Aroctoblvfm7m'}     Therapeutic  Properties  of  Alcohol.  519 
the  active  therapeutic  agents  from  the  more  complex  or  crude  drugs, 
and  thereby  enables  the  physician  to  administer  them  with  far 
greater  convenience  and  certainty.  Very  few  intelligent  physicians 
of  the  present  day  would  think  of  prescribing  crude  opium  when 
they  desired  to  produce  only  the  anodyne  effects  of  the  morphine  it 
contained,  certainly  not  without  knowing  what  per  cent,  of  morphine 
would  be  in  the  crude  drug.  Why,  then,  should  he  prescribe  the 
uncertain  mixtures  called  beer,  wine,  whiskey  or  brandy,  when  his 
sole  object  is  to  obtain  the  therapeutic  effects  of  alcohol  ?  If  it  is 
claimed  that  these  several  fermented  and  distilled  liquors  contain 
other  therapeutic  agents  in  addition  to  the  alcohol,  we  answer  that, 
so  far  as  any  such  agents  exist,  their  proportionate  quantity  and 
quality  are  far  more  variable  and  uncertain  than  is  their  per  cent,  of 
alcohol.  Almost  the  only  constituents  found  in  whiskey  and  brandy, 
besides  the  alcohol  and  water,  are  very  variable  quantities  of  fusel 
oil,  tannin  and,  in  very  old  specimens,  a  trace  of  some  ethereal  sub- 
stance to  which  connoisseurs  attribute  the  special  bouquet.  So  far 
from  adding  to  the  therapeutic  value,  the  first  two  substances  are 
regarded  as  very  undesirable  impurities,  and  the  last  named  has 
never  been  isolated  in  sufficient  quantity  to  have  its  medical  quali- 
ties tried.  Much  has  been  said  and  written  concerning  valuable 
nutritive  constituents  in  the  different  varieties  of  wine,  but  the 
numerous  analyses  on  record  show  only  very  variable  quantities  of 
fecula,  saccharine  matter,  tannin,  some  vegetable  acids  and  potassium 
salts,  in  addition  to  the  alcohol  and  water.  Of  these  extra  ingred- 
ients the  fecula  and  saccharine  matter  are  the  only  ones  that  could  be 
classed  as  nutritive  or  capable  of  being  converted  into  any  natural 
element  of  the  blood  or  tissues  of  the  body. 
The  quantity  of  these  in  any  variety  of  wine  is  so  limited  that  it 
would  require  several  barrels  of  the  wine  to  furnish  the  equivalent 
of  a  pound  of  bread.  Consequently,  it  would  be  far  more  economic, 
as  well  as  more  scientifically  accurate,  for  every  physician  to  pre- 
scribe such  doses  of  pure  alcohol  and  water  to  be  given  with  such 
quantity  of  sugar,  milk  or  meat  broth,  as  he  thought  his  patient 
might  need.  The  physician  who  cannot  do  this,  and  thereby  accu- 
rately adjust  the  proportion  of  all  the  elements  his  patient  may  need, 
has  certainly  received  a  very  defective  professional  education.  It 
would  be  a  long  and  very  important  step  in  advance,  both  in  the 
interests  of  scientific  accuracy  and  of  humanity,  if  all  physicians, 
