The non-alcoholic treatment of disease / by John Higginbottom.

  • Higginbottom, John, 1788-1876.
Date:
1862[?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The non-alcoholic treatment of disease / by John Higginbottom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    powers have become affected, and they have lost all self-control* These cases call loudly for legalised national institutions or retreats,, where the poor sufferers may be placed and taken care of, as they cannot be considered lunatics, and, consequently, not subjects for common lunatic asylums. By universal abstinence from alcohol as food and as medicine,, thousands and tens of thousands of lives of the people will be pre¬ served and prevented from falling into a premature grave. The foul stain of drunkenness will be wiped away from our land, and domestic peace, wealth, comfort, and happiness will be diffused into innumerable families who are now utter strangers to them.. It would be like a second curse removed from the world, which man has created himself. What I have written in this paper, I leave as a last testament to my junior brethren. I am now in the seventy-fifth year of my age, and have nearly finished my day’s work, having been devoted to our profession as a general practitioner for more than half a century. I have been much attached to medical and surgical practice, and have diligently attended to it more from a sense of duty than from any pecuniary emolument. I believe there is not a medical man here who would commence the profession as an avocation to become rich in money, as they well know there is not a more laborious calling, or one that is so inefficiently remunerated. It is a high and noble profession ; antiquity has long designated Us as “ the hands of God.” If I had to commence life again, I would begin and end as a general practitioner, as I consider that I should have a more extended range of practice, and also should be placed in a more enterprising position to discover new facts. No person can form any idea, except from experience, of the superiority of the practice of medicine and surgery, when alcohol is banished from it. It is the complete emancipation from the slavery of alcohol; and the practitioner has a freedom in practice which he never before experienced. He will find an improved method of treating disease, by the exchange of alcohol for natural stimulants ; a proper use of water, pure air, exercise, and nutritious- food ; the employment of genuine medicines ; and a variety of stimulants will occur to him in practice, of a non-intoxicating