The effects of alcohol as a medicine : an essay read before the Fifth National Convention, held at Saratoga, August 1, 2, and 3, 1865 / by Charles Jewett, M.D.

  • Jewett, Charles, 1807-1879.
Date:
1865
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The effects of alcohol as a medicine : an essay read before the Fifth National Convention, held at Saratoga, August 1, 2, and 3, 1865 / by Charles Jewett, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    supply, as do mineral waters, important ingredients of twe blood or solid structures which may be at the time wanting or deficient in the system, such as iron, phosphoric acid, sulphur, lime, and the like. They can not neutralize in the system or aid in the elimina- tion from it of waste or eifete matters resulting from the disinte- gration of the tissues, and which may have accumulated through defective action of the excretory organs. We may select from our materia medica articles capable of pro- ducing either of the results I have named, but alcohol is not one of them. What desirable result, then, can the physician promise him- self and his patient, with any degree of confidence, from the admin- istration of alcohol in any of those forms or mixtures in which it is or may be employed as medicines ? 1st. In cases of extreme and sudden prostration, resulting from falls, blows, extensive scalds, profuse hemorrhages, or whatever cause, where there is present danger of a fatal faint or stoppage of the circulation, alcohol may—administered in small doses to those who have not been accustomed to its use—excite reaction or an increased movement of the vital machinery, and thus avail for good, while more permanent restoratives are applied to the support of the suf- ferer. A sudden dash of cold water in the face or the introduction of the sharp, acrid vapor of ammonia into the nostrils—both sug- gestive to the vital forces of sufibcation—will often act in a similar way. The period during which alcohol can be made to serve any good pui-pose in the way suggested as a mere stimulant, it will be at once perceived, must be very brief, and the amount emjiloyed small in constitutions unaccustomed to its presence. 2d. It may afford temporary relief from pain and spasm in cases where from any cause the sensibilities have been unduly exalted. As a narcotic or an anesthetic agent, closely akin to chlorofbrm and ether, alcohol, carefully administered, can and often does produce desirable results of the character indicated. In spasmodic asthma, in cases of disturbances of the alimentary canal, caused either by exposures to cold, or more frequently by the passage of ill-digested or crude materials over the mucous surfaces—in these and other kindred cases alcohol may, as an anesthetic, render the condition of the patient more tolerable, while a return to the normal state is se- cured by time and the rem,edial efforts of the vital forces, or by the action of medicines more safe and permanent in their results than those which produce a partial destruction of the sensibilities. There are other agents with which the desirable results named may usually be accomplished with nearly as much certainty, if not so rapidly, as with alcohol. Warm baths, or local applications of heat; opium in some of its forms, or some kindred narcotic; or, in urgent cases, even the moderate and careful inhalation of ether; but apart from the tendency to the formation of intemperate habits from the use of alcohol, these have no advantage that I am acquainted with over that article, judiciously administered. The tempo- rary relief which stimulants, so called, afford to dyspeptic pa- ti/'nts; to those afflicted with organic disease of a very painful