The Alcohol Question Author:James Paget Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ALCOHOL. By Sir WILLIAM W. GULL, Bart., M.D., F.R.C.P., D.C.L.; F.R.S. there has again been a great change, and we ... more »believe now that diseases run for the most part a physiological course, and that alcohol has but a subordinate value, which is due chiefly to its action on the nervous system as a sedative. Under this view many diseases are now allowed to run their course without alcohol; but if we find a patient very delirious or exhausted we give him alcohol, not as formerly with a view of curing the disease, but with that of calming the nervous system during the course of the disease. There are cases such as a high-pulse fever, in which what are called phlogistic symptoms would be moderated by alcohol; and it was Dr. Todd's merit to point out that the distinction between phlogistic and antiphlogistic has no existence. Fever can be treated without alcohol. In young patients of sound constitutions it was my practice at Guy's Hospital to do so, that my students should be able to see the course of the disease. I have cured many cases of typhus in young subjects under twenty-five with camomile tea ' and light diet, and the practice was quite safe in these cases. I think the error is still prevalent that alcohol cures the disease, whereas the disease runs its physiological course. The advantage of alcohol is in its effect upon the nervous system, rendering the patient more - indifferent to the processes going on. I am disposed, however, to believe that although we could not do without alcohol as a drug, it is still over- prescribed. Under the shock of an injury or an operation the nervous system has to be deadened, and alcohol is the best agent for that, acting as a sedative as one would use opium. Probably it acts through the sympathet...« less