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accompanied by weakness or prostration, alcohol is of conspicuous service in sustaining 
the vital force beyond the critical stage. Dr. Armstrong, in speaking of the use of 
stimulants in fevers, says, “If they increase the pulsations of the heart—the respira¬ 
tions—or make the skin hot and parched, they should be discontinued.” In using 
stimulants, and especially alcohol, it will often be noticed that a large, soft and weak 
pulse will grow smaller and less compressible, showing that the heart is strengthened 
by their use and the tenacity of the arteries increased. 
In England Dr. Anstie is a strong advocate for the use of stimulants in fevers. He 
gives alcohol to reduce the temperature and check waste as well as to strengthen the 
heart’s action, reduce the frequency of its beating, and increase the digestive powers. 
Alcohol has been recommended by our profession in the treatment of tetanus ; and I 
am constrained to say, from my limited experience in its use, as well as from the more 
important testimony of others, that it is of signal service in this dreaded malady. 
If experience has taught us anything in connection with the treatment of this dis¬ 
ease it is that all the sedatives and antispasmodics known to the Materia Medica are 
inadequate to break the tonic spasms to which the voluntary muscles of the body are 
subject. If, then, we cannot overcome this morbid hypersesthesia of the nervous sys¬ 
tem with the drugs, seemingly indicated by the symptoms of the disease, let us support 
the digestive and circulatory powers of the animal economy, until nature accomplishes 
what science has as yet failed to find a remedy for. In those cases which seem to do 
well for a week or teh days and then suddenly die—cases in which, if you will make a 
post mortem examination, there will be found evidences of debility from exhaustion— 
stimulants, and especially alcohol, will, in many cases, I believe, tide them safely over 
the critical period and succeed in establishing convalescence. 
The only case of tetanus that ever recovered for me—and it was one of the most 
unfavorable that I ever had—was treated with two-ounce doses of alcohol every six 
hours. 
The dose was small, and the periods of exhibition probably farther apart than 
they should have been, yet the animal did well and made a good recovery, Trismus 
was well marked for six weeks, part of the time the jaws only opening one inch. The 
appetite was retained during the entire time, and digestion apparently as good as in 
health, for the animal took on considerable flesh during the time of her illness. The 
temperature averaged about ioi degrees F., rising to 1053^ degrees F. al one time, 
from the fact that she got down and could not regain her feet. It may be that this 
was one of those cases that recovered in spite of treatment ; but when I consider the 
uniformity of temperature and action of the heart, as well as the very desirable reten¬ 
tion of the appetite and digestion, I am forced to .believe the alcohol had a marked 
beneficial effect upon the disease, and that the remedy is well worthy a further trial. 
The fact has been long recognized that the first step in the treatment of tetanus is to 
secure entire quietude : and if to this we can add a remedy, so easily administered as 
alcohol, that will sustain the important functions of the body until the nervous forces 
regain their wonted equilibrium, we will have succeeded in establishing a method of 
treatment simple in the extreme, and attended with results more to be desired than the 
past can claim for any treatment hitherto adopted. One thing is certainly evident to 
us all, and that is, alcohol does not depress the vital forces as sedatives do, while if it 
makes a horse as limber as it does some men, we might have a decided antispasmodic 
effect from its free use. 
Perhaps no medicine in our knowledge enjoys so extensive a use by American 
