Mouood Mouood English Edition
Alcohol is not a medicine, it aggravates diseases and hastens death, it is productive of physical and mental degeneracy, and should be no longer prescribed by intelligent physicians. It is the best possible persuader of disease and damaging even in small doses – Dr. De W. H. G. Wilcox.
Alcohol replaces more actively vital materials by fat and fibrous tissue; it substitutes suppurations by new growths it helps time to produce the effect of age ; and in a word is the genius of degeneration – Dr. Dickinson of England.
Alcohol is a poison. It is claimed by some that alcohol is a food. If so, it is a poisoned food – Frederick Peterson, M. D., Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University.
Extract from “Life and Health”
March 1969, Page No. 21
Alcohol is Dangerous
“Alcohol acts as a poison to the human system. The body tries to get rid of it as rapidly as possible. It serves no good purpose in the body.” – Francis A. Soper, Listen, May, 1968.”
You are right in indicting alcohol for its insidious wrongs to humanity. It is an old and shy offender and very much the “mocker”, in medical practice that it has been pronounced in the Holy Writ. It exhausts the latent energy of the organism. Upon investigation I found 38 per cent of our male tubercular patients were excessive users of alcohol, 56 per cent were moderate users.
From my study of the cases, I am led to believe that in a vast majority of these cases drink has been a large factor in producing the disease, by exposure, lowering the vitality etc – O. C. Willhite, M. D., Superintendent of Cook County Hospital for Consumptives.
In tuberculosis there is a state of overstimulation of the circulatory system due to the toxins. The use of alcoholics simply makes the condition worse – H. J. Blankmeyer, M. D., Sanatorium Gabvels, New York.
That in view of the close connection between alcoholism and tuberculosis, this congress strongly emphasizes the importance of combining the fight against tuberculosis with the struggle against alcoholism. Resolution adopted by the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Paris, October 1905. Alcohol is the most potent factor in the production of crime, and I have never known of alcohol -Dr. J.T. Tilmore, Superintendent of the Ontario Reformatory.
Whisky and other forms of alcohol have caused more deaths after snake-bite than the venom of the Snake – Dr. L. K. Hirshborg of John Hopkins University.
Children of Drinking Fathers
The children of drinking fathers are very much more liable to tuberculosis. The results of my investigations are as follows; 149 occasional drinkers 8.7 per cent tuberculosis children; 169 habitual drinkers-10.7 per cent tuberculosis children; 67 moderate drinkers – 16.4 per cent tuberculosis children; 60 confirmed drunkards – 21.7 per cent tuberculosis children. Professor A. Von. Burge, Basil.
Whether we look to America, the West Indies, Egypt, India, Arabia or Persia, there is the same testimony that the health and discipline of soldiers are much better when they are not allowed or cannot get alcoholic liquors. Dr. James Ridge, Medical Officer of Health, Enfield England.
Spirits and poisons are synonymous terms.- Sir Astley Cooper, M.D.
Alcohol is the pathological fraud of frauds. Dr. Norman Kerr, England.
Alcohol is, under no conditions and in no amount beneficial to the healthy body. Professor Fick, Physiologist, Germany.
For every real drunkard there are fifty others suffering from the effects of alcohol. George Harley, M. D. England.
I dread the task of operating on a drinker Sir William Paget, M. D.
“Lobular pneumonia, Cardiac failure”-so runs the usual certificate, and the cause of the cardiac failure in ninety nine cases out of a hundred is alcohol.-Dr. A. A. Hill. On the use of alcohol, British Medical Journal.
Alcohol causes the guards to sleep at their posts until man’s enemy, disease, has gained its foot-hold.-S. G. Stewart, M. D. Kansas Medical College.
One fights shy of having to operate upon patients who are alcoholic, because of the degeneration of their tissues – they do not heal well in spite of the scepticism of the present day. W. McAdam Hceles, M.S.
Trying to cure consumption with whisky is like trying to put out a fire with kerosene – John E. White, M. D., Medical Director, Nordrach Ranch, Sanatorium.
Alcohol is one of the chief curtailers of life
Besides its deleterious influence on the nervous system and other important parts of our body, alcohol has a harmful action on the phagocytes (white blood corpuscles), the agents of natural defence against infective microbes – Professor Metchnikoff, Pasteur Institute, Paris.
Alcohol is one of the chief curtailers of life. The man of twenty who drinks has a probable life of fifteen years before him, the abstainer one of forty four years – Professor Lombroso, Italy.
Alcohol perverts the moral nature, affects the judgment and impairs the memory, it, moreover, especially affects the motor system and creates an enormous loss to the community through destroying the productiveness of the skilled craftsman -.Dr. Robert Jones.
In a few statements given above out of so many are set forth the expert opinions of some of the most eminent medical authorities of the world in regard to a most important problem of the human Society as affecting its physical health and all-round well being. Due to considerations of space many valuable comments from persons of great eminence have had to be omitted, the mere listing of their names would need several pages.
Nor would such an exhaustive list serve any useful purpose. Suffice it to say that not only the physicians, the surgeons and the professors of medical institutions in their individual capacity, have given their unequivocal verdict against this dreadful enemy of Society, but also in their collective voice through the mouth-piece of their organized associations all over the world they condemn its evils in no less emphatic terms.
It would be tedious task to recount the resolutions of such associations in the space available here. Yet a few such warnings from highly outstanding expert bodies do bear mention, to bring out the collective views of the medical professor. The Neurologists in session at Chicago thus delivered themselves on this problem.
Whereas, in the opinion of the Neurologists of the United States in convention assembled, it has been definitely established that alcohol when taken into the system acts as a definite poison to the brain and other tissues and, whereas, the effects of this poison are directly or indirectly responsible for a large proportion of the insane, epileptic, feeble-minded and other forms of mental, moral and physical degeneracy; and whereas, many hospitals for the insane and other public institutions are now compelled to admit and care for a multitude of inebriates; and, whereas, many states have already established separate colonies for the treatment and re-education of such inebriates with great benefit to ,the individuals and to the Common-wealth’s; therefore be it. Resolved, that we unqualifiedly condemn the use of alcoholic beverages.
