Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

In typhoid fever there is a tendency to irritation of the mucous membrane of the small intestines; and, as I have already stated, I am satisfied from observation that when cathartics are given during this disease this irritation is often most seriously aggravated, and death not unfrequently follows as a result.

But the greatest danger and evil which result from the Allopathic treatment of disease lie, not in the direction of the sudden deaths which sometimes result from the use of its remedies, but in the liability of patients to be led into the habitual use of a drug that has afforded them palliative relief during sickness, and the countenance thus given for the use of such drugs by the laity during health. Perhaps as a rule poisonous substances palliate the symptoms which they cause, or which follow their use. A cathartic remedy will palliate the costiveness which frequently follows the use of cathartic remedies. Opium will palliate the sleeplessness and suffering that follow when the patient leaves off the use of opiates which he has been taking for disease; and alcohol and all fluids and remedies which contain an appreciable quantity of alcohol will palliate the coldness of the surface, craving, and distress which follow when a patient who has been taking such remedies attempts to discontinue their use. And thus the patient is led to continue the remedy because it makes him feel better every time he takes it; and, consequently, he is led on as naturally as water runs down hill, until he becomes a slave to his appetite.

Now, cannot every conscientious and intelligent man see what an immense blessing to his fellow men it would be if all physicians were able to treat their patients as successfully by the use of Homoeopathic remedies and doses as by the use of the so-called Alcoholic stimulants and Narcotics, which are enslaving and ruining so many, and thus be able to discard and discountenance the use of all such remedies? How can honest, conscientious physicians disregard and treat with contempt the testimony of physicians who have been educated in the same schools with themselves, but who have used their reason and freedom to investigate the new practice and test the curative action of its remedies, when they assure them that they have treated their patients far more successfully by the use of Homoeopathic remedies than they ever have done by the use of narcotics, alcoholic and fermented drinks, and other Allopathic remedies? How can physicians disregard the testimony of multitudes of patients who have been thus cured?

Why should not every physician study Homoeopathy and test the remedies on the sick? He can do it cautiously; he has all of his old remedies by him; what has he to lose? If they do not relieve his patient's sufferings more safely and promptly, he is not obliged to continue to use them. Is it a sensible and rational course for any one to allow himself to be so strongly confirmed in the views of prominent professors, teachers, and books, that he cannot without prejudice examine new truths and new methods of treating diseases, and even new theories? Should not a man strive to keep abreast of the age in which he is living? Take it, for instance, in regard to the action of alcohol on living structures. No other man has ever experimented so carefully, patiently, and thoroughly as has Dr. Richardson, of England, and the results of his experiments appeal to the common sense and observation of every unbiased man. He shows conclusively by its action that it should never have been given in a vast majority of the cases of disease where it is given by physicians; yet what attention is paid to his testimony and demonstrations, which every disinterested physician can see to be true if he will?

Dr. Richardson has also shown conclusively that alcohol paralyzes the minute capillary vessels, so that while the blood is forced into them through the arteries by the heart, it does not flow out of these minute vessels into the veins as rapidly as it does during their healthy action; consequently these vessels are congested and unnaturally distended with blood; the face and surface of the body become red, owing to the presence of an unnatural quantity of blood in these vessels. Nor is this all. The heat of the body is generated by changes going on in the blood and flows with the blood, and consequently the surface of the body becomes, from the presence of this excess of blood, unnaturally warm; but the heat is rapidly radiated from the surface, consequently the body, as a whole, becomes cooler. Dr. Richardson found by careful experiment that, while the surface was warmer, internally the body was cooler and less able to stand the cold; and he also substantiated the truth of his experiments by experiments on pigeons.

I will allow Canon Wilberforce, of South Hampton, England, to describe his experiment. While attending a reception during his recent visit to New York he was asked the following question:—

Dr. E. P. Thwing: "I would like to ask the Canon, as a physician, if the feeling as to alcoholic medication in England has changed for the better; for instance, the aspect of the British Medical Association toward this subject?"

Canon Wilberforce: "I believe that is one point in which we are going furthest ahead. I think that the whole aspect of the medical question is changing, mainly under the influence of that distinguished man of science, Dr. Richardson. He is one of the leading scientific minds of Great Britain. He has been successful in his experiments and as bold as a lion in his utterances, and he is leading scientific thought in this direction. He has proved over and over again, to use a common phrase, that from the monarch on the throne down to the maggot in the cheese, every healthy being is better without alcohol. The other day he was staying with me. I have the greatest possible objection to experimenting upon living animals, but he described to me an experiment on pigeons. It was not a very painful experiment; indeed, there are some people who, I am afraid, would like to have the experiment made upon them. He tried to induce the pigeons to take peas soaked in alcohol. They refused to do so at first; but after a while they were pleased, and they selected the peas saturated with alcohol. One cold night he turned the pigeons out, and on the following day, when he was examining them, strange to say, all those pigeons that ate the alcoholized peas were frozen to death, and those that remained teetotalers were perfectly safe and sound."

The drinking of alcoholic liquors generates no heat, it simply holds the heat in the congested blood-vessels upon the surface of the body, where it is wasted, and thus the temperature of the body as a whole is lowered.

The greatest mortality which results from the use of intoxicating drinks does not result from what is recognized as drunkenness, but from what is recognized as moderate but steady drinking. The drunkard after his sprees usually has seasons of abstinence, during which he has a chance to recuperate or regain strength and vigor, and consequently drunkards often live to an advanced age; but the steady drinker has no such seasons of rest, but his face, by its almost constantly congested appearance, shows the condition of his internal organs; for the effect of alcohol is to paralyze the minute capillary vessels throughout the body and fill them with blood, which produces redness upon the surface and a sensation of warmth. The separation of waste and worn-out materials and their removal is largely effected through these minute blood-vessels, and it is through them that nourishment reaches all the structures of the body; consequently, the almost constant state of congestion of these minute vessels, which results from regular, moderate drinking, interferes very seriously with this change or purification and renewal of all the structures of the body. As a result, while some drinkers die from drunkenness, many more die from apoplexy, paralysis, laryngitis and bronchitis, heart failure, fatty degeneration of the heart, diseases of the stomach and liver, Bright's disease of the kidneys, etc., and especially from an inability to either resist or withstand epidemic, contagious, or inflammatory diseases, or even mechanical injuries.