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Show INFLUENZA AND WHISKEY MEAN DEATH. Writing to The Standard, a member cl the W. C. T. U. of Ogden, says: "A lot of us, perhaps two-thirds of uc, would welcome an editorial embodying em-bodying the main features of this leaflet. leaf-let. With thanks for past editorials along these lines." Enclosed was a statement by Martha M. Allen to the effect that whiskey is an agent of death in Influenza and pneumonia, from which this extract is taken. The old superstitions as to the remedial re-medial value of whiskey seem to have sprung into life again with the advent ci the influenza epidemic and its accompanying ac-companying pneumonia. When the health commissioner of Pennsylvania ordered all the saloons and othj er places where liquor lfl sold closed because of the influenza, people who did not know better said the sick ould die because they could not get whiskey. A good many people in other si. ii s seem to be of the same opinion, hence it seems well to give the public bome information to explain the changed attitude toward whiskey of tne medical profession, that is a large part of it, in the treatment of pneumonia. pneumo-nia. In (he winter of 1888-9 a severe epidemic epi-demic of la grippe swept the country, and whlake! was the main reliance of the medical profession, together with the coal-tar derivatives. So many deaths resulted that careful physicians discarded these two agencies as dangerous. i wo j ears inter ur i. s UST18, dean of the Northwestern university medical school, Chicago, read a paper before the American Medical association associa-tion In which he gave comparative1 death-rates in pneumonia with arid vithout alcoholic liquors. Dr. Davis said that for thirty years he had harge of the medical wards of Met"? nospital. Chicago, and that during those thirty years he had never permitted per-mitted alcoholic liquor to be given to ; patient in any disease. He stated that the death-rate for those ihirtv years in pneumonia without alcohol was only 12 per cent, while in the other oth-er large hospitals of the country' then using large quantities of liquor the death rates in pneumonia varied fr.n, 28 to 38 per cent. The publication of these death-rate-led physicians In different hospitals lo experiment without alcohol. Among those so experimenting was Dr. Alexander Alex-ander Lambert of Bellevue hospital, New York Dr Lambert later published pub-lished that he had become convinceu that recoery was surer without liquor than with it. He said that the death rate in his pneumonia division of PMlevue was 1U per cent higher wbu whiskey was given to the patients. Dr. Henry Koplik of Bellevue hospit al has also experimented with and without alcoholic liquor in pneumonia, jrnd has abandoned the use of liquor in consequence. (See Journal of the American Medical Association for November No-vember 17, 1917) Last year the writer sent out a qucs-1 t'onnaire to thousands og American phjsicians asking among other ques-1 tions their opinion of the U6e of whih-key whih-key in the treatment of pneumonia. Nearly all the replies received, and there were hundreds of these, declared de-clared against the use of alcohol In pneumonia, the reasons assigned beip.; that alcohol lowers the resistance ot the body, weakens the heart, and makes recovery more doubtful When there is recovery after the use of al-jcohol, al-jcohol, it was stated, convalescence is islow. Dr. George Rubin of Rush Medical college, Chicago, some time ago made experiments with rabbits, infecting Ihem with pneumonia germs and giving giv-ing alcohol to some, and to others giving giv-ing the same general treatment but ko alcohol. All the rabbits given al-icohol al-icohol died while a goodlj number not given alcohol recovered. The Journal of the American Medi-lal Medi-lal Association some years ago in an editorial article upon the re-searches cf Laitlnen of Helsingfors and of Abbott Ab-bott of Philadlephia said. "The facta brought out by these researches do not furnish the slightest support for the use of alcohol in the treatment of in fectious diseases in man." Dr. Henry F. Hewei of Harvard Medical school, Boston, says: "The clinicians who decide for the deleterious deleter-ious action of alcohol in infections conditions con-ditions have what evidence of an ex perimental nature we possess at tne present time to support their irapres-s'ons. irapres-s'ons. The advocates of the continuous use of the drug have this evidence against them " Dr. DeWitt G. Wilcox. Boston, Mass , in his presidential address before be-fore the American Institute of Homoo-pathy Homoo-pathy in 1914 said: "Alcohol has no place in medicine. . . . Instead of being be-ing a preventive of any disease it is the beat persuader of all diseases because be-cause it lowers the opsonic index and the bodily resistance. That it hastens a fatal terminaion of all pulmonary aiseases is likewise proven." Professor Frank S. Meara of Cornell Medical college. New York City, teaches his students not to advise whiskey in pneumonia. He pays: "Alcohol "Al-cohol has been much used In pneumonia, pneumo-nia, I believe without justification. I believe that it is never a true stimulant stimu-lant but a depressant. I believe that there are few cases in whlrh the patient pa-tient would not be better off without than with alcohol. Argument for ts use as a food should be met by argument argu-ment for more rational dietaries in pneumonia." Dr. Arthur G. Hyde, superintendent of the Stato hospital, Cleveland, O., says: "This hospital has used no whiskey whis-key in any manner in the last six months We have found that we can get along well without its use. Per sonally I do not think it is necessary to use it at all as a drug. ' In a report of the treatment of pneu-monla pneu-monla in the London Temperance hospital hos-pital ammonia is the only drug mentioned men-tioned as being used. The report that R three or five grain tabloid of car bonate of ammonia was given as need ed dissolved in a cup of coffee with milk and sugar or in clear coffee t. areful feeding and fresh air were in sisted upon. When alcohol was thought to be a Leart stimulant it was freely used in j:11 diseases which weaken the heart. Now that science has definitely settled that alcohol is not a 6timulant but a heart depressant up to date doctors have laid aside this agent. It is true tnat some physicians still give whiskey whis-key in pneumonia but it is to quiot the restlessness of the patient rather than for any other reason. This would, bo unobjectionable were it not that alcohol alco-hol weakens the heart, hinders the white blood cells In their work of destroying de-stroying disease germs, hinders the I roduction of antibodies and interferes inter-feres with the cleansing of the bhed by its effect upon respiration. The1 fact is a sick person has a double fight for life when alcohol Is given, a fight against the disease and a fiht against the effects of the liquor in weakening his system. Thus more ceaths occur when liquor is given. The American Medical association it its annual meeting in 1917 declared that the use of alcohol in therapeutics therapeu-tics "as a tonic, or a stimulant, or as a food has no scientific basis," and "the use of alcohol as a therapeutx ygent should be discouraged." rr |