The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

70 Tlhe Piysiolog,ical Effects of Alcohtol.
why alcoholic compounds should be removed from diet
etic use, and why, when medicinally prescribed, the
strength and frequency of the dose and the period of
use should be strictly defined by the medical adviser.
Yet, even as medicines, there are some weighty considerations for reducing their application to the lowest point,
or renouncing them entirely.
(I.) The long-established use of alcoholic drinks in this
country makes their strzic/, nedicinal enzjloynzen/e exceedti;T/y dzifcztl, as much so as would be the simple medicinal
use of opium in Eastern countries where opium is
smoked and eaten daily. Under such circumstances, to
maintain a sharp distinction between food and physic is
next to impossible with the multitude, who will be only
too glad to prize and apply as food that which can only
be of value as a drug.
(2.) The large number of persons who have contracted
a craving for alcohol, and to whom its taste, even as
medicine, brings iioral dasnhier, makes it much to be
desired that it should never be prescribed where other
articles will be of service. That it should never be given
on any account to reclaimed inebriates seems the dictate
of common sense; yet it is a dictate frequently violated
by medical men, who never enquire into their patients'
habits, or who recklessly ignore the moral consequences
almost certain to arise.
(3.) Thie special evils likely to flow from fazients actztfg
as their owin doctors in regard to strong drink, when once
they had been advised to take it for any ailment, is not to
be overlooked. Of all "medicines," there is none that
people (if at all encouraged by medical opinion) are so
ready to prescribe for themselves as alcoholic liquor, however trivial the complaint. They make the wine or spirit
merchant or the publican their apothecary on any pretence,
and without any concern for the purity of the draught or
its specific adaptation to their condition of health.
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