“The fact that the mortality from typhoid fever seems to be gradually lowering is no doubt due in great measure to the non-use of alcohol in the treatment of the disease. Hardly a week passes that some of our journals do not report a series of cases treated without the aid of alcohol in any form. I used alcohol in the treatment of the disease until two years ago, when I became alarmed at the mortality; so I changed my plan, and in 1894 I treated thirty-seven well marked cases of varying degrees of intensity. I had two fatal cases, and in both of them I had used alcohol. In 1895 I treated thirty cases of about the same type, with no death. I only used alcohol in one of them, and it caused me more trouble than any of the others. As this case was in the family of a saloon-keeper, I could not control the matter, as they would give it during my absence. On my return I would find the face flushed, the temperature high, the pulse rapid and the patient nervous. By close inquiry I would find that some of the family had given ‘just a little good whisky’ which had been in the house for twenty years.
“In closing, I wish to state that I am well convinced that in the treatment of typhoid fever our patients will do better and stand a greater chance of recovery, if we abstain entirely from the use of alcohol in the treatment of the disease.”
Prof. J. Burney Yeo, of London, in a paper read before the International Medical Congress held at Rome, Italy, said:—
“In order to maintain the intestinal antisepsis which forms an essential part of this method of treatment, I insist on the necessity of scrupulous attention and caution in feeding patients suffering from enteric fever, great danger arising from a failure to note the extremely limited digestive and absorptive capacity exhibited by such patients.
“In conclusion, the use of alcoholic stimulants, and the common employment of depressing antipyretic agents, must be condemned.”
In a report of the treatment of typhoid fever by seventy-two physicians of Connecticut, thirty-eight declared that they did not use alcohol in any stage of this disease. The remainder used it sparingly in the last stages, and only two considered it valuable from the beginning of the disease.
In a discussion of typhoid fever by a medical society meeting in Rochester, N. Y., recently, sixty physicians being present, only three spoke in favor of using alcohol in this disease.
Hygienic physicians all insist upon a rigid fast as long as the high temperature continues, or until the patient is sufficiently hungry to eat a piece of plain, stale, graham bread, “dry upon the tongue.” Dr. Charles E. Page of Boston says there would be very few relapses if this plan were carefully carried out. He contends that the whisky and milk diet, together with the not over-fresh air of the average sick room is enough to produce fever in a healthy person, hence is not likely to be conducive to recovery in one already infected with the disease.
In an article in the Arena of September, 1892, Dr. Page says:—
“In my fever practice I have frequently observed the effect of fasts of six, eight, ten and twelve days to be in the highest degree productive of the health and comfort of patients, as, on the other hand I have, during the past twenty years observed the deplorable effects of the almost universal plan of constant feeding. In some of the most distressing cases that have happened to be thrown in my way, when all hope in the minds of friends had been abandoned, I have found that withdrawal of food, drugs and stimulants, and the substitution of simple, fresh, soft water, has produced results that seemed almost miraculous.”