f the
ablest men in the profession. Realizing the importance of some
expression in relation to the use of alcohol, medical and otherwise,
from this Congress, the National Temperance Society laid before it,
through its President, W.E. Dodge, and Secretary, J.N. Stearns, the
following memorial:

"The National Temperance Society sends greeting, and respectfully
invites from your distinguished body a public declaration to the effect
that alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs; that, when,
prescribed medicinally, it should be with conscientious caution and a
sense of grave responsibility; that it is in no sense food to the human
system; that its improper use is productive of a large amount of
physical disease, tending to deteriorate the human race; and to
recommend, as representatives of enlightened science, to your several
nationalities, total abstinence from alcoholic beverages."

In response to this memorial, the president of the society received
from J. Ewing Mears, M.D., Secretary of the Section on Medicine,
International Congress, the following official letter, under date of
September 9th, 1876:

"DEAR SIR: I am instructed by the Section on Medicine, International
Medical Congress, of 1876, to transmit to you, as the action of the
Section, the following conclusions adopted by it with regard to the use
of alcohol in medicine, the same being in reply to the communication
sent by the National Temperance Society.

"1. Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food value by any of the
usual methods of chemical analysis or physiological investigation.

"2. Its use as a medicine is chiefly that of a cardiac stimulant, and
often admits of substitution.

"3. As a medicine, it is not well fitted for self-prescription by the
laity, and the medical profession is not accountable for such
administration, or for the enormous evils arising therefrom.

"4. The purity of alcoholic liquors is, in general, not as well assured
as that of articles used for medicine should be. The various mixtures,
when used as medicine, should have definite and known composition, and
should not be interchanged promiscuously."

The reader will see in this no hesitating or halfway speech. The
declaration is strong and clear, that, as a food, alcohol is not shown,
when subjected to the usual method of chemical or physiological
investigation, to have any food value; and that, as a medicine, its use
is chiefly confined to a cardiac stimulant