The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of temperance & total abstinence : being an examination of the effects of the excessive, moderate, and occasional use of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    181 from them, but for the want of the measure of food which the system really needs, and which no other means seems so effectual in enabling it to appropriate. It is charac- teristic of these cases, that the Alcoholic stimulant seems to \ act upon the stomach, as it does upon the system at large when depressed by the shock of an injury or morbid poison (§§ 213—215) ; never stimulating it to an abnormal activity, < but simply keeping it up to its normal standard. In this class of cases, it is important to observe, that there is not i found to be that necessity for the increase of the dose w ith , the lapse of time, which presents itself in those in which it i is hurtful, because unnecessary. To w ithhold the assistance of Alcoholic stimulants (it is in their very mildest form, such as that of bitter ale, that they are most beneficial) in such cases, would often be to condemn the individuals in question to a life-long debility, incapacitating them from all activity of exertion in behalf of themselves or others, and j rendering them susceptible to a variety of other causes of ; disease. For it seems to be the peculiar character of this j condition, that no other medicine can supply what is i wanting, with the same effect as a small quantity of an Alcoholic beverage, taken with the principal meal of the ] day; and there is nothing opposed to the general doctrines j previously insisted-on, w ith regard to the ultimate effects of j the habitual use of Alcoholic stimulants, in the admission j that, under the circumstances already named, it is the leant j evil of the tiro.— But the Author, whilst strenuously uphold- j ing the right of the medical practitioner to recommend this ! medicinal use of Alcohol, where he feels satisfied that it is 1 called-for, would also strongly urge the duty of not having recourse to it, till all the more natural means of invigo- j rating the digestive powers shall have been practised with- out success. LONDON I HARRISON AND SONS, 8T. MARTIN’S LANE.