HOW TO USE STIMULANTS. 673 



" But is alcohol or wine food? Some physiologists tell us no. I do not 

 believe them. I am fully satisfied of the nutrient powers of wine and alco- 

 hol alone, under some conditions, or more especially in conjunction with 

 other pabula," Stimulants, Dr. Duckworth continues, are not necessary to 

 healthy and well fed people, leading what may be termed normal lives. To 

 them they are a luxury, and not necessarily pernicious. But how many 

 people persistently lead normal lives? He is not prepared to say that a 

 little good beer is not a very valuable addition to the often scant fare and 

 coarse food of working j)eople, or that it may not fairly be taken to coun- 

 teract, as it will, the many sources of depression to which such ]Deople 

 are inevitably exposed in Great Britain, If they cannot get good 

 beer, then the Legislature is at fault. Medical men may fairly tell 

 the healthy, robust, well-fed and well-housed to give up stimulants if 

 they fully maintain their health without them. Total abstainers are 

 generally large eaters, and the ultimate textural effects of excess 

 in eating or drinking, if any, may not be very dissimilar. " I think 

 it is proved," says Dr. Duckworth, " that the addition of a little alcoholic 

 food to a meal secures a more moderate ingestion of solids, and where it 

 agrees, which it does not alwaj^s, promotes a more satisfactory digestion of 

 them. But a large number of persons suffering chiefly from dysj)epsia or 

 insomnia are better without stimulants of any kind. A. " daily allowance " 

 of alcohol is manifestly wrong ; more to-day and less to-morrow may be 

 needed or extinctively called for. " The rational individual must find out 

 for himself what the special needs of his system are ; and where a right- 

 minded Christian individual is in earnest in such a matter, and has a proper 

 control over his appetite, he is not likely to go far wrong in the matter of 

 stimulants." 



Medical men should urge teetotalism upon the nervous class of drunk- 

 ards, persons who are careless and self-indulgent, or who by their lives or 

 calling are much in the way of drink. Stimulants should always be taken 

 at meal times, and only then. "I am confident," Dr. Duckworth says^ 

 " that as a body our profession is unanimous in condemning the modern 

 American habit of taking odd glasses of stimulant at all hours, and laments 

 the grievous multiplication of the means of gratifying this mischievous 

 custom, for truly the conduct of the masses of young business men in our 

 cities and large towns, in this respect is becoming disgraceful, and the prac- 

 tice is fast gathering in other circles and communities. Our countrymen of 

 these classes have no excuse for this, for they are well-fed and they have 

 liquors with their meals in addition to their hourly drams, while Americans, 

 who are notoriously the worst dieticians in the civilized world, are water- 

 drinkers at meal-times.'? 



No serious results, in Dr. Duckworth's opinion, follow the sudden cut- 

 ting off of stimulants from hard drinkers or delirium tremens patients. — 

 As to teetotal societies, he says: 



"I believe that a mission against the drinking habits of all classes and 



