ALCOHOL

Introduction5

Preface to Second Edition7

CHAPTER I.
History of the Study of Alcohol.

Discovery of distillation--First American investigator of effects of alcohol--Medical Declarations--Sir B. W. Richardson's researches--Scientific Temperance Instruction in American Schools--Committee of Fifty9

CHAPTER II.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
in Opposition to Alcohol as Medicine.

How the Opposition began—Memorial to International Medical Congress—Origin of Medical Temperance Department—Objects of the department—Public agitation against patent medicines originated by the department—Laws of Georgia, Alabama and Kansas on Medical prescription of alcohol21

CHAPTER III.
Alcohol as a Producer of Disease.

Alcohol a poison—Sudden deaths from brandy—Changes in liver, kidneys, heart, blood-vessels and nerves caused by alcohol—Beer and wine as harmful as the stronger drinks—Alcohol causes indigestion—Other diseases caused by alcohol—Deaths from alcoholism in Switzerland28

CHAPTER IV.
Temperance Hospitals.

The London Temperance Hospital—Methods of treatment—The Frances E. Willard Temperance Hospital, Chicago—“As a beverage" in the pledge—Address by Miss Frances E. Willard at opening of hospital—The Red Cross Hospital—Clara Barton and non-alcoholic medication—Reports of treatment in Red Cross Hospital—Use of Alcohol declining in other hospitals37

CHAPTER V.
The Effects of Alcohol Upon the Human Body.

The body composed of cells—Effect of alcohol on cells—Alcohol and Digestion—Effects on the blood—The heart—The liver—The kidneys—Incipient Bright’s disease recovered from by total abstinence—Retards oxidation and elimination of waste matters—Lengthens duration of sickness and increases mortality58

CHAPTER VI.
Alcohol as Medicine.

Medical use of alcohol a bulwark of the liquor traffic—Alcohol not a Food—Alcohol reduces temperature—Food principle of grains and fruits destroyed by fermentation—Alcohol not a Stimulant—Experiments proving this—Alcohol not a tonic—Professor Atwater on Alcohol as Food96

CHAPTER VII.
Alcohol in Pharmacy.

Strong tinctures rouse desire for drink in reformed inebriates—Glycerine and acetic acid to preserve drugs—Non-alcohol tinctures in use at London Temperance Hospital—Sale of liquor in drug-stores condemned by pharmacists131

CHAPTER VIII.
Diseases, and Their Treatment Without Alcohol.

Alcoholic Craving—Anæmia—Apoplexy—Boils and Carbuncle—Catarrh—Hay-Fever—Colds—Colic—Cholera—Cholera Infantum—Consumption—Displacements—Debility—Diarrhœa—Dysentery—Dyspepsia—Fainting—Fits—Flatulence—Headache—Hemorrhage—Heart Disease—Heart Failure—Insomnia—La Grippe—Measles—Malaria—Neuralgia—Nausea—Pneumonia—Pain After Food—Snake-bite—Rheumatism—Spasms—Shock—Sudden Illness—Sunstroke—Typhoid Fever—Vomiting140

CHAPTER IX.
Alcohol and Nursing Mothers.

Beer not good for nursing mothers—Helpful diet—Opinions of medical men—Analysis of milk of a temperate woman—Of a drinking woman—Advice of Dr. James Edmunds, of the Lying-In Hospital, London—How to feed the baby—Case of a young mother who used beer—Nathan S. Davis on beer and gin234

CHAPTER X.
Comparative Death-Rates With and Without the Use of Alcohol.

Fewer deaths in smallpox hospitals without alcohol—200 cases of scarlet fever without alcohol—Non-alcoholic treatment of fevers with less than 5 per cent. death-rate—Report of cases in English and Scotch hospitals—340 cases of typhus—London Lancet articles on typhoid—Mercy Hospital, Chicago—Death-rates in pneumonia and typhoid in large hospitals—Sir B. W. Richardson’s report of practice247

CHAPTER XI.
Reasons Why Alcohol is Dangerous as Medicine.

Researches of Abbott—Vital Resistance lowered by alcohol—Experiments upon Urinary Toxicity—Effect of alcohol upon the guardian-cells of the body—Dr. Sims Woodhead on immunity—