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Alcoholic Medication.

No. V.

ALCOHOL IN FEVER.

ALCOHOLIC MEDICATION.

In my last paper on the important subject of Alcohol in Fever I quoted largely from the lately published work of the eminent American physician, Dr. Trall. I shall now give testimony equally clear and conclusive from the writings of several distinguished British Doctors.

Dr. L. M. Bennett, of Winterton, says, "In fever my practice has been most successful without the use of alcohol in any stage, even the last. I have found the cases thus treated milder in form, shorter in duration, the state of convalescence much abridged, and the mortality comparatively small. The Times. in a leading article on Dr. Letheby's report (August, 1862), says, "The disease of the quarter has been fever, and that, curious to say, "most fatal among the better classes of the city." The poor have sickened from fever largely, but have not died from it in the proportion in which the upper classes have. Whatever cause this proceeds from, whether from the greater effect of strengthening diet which comes upon the poor when they are supported by rich stimulants against the waste of fever and so carries them better over a temporary attack than it does the rich who have exhausted the benefit of stimulus by their ordinary use of it, or whether this result arises from some other cause, the fact that the comparison in fever mortality is in favor of the poor, and against the rich in the metropolis, is certainly a lesson to the latter that they are also interested in sanitary improvement.' The reason why the poor have not suffered so greatly as the rich is, in my opinion, that they had less stimulants in a great number of cases and none at all in others. Nature had a fair chance."

This

A controversy took place in the pages of the Medical Times and Gazette at the beginning of last year arising from the circumstance that Dr. Bayley, of Stonebridge, attended a patient in typhus fever and very wisely forbade the use of wine or any other narcotic stimulant. The friends of the patient, how. ever, being victims of the popular delusion, administered stimulants to some extent clandestinely, and being determined to have them given more abundantly called in another practitioner, Dr. Harding. gentleman administered intoxicants freely and the patient died about sixteen or eighteen hours after his first visit. Dr. Harding then wrote to the journal mentioned above attributing the fatal result not to his own alcoholic treatment, as he had good reason to do, but to the non-alcoholic treatment of Dr. Bayley. This of course elicited a reply from Dr. Bayley from which I extract the following:-"I believe that the exhaustion in this case was chiefly the manifestation of the depression of the nervous and vascular systems, following after the primary effects of the alcohol had passed away, and that had my treatment been fairly continued to the end, there would have been a very good probability of recovery. We have emerged from the bleeding fallacies of fifty years ago, and from the mischievous mercurializations of John Hunter's time. I say, when shall we give up the delusive notions of the efficacy of the brandy-bottle as a sovereign remedy for nearly all diseases, many of them diametrically opposite, from a chronic dyspepsia to a fractured leg? My attention was first called to this subject some years ago, by a very striking paper of Dr. Higginbottom, F.R.S., of Nottingham, on the non-alcoholic treatment of disease, and I have found that his views were correct and fully corroborated by many severe cases which I have treated upon this

plan. My treatment of typhus has been to begin at the outset with emetics, mild purgatives, the mineral acids and quinine, to secure cleanliness and ventilation, and to give the patient freely true nutriment, as milk, eggs, beef-tea, broth, &c. Under this mode of treatment, I am prepared to say that almost any case of typhus will be carried to a favorable termination. With regard to the action of alcohol on the human system, all toxicologists agree in defining it as a narcotic poison. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont prove that alcoholic drinks injure the stomach and retard digestion. Dr. John Davy, F.R.S., proves that the ingestion of alcohol lowers the animal temperature in proportion to the quantity given. Professor Schultz proves that alcohol hurries on the blood-vessels to their last stage of development, and induces their premature death. Dr. Beddoes proves that intoxicating liquors are the most pernicious substances received into the stomach. Professor Moleschott, of Erlangan, says that alcohol does not effect any direct restitution, nor deserve the name of an alimentary principle. Dr. Edward Smith has proved-1. That alcohol interferes with alimentation, and that its power to lessen the salivary secretion must impede the digestion of starch; 2. That it greatly lessens muscular tone and power; 3. That there is no evidence that it increases nervous power, while there is much evidence to prove that it lessens nervous power, as shown by the mind and the muscles; 4. That alcohol is not a true food, and that it neither warms nor sustains the body by the elements of which it is composed. Dr. T. K. Chambers, in his 'Renewal of Life,' says What is a stimulant? It is usually held to be something which spurs on an animal to a more vigorous performance of its duties. It seems doubtful if, in the healthy nervous system, this is even the case with alcohol, even in the most moderate doses, for the shortest periods of time. It is clear that we must cease to regard alcohol as an aliment, since it goes out as it went in, and does not leave any of its substance behind it.' The same writer says again :- We think that the evidence so far as it has yet gone, shows the action of alcohol upon life to be consistent and uniform in all its phases, and to be always exhibited as an arrest of vitality. The circulation, indeed, retains its industrious activity, but receives and transmits a less valuable and less living freight, and thus becomes the cause as well as the effect of diminished vitality.' These experiments prove that alcohol depresses nervous force, and I contend that by this action they are most injurious in typhus and other affections. Dr. Higginbottom, F.R.S., says 'I have not prescribed or recommended wine in typhus fever for upwards of forty years, and my treatment has been attended with eminent success; there is no doubt that patients often recoveri from typhus fever in spite of the wine given them, although in my opinion, and from my long practice and observation, its administration in typhus has always been injurious and often fatal in its effects.'

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Dr. Higginbottom, of Nottingham, in the Medical Times and Gazette of 13th February, 1864, addressing the Editor, says "In the controversy between Dr. Harding and Dr. Bayley, Dr. Harding, in mentioning my non-alcoholic treatment of fever, says- Surely the experience of one man ought not to counterbalance that of the most eminent physicians.' In answer, I would say, there are not usually two, but one, to make any great discovery. I claim being one who has made the discovery of the non-alcoholic treatment of disease. In the early part of my practice, half a century ago, if any medical man had told me that wine or alcoholic stimuli were not necessary in typhoid or other fevers, I should have been much surprised, and as much inclined to discredit the

ALCOHOLIC MEDICATION.

assertion as Dr. Harding himself; for at that period, so convinced was I of their absolute necessity in such cases, that I was wishful that the wealthy in the neighborhood should form a wine depôt for the poor, who could not procure it for themselves. It is remarkable that the first disease which attracted my particular attention was typhoid fever, and which I treated without wine in the year 1813. I have not once given alcoholic stimulants in fever since that time. Dr. Harding states, 'It is quite possible that the type of fever which came under Dr. Higginbottom's notice was inflammatory, and not requiring stimulants.' During the last fifty years, at different periods, fevers have been epidemic in Nottingham and in the neighborhood, indeed, we are rarely free from typhoid fever in the lower parts of the town, and it is usually of a very low type indeed, many of those attacked being females who worked in overheated lace rooms, anomic, of feeble constitutions. From my observations, the lower the type the greater the danger in giving wine or any other alcoholic stimulant. In the Lancet of August 15th, 1857, I mentioned two epidemics. The first, in 1813, was extensive, and required half of each day to visit my fever patients, and it continued for four months. I lost no patient with my non-alcoholic treatment. Two of them died, but they had wine given them by a family in the neighborhood. The second was in 1848. Not one died under the same treatment. Other patients in the same locality who took wine and brandy died. There is no doubt patients often recover in fever in spite of the wine given; but it is my opinion, from long practice and observation, that the administration of alcoholic stimulants in typhoid or other fevers is always injurious, and often fatal in its effects. I could relate detached cases, as the following:-Four patients with typhoid fever; three of them in a public-house in the lower part of the town, thickly inhabited-two daughters of the publi can, and their servant maid, and the other a female residing near the place. The daughters were treated on the non-alcoholic plan: both recovered. servant was sent to the fever ward of the General Hospital--a healthy, open situation-and treated with alcoholic stimulants, and died. The neighbor was attended by a medical man who followed the same alcoholic treatment, and died. Such marked cases as the above occurred, and corroborated my opinion of the danger of administering in disease such an exhausting stimulant as alcohol. I have entirely discontinued all alcoholic stimulants for the last thirty years in all diseases, being fully convinced of their insufficiency and dangerous qualities, and having proved, by abandoning their use, that patients suffering under acute diseases were much more quickly restored to health, and chronic diseases much more manageable.

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Indeed, I should consider myself criminal if I ever reconimended alcohol in any form, either as food or as medicine. Very few of my medical brethren have practiced the non-alcoholic treatment of disease, and it is not right to condemn what they are ignorant of, not having given it a trial. I would remind such of the fit rebuke Sir Isaac Newton gave to Dr. Halley-'Sir, I have studied and practised these things; you have not.''

Dr. Henry Mudge, of Bodmin, author of " A Guide to the Treatment of Disease Without Alcoholic Liquors," in a communication to the same journal on the same subject, says "I perceive, with pleasure, that Dr. Harding continues in your columns to discuss the propriety of administering alcoholic liquors in cases of what he is pleased to call 'exhaustive diseases.' As I have already taken a share, though a small one, in the discussion, you will allow me, perhaps, again briefly to canvass the merits of Dr.

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Harding's views. As I understand him, Dr. Harding believes that alcohol is, in these diseases, both a food and a medicine. I really think, after the experiments of Dr. Edward Smith, and the more recent reply of M. Perrin to M. Baudot, that no unprejudiced mind can still hold alcohol to be a food. I cannot think that M. Baudot's experiments are more trustworthy than those of the laborious and candid trio-MM. Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy. No; if I mistake not, English physicians now recommend alcohol for properties entirely distinct from any nutritious element to be expected from it. The praise of the drug is restricted to what is held to be its stimulant, and, consequent on that, its narcotic action. Suppose, then, that the action of the heart can be sustained, and sleep procured, as well or better without alcohol than with it, surely we are justified in preferring those other means; and the rather when we know that, apart from alcohol, convalescence is shorter and recovery surer than after the routine practice of alcoholic stimulation. Assiduous attention to the natural tonics, combined with the medicinal treatment by the dilute mineral acids, and the rendering of assistance to the digestive organs, through the exhibition of camphor, cinchona, pepsine, etc., has reduced the mortality of typhus from 20 per cent. (the Hospital rate) to less than 10 in our rural districts.

Incidentally Dr. Harding refers to the use of brandy in uterine hoemorrhage. To fly to brandy and to lean on it in such cases is to lean on a broken reed. I have sketched a more successful plan in my 'Guide,' etc., too long to be inserted here. In reply to the remark, that the experience of one man ought not to counterbalance that of the most eminent physicians throughout the empire, it may be said, that all improvements begin with one man, or a very few. How else are they to be brought about? Physicians throughout the empire have been, and the majority of them still are, thoroughly wrong as to the dietetic use of alcoholics by the healthy. In this there is good ground for suspicion that they may be wrong likewise in their estimate of the value of these liquors in disease. The public, recognising our professional delinquency in the one case, are beginning to suspect us in the other. I have not yet had the opportunity of trying it, but I confidently expect that the wine which is truly the fruit of the vine, and which has never had its natural constituents deranged by fermentation, will be found a valuable auxillary in our treatment of long-continued exhaustive diseases. It will be well for us to bear in mind that such wine has become an article of ordinary commerce. I fain hope that some of us-may be a few as yet-are acting out in this matter, very possibly at some selfsacrifice, the old advice of the poet

'Si quid novisti ratius ipsis Candidus imperti''

In the Abstainer and Temperance Physician for May, 1864, Dr. Bayley writes-"It has occurred to me that the following brief record of a few cases of typhus fever treated successfully during the last few weeks, upon the non-alcoholic plan, may prove interesting to some of the readers of the Abstainer. I consider the present a fitting opportunity for bringing forward such cases to the temperance community, inasmuch as the subject has been already broached in your columns, and in addition this method of treatment has been attacked and condemned in the

pages of a contemporary, without trial. I need make no apology for obtruding myself upon your space, for the matter is one in which life is at stake. There is good reason to believe that a vast number of lives have been sacrificed to the mistaken notions of alcoholic liquors being essentially necessary in the treatment of typhus. I am convinced that if the

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wine had been withheld in these cases, and a more rational treatment adopted, that a far more favorable result would have ensued. For years I have constantly been in the habit of hearing of innumerable cases of typhus terminating fatally after being treated with port-wine, and this marked fatality has suggested to my mind the idea of there being something radically wrong in this plan of treatment. This suspicion too is strengthened when I see the almost universal success which attends upon an opposite plan. I do not wish to attach any undue importance to these few cases. I relate them in the order in which they have occurred in my practice during the last five or six weeks; after a time I have no doubt that I shall be able to bring forward more cases in corroboration. I do not claim any originality in the advocacy of these views, since the subject has been well tested by my friend, Dr. Higginbottom, F.R.S., of Nottingham. My object is to promote the cause of true temperance, and if I can do this, or enable any of my teetotal friends suffering from fever to save their lives, I shall be more than repaid for any little trouble that I have taken.

I believe that the only true treatment of typhus fever consists in the use of the natural stimuli pure food, principally in a fluid state, as broths, beef-tea, milk, &c., in which it is easily assimilated, with fresh air and cleanliness, in conjunction with hydrochloric acid and quinine.

It must be evident to all who have studied this subject that the only source of power which a patient has to contend against his fever must come from the nourishment he takes, according to the law that whatever force is called out from the organism, is but the representative of something previously put into it.' We all know that no nourishment can be procured from alcoholics. Instead of sustaining force they simply call it forth, and prematurely exhaust it, and this when nature has reserved her little stock of force for slow expenditure. But it has been shown that small doses of alcohol arrest the development of nervous force, and lower the tone of muscles immediately, and they simultaneously carbonise the blood, and poison the source of all nutrition. Alcohol is only a narcotic, or more properly an anæsthetic. The smallness of the dose only affects the degree of narcotism. It does not alter the quality of the drug. There is in almost all cases of typhus no need of narcotism.

E.T., a tolerably robust young woman, of 23 years, was seized on the -th with rigors, followed by headache, thirst, heat of skin, &c. Pulse was excited at first, but afterwards became exceedingly weak. Tongue became rapidly brown, sordes covered the teeth, there was occasional delirium. The chest and abdomen were covered with the true typhus rash, she had all the symptoms of the fever, attended by considerable prostration. I began the treatment by giving strong broths, beef-tea, &c. I ordered her to be sponged freely with vinegar and water, the window of the room to be opened, so as to allow of free ventilation. As medicine I gave diluted hydrochloric acid every four hours. On the twelfth day a crisis occurred, and she rapidly recovered. Not one drop of alcoholic fluid was allowed during the whole time, and I may mention here that her sister, a more handsome and robust woman of 33 years of age, mother of a family, had only died a few weeks before of typhus, after having been treated upon the port-wine plan.

M. A. T., sister of the above. The symptoms in this case were milder than the preceding. The same treatment was adopted, and was equally successful; a rapid recovery ensued.

M. R. was attacked with typhus fever in the middle of December, 1863. She was a somewhat

delicate young woman, of about 23 years of age, had severe symptoms. I pursued Dr. Higginbottom's plan of Ipecacuanha emetics, and followed with hydrochloric acid. She did remarkably well. Recovery was most rapid. A young man, within a short distance of her house, who had typhus, and was treated upon the port-wine plan by another practitioner, died. Another man in the neighborhood, suffering from typhus, and treated by port-wine, made a very slow recovery, and was for a considerable period hobbling about upon crutches.

J. K., a middle-aged man, of tolerably good constitution, who had been a teetotaler one year, was seized with symptoms of severe typhus about the same time, when the disease was prevailing epidemically. At first he was attended by another practitioner, when the following laconic conversation ensued :

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J. K.-'Yes, and mean to keep so.'

The wine was in this case declined; for a considerable time no treatment was pursued. Nature alone effected a speedy recovery. During convalescence I gave him a little hydrochloric acid.

"E. S., a somewhat delicate girl, of 14 years of age, was seized in the beginning of February, 1864, with rigors, heat of skin, thirst, &c., followed by rapid prostration, delirium, dry brown tongue. She lay in bed in a semi-lethargic state, and only cared to speak when roused. The chest was covered with the typhus rash, sordes were collected on the teeth. She bled from the nose. This was a case of low type. I ordered her nutrient broths, beef-tea, milk, &c., and in the way of medicine I gave her hydrochloric acid. All narcotic alcoholic liquors were forbidden; she is now considerably better, and I think progressing rapidly towards recovery. This is a case in which wine and brandy would have been liberally supplied by the great bulk of the profession, with the delusive motive of keeping up her strength, and there is a very great probability that, with the prostrating influence of the alcoholics acting upon a weakened constitution, the patient would have succumbed. Of course the alcoholics would not have been blamed; all would have been attributed to the fever. I often think of the deep mystery contained in the newspaper reports of such and similar cases-Notwithstanding the liberal administration of stimulants, the patient died." There is more meaning in such sentences than at first sight may appear. It is these artificial narcotic stimuli, put in the place of the natural ones, that do the mischief. Alcoholic narcotics are followed by exhaustion, the natural stimuli are not. There is no doubt but that the danger of administering alcoholic compounds increases with the degree of prostration of the patient. The greater the prostration the more likely will the alcoholic compound be to cause death."

Surely such testimony as the above extracts contain should lead Irish Physicians-who, with a few honorable exceptions, seem so far behind on the Alcohol in Fever question-to serious inquiry on the subject. They may affect to despise Temperance Literature, but do they read their own? If my read. ers will ask the medical men in their various localities, as I have done in several places, whether they have read the extracts from the Lancet, the Medical Times and Gazette, and other medical works, which I have given in this and former papers, they will probably be surprised, as I have been, to find how totally igno

CONCERNING MEN WHO GO TOO FAR.

rant most of the doctors are, regarding the important discoveries of the last few years in this department of medical science and practice. We can confidently challenge those who still believe in the alcoholic treatment of fever to furnish medical experience on their side equal to that which I have supplied. I am perfectly satisfied they can find no experience in favor of their view at all approaching that which I have given in favor of the entire abandonment of alcoholic stimulation. And this is the only test which can satisfy that large, growing, and intelligent class in the community, who claim and exercise the right of thinking, and of investigating such matters for themselves. If therefore, the doctors who mean to continue the use of the poisonous draughts in fever, wish to retain the confi. dence and respect of the temperance public, the sooner they give us some experience which will favorably compare with that which total abstinence physicians are happily giving us in such abundance, the better. As the deciding of the use of alcohol in fever, involves the settling of nearly all the undecided* questions about the value of alcohol in general, I purpose to pursue the subject in my next, giving the cautious but most conclusive researches lately made by Professor Gairdner, M.D., of Glasgow.

J. PYPER.

Concerning Men who go too far.

The first of a series of Papers on some of the present phases of the Temperance Reformation,

BY THOMAS WALLACE RUSSELL. MEN who go too far! You know what class I mean. Those terrible gentlemen who go so far as to say that all intoxicating liquors are bad-who assert that it is no self-denial for a man to give them up, but rather beneficial; who are so audacious as to assert that less of the three D's (Doctors, Drugs, and Drink), would be followed by a marvellous change in the world's economy, and who go so very far as to say that the wine now used at the Lord's Table, as an emblem of our Saviour's blood, should give place to an article more creditable to Christianity and less dangerous in its results. These be dangerous men-men holding extreme views, and who do infinitely more evil than good.

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So at least, argues the man, who, like a recent writer in the Daily Express, holds that the energy expended on Temperance and other similiar societies, is all lost; that there is no use in doing anything short of proclaiming the Gospel to that class, who, like Catherine Dwyer and Mr. Frizelle, commit suicide whilst under the influence of strong drink. them," says this well-posted critic, not the inexpediency, but the sinjulness of drunkenness." This in the 19th century! Who talks of the "inexpediency" of drunkenness? Not the Temperance Reformers of Ireland. They brand it as no error, but as a positive sin. Yet this gentleman was allowed to have his say-to vent his willy-nilly, and two crushing replies were refused insertion.

Let us try what is the place of the Gospel here. Suppose, for example, that we had improper houses licensed in this country as in France. In these houses were girls who had spent a happy childhood, who, mayhap, had been "the rosy idol of some mother's solitude," but who had fallen beneath the wicked wizardry of the seducer's power. From thence there weekly emerges some half-dozen, lashed with the stingings of conscience and "wearied of the march of life," to throw themselves over the bridge into the river, and thus end a guilty life.

*I mean by those who have not fully investigated the subject.

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Suppose all this to be the case, and it is by no means an improbable story, would this writer-the representative of a large class-think any effort made to save these girls "a mere waste of energy," and above all, would he think the preaching of the Gospel a sufficient means of repealing the law? He would pity the victims, denounce the traffic and the traffickers. What would he do with the Legislature that legalized the whole? Whether would he consider preaching the gospel or parliamentary agitation the better means of influencing the House of Commons ? Doubtless the grace of God in man's heart is the best preventive against evil; the question of its place as a cure requires nice discrimination indeed.

The secretary of a City Mission addressed me lately -"Sir, if a man is in a fit state to hear the principles of temperance advocated, is he not capable of hearing about Christ." Plausible enough this, surely! But underneath lurks the fallacy that blinds the eye. What is drunkenness? It is a physical disease quite as much as a moral evil, and how do you propose to deal with this malady? Penetrate into the secret recesses of that drivelling idiot's nature, and you will find a cry, "Give, give, give," that nothing but beastly excess can satisfy. What cure is proposed? Do you preach moderation? Do you tell him to drink like a CHRISTIAN (?) You might as well "bay the moon." You might as well expect the tide to cease its shoreward march, as that "a little" will satisfy that dis. eased appetite. Now, unless you are going to make the only cure, that is, entire abstinence, part and parcel of the Gospel of Christ, in what way can this man be reclaimed? The remedy of abstinence applied by Temperance Reformers meets both the physical and the moral malady. If the preaching of the Gospel will embrace and do this work we can make room for a good many more preachers than exist at present. If it be unable to cope with and master a physical disease, there can be no use in wounding the Gospel in the house of its friends- -no use of putting it into a false position. Well now, supposing, says some good easy-going person, that we grant entire abstinence to be the best cure for the drunkard (they wont admit it to be Scriptural, although it is the best in such a case), why do you seek to enforce your remedy upon a man who is not afflicted. We grant where the disease is, yours is the cure; ergo, where the disease is not, the cure can have no footing? This is plausibly and accurately put again; but more than learning is dangerous in small quantities. By this insidious tippling or moderate drinking, you nurse the pinion that impels the steel," you imbibe that which in every case creates the disease - and you imbibe it in precisely the way under which the malady is nursed. Ask that drunkard if when he commenced life he had the deliberate intention of becoming a drunkard. that career opening so brightly, marred and extinguished. See that blossom distilling so rich a fragrance turned into the most disgusting odour. Ask him if all this is the result of deliberate intention on his part! He will answer, 66 Is thy servant a dog?" No. No; it is the damning, crushing fault of this drink, that it has washed so many bright pearls into the sea of oblivion.

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Our point with you, my friend, is this. We ask you to abstain first as a means of personal safety. Ah, don't stare and start, you may fall. Hundreds have for ten who have risen. Your mind is not a fortress so impregnable that it cannot be stormed, and as you do hold parley with the foe, the bugle of assault may be sounded at any time. Secondly, we ask you to abstain because it will do you good in every way. Impossible, you reply. It would be downright selfdenial for me to abstain.

Well now a good many nice little errors are made

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CONCERNING MEN WHO GO TOO FAR.

here by many friends of the temperance cause. There are thousands of good men who are abstainers solely on the ground of expediency. Commendably, and in a Christian spirit they have looked upon the evils resulting from the use of these drinks, and they say-"Well, we shall give them up, all things may be lawful, but all things are not expedient." It seems incompatible with Christianity for us to pay any homage to such a foe. Good this, so far as it goes. But how far is that? Now we out-and-out men hold it to be no self-denial on our part to abstain. We say our health is better-we back that by strong statistics. We say our purses are heavier, and it requires no power to demonstrate that two and two are four, and we affirm that our homes are happier, and our enjoy. ments as pure as those of any drinker! It is a mighty piece of self-denial to accept the author of all this good! The plea of self-denial is only valid where a man gives up that which is good, or that which he uses as a luxury. A good man says "I am a total abstainer, but I never could go so far as to say that a man was wrong in taking these drinks in mode. ration. There he and I differed on the question of expediency. We both thought they ought to be used, but under the circumstances I deemed it expedient to give them up." Now, "the circumstances" referred to were the sad results arising from these drinks-from the perversion, says one, of God's good gifts. I deny that, point blank. I assert that yon raving lunatic of a father, yon degraded mother, yon ruined son, and hopeless daughter, are not the results of the perversion, but they are the consummation of its legitimate tendencies which are all evil. We do not judge things now a-days by their perversions. We admit and deplore these excrescences, and demand to know what are the tendencies. What are the tendencies of strong drink? Are they such as to raise us morally, socially, physically, in a rational or a spiritual sense. No, they are calculated to ruin and degrade, to bring down the high and lay low the mighty, to blast the intellect, ruin the soul, and pollute the body.

Two thousand medical men-and among them some of the greatest ornaments of the profession have affirmed that perfect health can be enjoyed without these drinks, nay, that the national health would be greatly benefited by abstinence. Hundreds of thousands practically attest the truth of such a statement. More assert that the converse of all this is too true, and in the face of such facts it becomes men to strike the line between Right and Wrong. We want the line struck between DUTY and Expediency. We want to know what measure of admiration this selfdenial calls for.

Thirdly, we ask you to abstain for your brother's sake. If you will maintain that these drinks are luxuries, good and valuable in themselves, let us have an instalment of that self-denying spirit so much boasted. Let us see what you will voluntarily do for the sake of suffering humanity. Let us find out if your sympathy will manifest itself in any practical manner. I know thousands are total abstainers on these principles, but after all there is not so much of a sacrifice, and men generally unite in declaring that they are much better without than with these stimulants. Then these out-and-out-these extreme men attack this precious medicine, and occasionally, too, they interfere with what is none of their business, viz. the medical use of strong drinks. I wonder how all this has come about. Years ago they were not wont to do so. No. The fact is we have been forced to look with keen eyes upon this branch of our question. Dyspepsia is so common now-a-days, and there are so many appetites requiring to be quickened that suspicions are aroused. We do assert, and when we do so it is not on our own data, but on that of scien

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So far as the stomach and the digestive organs are concerned a little common sense apart from any scientific theories might settle the question. This has been clearly and very concisely put by Dr. Carpenter:-"If the natural appetite be already good enough to give a relish to the food which the body really needs, can the artificial production of an increased appetite be necessary or desirable; and if the stomach be already capable of digesting and preparing as much nutriment as may be required to keep up the solids of the blood to their proper amount, can any but prejudicial consequences result from forcing it to execute these operations at a more rapid rate.”

Ah! but says one, my stomach is weak and unfit for duty. I take this as an aid. My friend, try and get it strengthened, not aided. So long as you aid it, so long you are bolstering up your credit by ac commodation bills, and carrying forward in the ledger of life a balance that will make you bankrupt at last. See in the first place if this weakness cannot be cured, before you complacently begin to endure it. Remem. ber it is only that which cannot be cured, that must be endured. Yes, well, but again you assault the Lord's Table. This is a question that sooner or later will be forced upon the Churches. I should regret now were it made a sine qua non in the temperance reform; but I should regret still more if the frowns of ministers or people sufficed to put down a legiti mate argument.

We must press this question home yet. You use a certain article now-we offer another. We assert that ours is the pure "blood of the grape❞—the legitimate "fruit of the vine." We assert that yours is compounded, that with grape juice are mingled brandy, grain whisky, logwood, and things which "even to name would be unlawful." We challenge you to the analysis. We offer the pure that can offend no one. You offer the impure which does offend many, which keeps a number back. You offer that compound as an emblem of the blood of Christ. We say that is unfair. Why do you refuse the real wine, the genuine fruit of the vine, is it because it contains no alcohol? Let us admit this is unpopular. Who cares about popularity? Who dares to be in the wrong because it is popular?

Ho! ye, who in a noble work,

Win scorn, as flames draw air,
And in the way where lions lurk,
God's image bravely bear;

Though trouble-tried and torture-torn,
The kingliest kings are crowned with thorn.

Life's glory, like the bow in heaven,

Still springeth from the cloud;
Soul ne'er out-soared the starry seven,

But pain's fore-chariot rode.

The've battled best who've boldest borne, The kingliest kings are crowned with thorn. Let us not be dismayed then by hard names. They break no bones. We want desperate principles now. a-days. He is not the dangerous man who "tells the truth and shames the devil," who plainly flings down the gauntlet, pronounces the traffic immoral in its tendencies, and criminal in its results-who boldly proclaims war against our drinking customs. No. But he is the dangerous man who, half-hearted in the work, fears to meet the danger, fears to denounce drink, traffic, and traffickers.

We fight! but bear no bloody brand,
We fight to free our Fatherland;
We fight that smiles of love may glow
On lips, where curses quiver now !
Hurrah! hurrah! true knights are we,
In Labor's lordless chivalry.

Yes, and we mean "to fight it out on that line."

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