THE ACTION OF ALCOHOL ^ 



By a. R. CUSHNY, M.D., F.R.S. 

 Professor of Pharmacology, University College, London 



It is but seldom in the study of medical science that one has 

 to treat of a question of such widespread interest, and, as I 

 believe, of such paramount national importance as we have 

 before us to-day, and it is to be deplored that the medical 

 profession has hitherto been able to answer only with un- 

 certain voice, or, I might say, with two voices, the persistent 

 demand for its opinion of the value of alcohol in therapeutics 

 and in diet. 



This fatal lack of unanimity is to be ascribed in the first 

 place to the feeling that alcohol has not proved devoid of 

 usefulness in therapeutics in the past, and that we must not be 

 hurried into its dismissal from the sphere of medicinal agents 

 without due consideration ; and the denial of its value in 

 disease has been in many cases too absolute, and has, in fact, 

 provoked a reaction in its favour in some minds that were 

 perhaps prepared to accept a more restricted use of alcohol as 

 a remedy than has hitherto prevailed. The greatest possible 

 advance in the crusade against the abuse of alcohol would be 

 made, I think, if we could agree upon some formula that could 

 be generally accepted, and I am not without hope that this 

 meeting may make some progress towards this solution. 



Another cause of confusion in the response of medicine to 

 inquiry regarding the value of alcohol arises from ambiguity in 

 the use of terms. We are too apt to appl}^ the term " stimu- 

 lant" to anything that promotes exhilaration and animation, 

 and dissipates what the eighteenth centur}^ called the spleen, 

 and to regard the result as evidence of health and vigour. 

 But stimulant is also used, in a more exact sense, to indicate 

 anything augmenting the activity of definite organs. It would, 

 I think, conduce to more general agreement if the word could 



' A paper read before the Section of Physiology at the British Association, 

 Leicester, 1907. 



550 



