THE ACTION OF ALCOHOL 561 



to substantiate its claims as a narcotic, nor because it had 

 proved fatal in the hands of physicians, but because an alcohol 

 habit had been developed in some of the population. If one 

 considers the few sporadic cases in which sulphonal or cocaine, 

 for example, has given rise "to a habit, and the discredit into 

 which it has fallen in consequence, and compares the cases of 

 disaster from alcohol met with every day, one cannot but feel 

 that the drugs have been weighed in very unequal scales, and 

 that any one who discards cocaine — undoubtedly a drug of 

 great value — must, to be consistent, condemn the use of alcohol. 

 This seems to me to be the ground on which we must take 

 our stand. Alcohol is a drug which may be useful in therapeutics, 

 although I think it can hardly be considered indispensable, but 

 which has so often given rise to habit that its use must be 

 curtailed to the utmost limit. In some conditions, as in old 

 age and debility, it may be justifiable to neglect its drawbacks, 

 exactly as in some forms of malignant disease the patient may 

 be allowed to contract the morphine habit ; but let us at any 

 rate advise it here with eyes open to the risks run, and with 

 the recognition that we are prescribing a drug and not merely 

 a placebo. It may be argued that alcoholism has almost never 

 arisen from the therapeutic use of the drug, and it is true that 

 the responsibility for alcoholism does not rest upon the medical 

 profession in the same way as that for morphinism or cocainism. 

 But the public are justified in regarding alcohol not as a drug, 

 but as an article of diet, as long as the physicians order it in 

 the casual way which is familiar to all of us. How often is 

 alcohol not ordered but allowed by the medical man at the 

 suggestion of the patient, and how many physicians allow it, 

 not believing that it will do any good, but assuming that it 

 will do no harm, and even not hesitating to make the statement ! 

 The laity can hardly be blamed for ignoring the evidences of 

 danger presented daily in their streets, if their scientific mentors 

 themselves adopt this ambiguous position, and the medical 

 profession cannot complain if they are accused of indifference 

 towards the greatest evil of their country and their age. 



