on the drunkard’s brain. Dr. L. Mervin Maus, of the United States army, has called our attention to the fact that there are a million degenerates in this land to-day, the majority of whom owe their unfortunate condition to their alcohol-using parents. Modern medical science is banishing alcohol from the sick-room, just as modern sentiment is banishing the saloon from the street corner. Dr. Wiley, of national pure food fame, as chairman of the pharmacopoeial convention which meets each ten years to determine what drugs shall be included in our medical pharmacopoeia, — the official register, so to speak, of useful and well-regulated remedies — states that brandy and whisky are no longer used as medicines in sufficient quantities to warrant their retention in the next pharmacopoeia. He says that the general trend of scientific thought on this question leads to the conclusion that alcohol in its various forms is an unmitigated evil. Can we compromise with this evil? Shall we enter into partnership with it and accept its blood-stained money? We neither tolerate nor license mad dogs; but we are sometimes so stupefied by the wicked influences of this evil that we are ready to license the saloon, which is infinitely more dangerous. There are fewer saloons in all the Southern states than there are in the city of Chicago; and without exception, those communities which have wiped out this curse have instantly felt increased business prosperity, improved morals, a higher grade of intelligence, less sickness, and less crime. Will you who read these words, sit still and fold your hands until others have fought this entire battle, or will you arouse and assist in crowding this curse to the wall? How will you vote in states where this subject is presented at the polls this fall?