arrests secretion, and hinders excretion. The courage and
fortitude of his patients were lessened instead of increased by
the use of alcoholic medication.

"Pain is better borne, endured longer and more patiently when
alcohol is not used.

"He urges the practical surgeon to carefully weigh the subject
of alcohol, and verify for himself the expediency of its use."

Dr. B. W. Richardson in the report of his practice for 1895 in the
London Temperance Hospital refers to non-alcoholic treatment of
rheumatism. He said:--

"Out of seventy-one cases of acute or subacute rheumatism--the
large majority acute, and attended with temperatures moving up
to 104 deg. F.--sixty-nine recovered, and two, although they were
discharged without being put on the recovery list, were so far
relieved that a few days' change in country air seemed all that
was required to induce full restoration. Comparing the
experience of the treatment of acute rheumatic disease without
alcohol with that which I have previously observed with alcohol,
I can have no hesitation in declaring that it is of the greatest
advantage to follow total abstinence absolutely in this disease.
The pain and swelling of joints is more quickly relieved under
abstinence, the fever falls more rapidly, there is less frequent
relapse, and there is quicker recovery. In brief, the experience
of treatment of rheumatic fever minus alcohol, presents to me as
much novelty as it does pleasure, and I am convinced that if any
candid member of the profession could have witnessed what I have
witnessed in this matter, he would agree with me that alcohol in
rheumatic fever, however acute, is altogether out of place. I am
also under the conviction, though I express it with great
reserve, that in acute rheumatism, treated without alcohol, the
cardiac complications, endocardial and pericardial, are much
less frequently developed than where alcohol is supplied."

Dr. Pechuman in _Alcohol--Is It a Medicine_, published in 1891, says:--

"There is no disputing that many deaths occur each day as the
result of the administration of alcohol in acute diseases, to
say nothing of the deaths caused by its habitual use; and those
who give it ignore the very fundamental principles of physiology
and the many published statistics. The Boston Hospital report
tells a sad sto