TJic Effects of AlcoJtol-Ecmarl-s of Dr. Willard Parker. 



51 



never seen a drunkard cured by this kind of restraint, 

 aud I hav seen many who liave told me liow re;idily. 

 while patients in such institutions, they fouud liquor 

 enough to keep up the desire for more. 



Gentlemen of the Neurological Society, I am afraid I 

 have greatly trespassed on your patience, and yet I 

 liave very incompletely fulfilled the tusk I set for my- 

 self. To consider tiie subject of this address with even 

 moderate fullness of detail would require more time 

 than I h .ve to give and much mere than I would ven- 

 ture to ask of you. Many of you are, I am surf, much 

 more capable of doing it justice than myself, and I leave 

 it in your hands, confident that it will be elaborated 

 with a completeness wortty of its importance. 



As to the influence of alcohol over other part? of the 

 body, and many of its more important relations to the 

 system at large, I have not even alluded, as they did not 

 come within the scope of the limits I have adopted. 



Tliere is much for us to do in the department of neuro- 

 logical medicine, co winch fro in time to time your atten- 

 tion will be invited. There is not one among us who 

 cannot contribute an idea of value to the rest. I ask 

 you therefore to show your loyalty to the Society and 

 your devotion to the cause of scientific medicine by 

 freely interchanging such suggestions as may occur to 

 you in the daily exercise of your profession. Remember 

 that facts should come before theories, and that though 

 an hypothesis may suggest a practice, hypothesis by 

 itself is the dreamiest of scientific rubbish. With your 

 aid and forbearance I hope to discharge to your satis- 

 faction the duties of the honorable office to which I am 

 called by your partiality. 



THE DISCUSSION. , 



REMARKS OF DR. WILLAItD PARKER. 



Dr. Willard Parker, who was present during 1 

 the delivery of the essay, was invited by Dr. Hammond 

 to give his views upon the subject discussed, and re- 

 sponded as follows : 



I should not be willing to take rp much of t'oe time 

 of the Society, and should simply say I am very 

 happy of this opportunity of being present. I have 

 heard your address with very great pleasure, and 

 iu most points I should agree with you, though in 

 some points I should differ. There is one point I am ex- 

 tremely glad to see brought up Before this Association. 

 I do not propose 10 speak evil of this mat- 

 ter of temperance. There are many men of 

 many minds, and many women, too. We will 

 simply let them have their way. The temperauca 

 movement of the last half century has undoubtedly 

 accomplished a great deal. Its purpose has been to ac- 

 complish ii simply upon the basis of moral suasion, and 

 then they have intended to influence legislation to a 

 certain extent. I say nothing about that, either as 

 opposing it or advocating it. There is no subject before 

 the public mind to-day so important as that 

 of the use of alcohol, not only in our own country, but 

 in all countries. In the northern regions we find more 

 of the stronger distilled liquors used than in the low 

 latitudes. There of course they are using their light 

 wines, unless vou come to Germany, where they are 

 drinking beer. The starting point appears to be, first, 

 What is alcohol? I fully concur with you as to its being 

 a poison. Others have experimented upon the subject 

 besides yourself, and all seem to have arrived at the 

 same conclusion. 



But because it is a poison gives no one a license to 

 say that it may not be used with the opposite effect at 



proper times. It is one of the most valuable medC 

 eines we have, but as to the advantage or disaiivantago 

 of every corner shop here or in lirooklvn practicing iu 

 this matter and dealing out this liquor, that is another 

 question, and we shall leave that for the present. The 

 important point hero is the scientific aspect, and on that 

 is the stand our professional brethren should take. 



The question we have to decide is. first, " What is al- 

 cohol?" and then the great question, in the wcond 

 plac, which you, Sir, have handled so ably, is "What 

 does it do to you or to me?" The point is as to alcohol 

 its use, and what it, does to the individual. lam not 

 prepared to agree entirely with the proposition 

 you advocate so strongly, that alcohol pro- 

 duces force. I do not understand it so, 

 and I understood you to say you did not account 

 for it, but simply assumed it does it. It may do it aud it 

 may not. I am not ready to assent to that proposition; 

 I am not prepared to say I shall not assent. My views 

 have greatly changed of late years in regard to this mat- 

 ter. When I first took up this subject, if a patient 

 came under my charge pretty well worn down by drink, 

 I knew I had an exceedingly bud subject to manage. 

 One of our first questions is, what kind of a constitution 

 does the individual bring to us, aud we recognize, if he 

 is a toper, that he is a bail subject. 



I have followed on and followed on, and I have 

 reached a point like this. I don't see how we can make 

 food out of it; but what place can we give it in the 

 dietetic department ? My feeling is that no individual 

 system in health is benefited by the introduction of al- 

 cohol, hut it is not always easy to decide what is health 

 precisely. But when there is feebleness in the system, 

 from age or sickness, and food is to be taken into the 

 stomach, the stomach requires power to convert it into 

 the proper condition to become proper, nourishing 

 blood, I have conceived that, in a person taking 

 that substance into the stomach, by the use of a certain 

 quantity of alcohol, in the shape of wine, or beer, or 

 brandy, the food will, with the preseuce of the 

 brandy, have a perfect assimilation. In that way it 13 

 entitled to a position. I have a chimney in my house, 

 for example, which does not draw very well. That re- 

 sembles the old man. I put in a little kindling wood, in 

 addition to the other fuel, and by that I get a good flre^ 

 and am extremely comfortable. I don't know about it ex- 

 actly, but I learn from the experiments of these gentle- 

 linen that when alcohol is introduced into the stomach 

 it arrests the process of digestion. About the nitro- 

 genous substances I am iu doubt, but I fancy it does not 

 do a great deal with the starchy substances. In per- 

 sons wlio eat a great deal of meat and drink alcohol, it 

 arrests the process, and after a time the stomach will 

 evacuate itself, and the pieces of meat come up hard- 

 ened. When the alcohol is taken into the stomach before 

 the food Is taken iu, it acts upon the pepsin and hardens 

 that. Some French physicians say it passes through 

 without being changed, like an atom which gets into the 

 eye; when it is removed it is unchanged, and the eye 

 quickly recovers. Then other persons are very 

 strongly of the opinion, and I think Dr. Duprey proves, 

 that only a limited quantity of it passes away, that a 

 portion is retained in the stomach. What becomes of 

 that portion? Tuat is not yet settled iu my mind. I 

 want to see this subject carried forward iu this 

 Society, and if possible to assign to alcohol its true, 

 legitimate, effective position in the materia uiedica in 

 the world. It has been proved by workers in all kinds of 

 employments as well as by those who were traveling ia 

 high latitude?, that their health failed, so that sveii 



