Temperance and teetotalism : an inquiry into the effects of alcoholic drinks on the human system in health and disease.

  • Carpenter, William Benjamin, 1813-1885.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Temperance and teetotalism : an inquiry into the effects of alcoholic drinks on the human system in health and disease. 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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    There are many reasons why we* deem it incumbent upon our brethren of the medical profession to take an active part in the investigation which is now being carried on by a large and not unimportant section of the public in this country and elsewhere, with regard to the effects of the habitual use of alcoholic drinks, and the possibility of effectually main- taining the “mens sana in corpore sano” without recourse to them. The fearful array of social and individual evils which may be traced to the abuse of fermented liquors, should lead every reflecting mind to consider how far the use of them is desirable or necessary; and this inquiry is peculiarly incumbent upon those who assume to themselves the right of guiding the public in all that concerns the welfare of the bodily fabric, whether in health or disease. Their influence for good or evil in this matter can scarcely be too highly estimated. If they are able, after careful consideration of the evidence on each side, to give their sanction to the statements of the advocates of the Total Abstinence cause, that sanction ought not to be withheld; since its weight in the scale of social order and morality demands the open and unqualified expression of it, unre- strained by any fear of ridicule or loss of the world’s approval. That they would knowingly place their influence in the opposite scale, cannot for a moment be admitted; but there is too much reason to fear that, either from actual ignorance of what the experience of multitudes of all ranks and conditions has now demonstrated, or from a natural tendency to persistence in that sort of laissez-faire system which it is so easy to practise and (in this matter especially) so agreeable to their patients, the generality of medical men are at present lending their sanction to a system of most pernicious error. Having long since made up our own minds on this subject, we have determined not to forego this opportunity—the last in our power—of recording our earnest convictions in regard to it; in the hope of leading our readers, if not at once to view the matter in the light in which we see it after many years of observation and personal experience, at any rate to inquire and observe for themselves, and to pause before they again recommend or sanction practices which, though comparatively in- nocent in themselves, aid in perpetuating the direst evils with which our country is infected. There are, it must be admitted, few cases in which the wish so readily becomes the father to the thought, or in which the feelings are so apt to bias the judgment, as in the consideration of the real utility of fermented liquors. The prevalent ideas of social enjoyment and good fellowship are so intimately associated with the circulation of the bottle or the discussion of a bowl of punch,—most of us have such vivid recollections of the thirst and fatigue of travel alleviated by a glass of good ale at a road-side inn,— and many a medical man’s notions of quiet and legitimate enjoyment after a trying day of professional labour are so closely connected with a com- * The fact of the following pages having been originally written for and published in a Review, will account for the personal pronouns being constantly used in the plural number. 1