Books: Personal Experience of a Physician

J >> John Ellis >> Personal Experience of a Physician

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

As to alcohol giving strength, it is well known that it supplies no
substance to the tissues; therefore it meets no want, and consequently can
give no strength. Every one can see that blood-vessels, when paralyzed and
congested with blood by alcohol, cannot perform their function in the
metamorphosis of the tissues of the body, or of conveying nourishment to
them and removing worn-out, effete substances from them, as during health.
If you would see the legitimate effects of alcohol, look at the permanently
congested face of the steady drinker, or his "rum blossoms," and remember
that the capillary vessels of his brain and other internal organs are in a
similar state, and then say if you think he has been strengthened by
alcoholic drinks.

I remember very well when a young man, when a neighboring farmer was sick
and unable to gather his hay, that the young men in the neighborhood set a
day when they would meet and gather his hay for him. When, on the day set,
we met in the field, and the neighboring young men noticed that my brother
and myself had no bottle of cider brandy with us, they exclaimed with
delight, "We will lay you out before noon." A spirited contest with our
scythes commenced in good earnest. But they did not lay us out; they were
glad to seek and lie in the shade of trees to rest, while we were able to
continue our work. It is well known that men who are preparing themselves
for, or engaging in, feats requiring great strength and endurance are
beginning to find that they must let intoxicating drinks alone. It is
something marvelous to see with what tenacity so many physicians hold on to
the idea that fermented wine, beer, brandy, and whiskey are strengthening.
This idea comes, to a great extent, from the custom which prevails of
giving such drinks to patients who are recovering from fevers, acute
diseases, and from the effects of other debilitating causes. Many
physicians have been so accustomed to give these drinks to patients, under
such circumstances, that they have not the slightest idea how much better
they would do without them.

A few years ago I met a German woman whose husband I knew well, and had
reason to fear that beer drinking was doing him great harm. I said to her
that, on her husband's account, she should never let another drop of beer
enter her house if she could help it. "Why," she exclaimed, "I cannot do
without beer. I suffer so much during and after confinement, and am so
weak, and have so little milk for my child, that my doctor says that I must
have beer to give me strength." She was then expecting to be confined
within a few months. I replied to her by saying: "I have attended a great
many more patients during confinement than your physician has ever
attended, and after the first three years of my practice, I never gave to a
single patient beer, fermented wine, whiskey, or brandy, or any other
intoxicating drink. Now, if you will follow my advice, you will have a very
different time from what you have ever had before; and my advice is that
from this time forth you do not taste a single drop of beer, wine, or any
other intoxicating drink." She said she would follow my suggestions. I met
her again when her child was a few months old, and she looked like another
woman. She came up to me and said: "Well, Doctor, I have followed your
advice strictly. I have not tasted beer, wine, or any other intoxicating
drink, and I never before had such a comfortable time during my
confinement. I never was so strong or gained my strength so rapidly. I
never had so much nurse for my child, and I never had such a good-natured
baby before." She was the mother of several children.

Such are the results of the two methods of treatment.

There is no surer way to retard and often prevent recovery than to give
patients drinks or even remedies which contain an appreciable quantity of
alcohol. Where the tendency to recovery is strong they will recover sooner
or later in spite of the treatment; but in some cases the physician may
keep a delicate, nervous patient sick as long as he gives alcohol in any
form; and in the most critical stage of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and other
diseases where the patient needs nourishment, and that impurities should be
removed, there is no more dangerous treatment than to give alcohol in any
form, which interferes with these processes by paralyzing and congesting
the capillary vessels. Hot water and nourishment, cautiously supplied, are
what such patients require, not alcoholic stimulants.

The habit of taking either opium or morphine in our country has very
generally resulted from the prescriptions of physicians. The patient may
obtain palliative relief from its use, but suffers when he attempts to
leave it off; consequently, without fully realizing the danger which he
incurs, he continues the remedy until he is enslaved.

With the exception of alcohol, I know of no more dangerous medicine to give
during the critical stages of inflammatory, febrile, and other diseases
than Allopathic doses of opium in any form. This anodyne, by its retarding,
benumbing, and stupefying effects upon the body, often destroys the power
of reaction at the critical stage of the disease when the vital forces
should be left free to act, and consequently in many cases patients die who
would not die if they were not under the influence of this drug. Patients
will often go very near to the border line and yet rally if kept free from
the so-called "stimulants" and narcotics, and simple, plain nourishment is
cautiously given and the body kept warm.

Physicians are sometimes responsible for the habit of using tobacco among
their patrons. It is generally in chronic cases of disease where tobacco is
prescribed, and, as a rule, when it is once prescribed by a physician the
patient never thinks of giving up the use of the remedy; nor, so far as I
have known, are physicians who prescribe tobacco often, if ever, careful to
direct patients to discontinue using the remedy as soon as the symptoms of
the disease from which they are suffering are relieved. Of course, a
physician who neglects to do this seriously neglects his duty. It is safe
to say that few physicians ever prescribe the smoking or chewing of tobacco
as a remedy for diseases who do not use the weed themselves, for they can
generally find much better and safer remedies.

If a physician loves intoxicating drinks and has become a slave to them, he
actually feels that they do him good every time he drinks, for by relieving
the symptoms temporarily which they have caused they actually make him feel
better; and what is more natural than that he should prescribe them for his
patients? Here, then, it can be clearly seen that there is great danger in
employing physicians who love intoxicating drinks, tobacco, or opium in any
form; for they believe in the efficacy of these poisons, and they will
often prescribe them when a physician not addicted to their use would not
think of doing so.

I have alluded to some of the dangers which attend and the evils which
often result from the Allopathic treatment of diseases. Every one can see
that they are formidable enough and that they merit the serious attention
of every lover of his race. The skillful homoeopathic physician is able to
avoid these dangers and evils, for he does not use disease-creating or
appetite-begetting doses of any remedy.

We notice that those having the management of our railroads are beginning
to see that, for the protection of the property of the owners and lives of
their patrons, it is not safe to employ men who drink intoxicating drinks
at all; for it is well known that large numbers of those who drink are
sooner or later sure to become unreliable and careless. Is it not time that
physicians should cease to accept as students, and that our medical
colleges should cease to graduate and send forth as physicians, men who
drink intoxicating drinks? Should not medical professors and teachers have
as much regard for the health and lives of men, women, and children as the
managers of our railroads?

Again, it is well known that the use of tobacco tends to prevent
development, impair health, and to make men moody, if not careless, and it
not unfrequently leads them, especially when young, to disregard the rights
and feelings of others. We see men and boys smoking wherever it is not
strictly prohibited, even lighting their cigars and cigarettes as they
leave our elevated railroad stations, and walking down the stairs before
ladies and gentlemen, thus compelling those who follow to breathe the
atmosphere which they have polluted. As a fair illustration of the spirit
so frequently manifested, I will describe a little incident which occurred
in my presence. A young man, perhaps twenty years old, stood in a line of
men approaching the paying teller's window in one of our banks, vigorously
smoking his cigar. An elderly gentleman behind him asked him if he would be
so kind as not to smoke. The young man immediately straightened himself up
in a most self-important manner and exclaimed: "What do you think I care if
it is offensive to you?"

In our railroad cars smokers have to separate themselves from wives,
children, and friends and go by themselves into a smoking-car or apartment,
and why? simply because tobacco smoke is unpleasant to every man, woman,
and child who is not accustomed to it; and the smoker's breath often smells
so strong of the smoke when his cigar is gone that it is exceedingly
unpleasant to sensitive persons. Why should our medical colleges graduate
young men to go forth for the purpose of attempting to heal sick,
sensitive, and nervous patients, who smoke or chew tobacco, and thus are
unpleasant to many and a bad example to all? Have we not enough cleanly
young men, of good habits, to supply all the physicians we need in our
country? A smoking physician, by his breath and bad example to the young,
may do a vast deal more harm than he can ever do good as a physician in the
world.

The use of an intoxicating wine as a communion wine in so many of our
churches, and the efforts of so many clergymen to justify its use, together
with the prescription of intoxicating drinks by physicians, are the chief
supports which to-day sustain our distilleries, breweries, and saloons, and
the prevalent drinking habits and consequent drunkenness. Let all of our
clergy, churches, and physicians withdraw their patronage and sanction of
intoxicating drinks, and it would not be many years before the manufacture
and sale of such drinks would be prohibited throughout the length and
breadth of our land. That day will surely come, for a new age is opening up
before us very different from the past. The Lord is coming at this day in
the "clouds of heaven" with power and great glory. Old things are passing
away and all things are being made new--new heavens and a new earth.

Sir Astley Cooper says: "I never suffer ardent spirits in my house,
thinking them evil spirits. If the poor could witness the white livers, the
dropsies, or the shattered nervous systems which I have seen, the
consequences of drinking, they would be aware that spirits and poisons are
synonymous terms."

Again he says: "We have all been in error in recommending wine as a tonic.
Ardent spirits and poisons are convertible terms."

Dr. Benj. Richardson declares it to be his opinion that the administration
of alcohol will become, like blood-letting, a thing of the past, that it is
passing into the same position as blood-letting. He, as a student, was
educated to bleed; he was educated in the employment of alcohol; he saw the
effects of the application of these tested by comparison, and he has, in
one instance as much as in the other, come to consider them as behind the
age, and both as remedies belonging to a departed and deceived
generation.--The Dawn (English), Nov. 19, 1891.

I cannot close this chapter without again earnestly calling the attention
of all physicians to the great danger to life which results from giving
alcohol in any form to patients in very critical cases, or as they are at
or approaching the crisis in their disease, in fevers and in inflammatory
diseases, such as pneumonia, etc.

Since writing the preceding pages, in fact, since most of them were in
type, my attention has been called by notices in our papers to the fact
that champagne was given to a starving man, and that a few drops of brandy
were mixed with the milk given to a child in a similar condition, or
suffering from marasmus; and within a week a physician who has traveled
extensively and lectured before medical, theological, and literary
organizations, and who has frequently been in consultation in critical
cases, described in my hearing several cases of pneumonia which he visited,
which were, as he expressed it, drunk. When asked by the attending
physician what he would suggest, he always replied, "Stop giving your
patients alcoholic liquids;" and with a single exception, out of a large
number, and that was a complicated case, recovery followed. While
practicing in Detroit I was called to see a prominent citizen who was
suffering from typhoid fever. His physicians had told his family that he
would die, but that the "stimulants" they were giving him might keep him
alive a few hours. I found him delirious, with cold, clammy extremities and
almost pulseless. I stopped his "stimulants" at once and gave him
Homoeopathic remedies and nourishment, and the next day he was out of
danger. No more dangerous treatment has ever been adopted than to give a
patient in a critical stage of disease alcohol in any form or quantity.
Every intelligent physician ought to be able to see that this is true. I
repeat, alcohol paralyzes the minute capillary vessels and veins (look at
the face of the drinker) on the surface of the body, in the brain (look at
a drinker's words and actions), stomach, lungs, and kidneys, and congests
them with blood, through which the structures are nourished with food and
drink and purified by the removal of decomposed and effete substances.
Cannot every one see that these vessels, when thus paralyzed and congested,
cannot perform their duty as well as they can in a natural state? Then,
again, the temperature of the body is lowered internally and its heat
wasted from the surface. What patients in the critical stages of disease
require are warmth applied, if needed, to the surface of the body and
limbs, and hot water (not scalding hot, of course), milk, unfermented wine,
and other simple, easily digested articles which will nourish and
strengthen the body taken internally.

It is possible that in sudden, severe cases of hemorrhage, alcohol may
sometimes rescue a patient from fainting and bleeding to death, by storing
the blood in the capillary vessels of the brain and surface of the body
temporarily while the bleeding vessels contract; but even in such cases
other remedies, if at hand, may prove more reliable.

In cases of marasmus in children, if Homoeopathic remedies and nourishing
articles fail to give relief, and the child becomes greatly emaciated, give
the child cautiously salt fat pork, fried, but not to a crisp; give him a
piece in his hand, too large for him to swallow, and see with what avidity
he will chew and suck it. The fat in combination with the salt will supply
a want in the child's system, and patients will often be restored by this
simple treatment after other measures have failed.

Even if alcohol were a stimulant, as some claim, we can certainly see that
to give it to a patient in a state of great exhaustion, either from lack of
nourishment or from an inability to take nourishment owing to diseased
action, is to most seriously endanger the life of the patient and often to
destroy life; for alcohol gives no nourishment, and all unnatural
excitement is necessarily followed by corresponding depression, which often
carries patients in critical cases below the living point, and death
follows.

I will close with the following from the _Health Monthly_:--"The
theory that whiskey is necessary in the treatment of pneumonia has received
a blow from Dr. Bull, of New York, who discovers that in the New York
hospitals sixty-five per cent. of the pneumonia patients die with alcoholic
treatment, while in London, at the Object Lesson Temperance Hospital, only
five per cent. die.--_Ex._"

CHAPTER IV.

PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF A PHYSICIAN; AND AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF A
NEW DISPENSATION.

We know that in various ages of the world the Lord has revealed a knowledge
of Himself to man. In the Ten Commandments we have the laws of spiritual
life, in accordance with which we must live if we would enjoy spiritual
health, precisely as we must live in accordance with the laws of natural
life and health, if we would enjoy natural health.

We are dependent upon revelation for a knowledge of the laws of spiritual
health, and of the causes and methods for the cure of spiritual diseases;
but the Lord gives us, if we will keep His sayings, the ability, by careful
scientific study and investigation, to obtain a knowledge of the physical
laws of health, and the causes and methods of curing physical diseases. And
it is wonderful how the natural in all respects symbolizes or corresponds
to the spiritual.

To the Jewish Church the Lord revealed so much knowledge of Himself, and
how they should live if they would be prosperous and happy here and
hereafter, as that Church was prepared to receive; and He also promised to
manifest Himself in person. All Christians believe that He fulfilled His
promise when Jesus Christ appeared on earth; but He did not come in the
manner which the Jews at the time of His advent expected. He came, not as a
temporal ruler or prince; consequently they took Him for an impostor and
crucified Him. To His followers and disciples He promised to come again in
the clouds of heaven; but the clouds of heaven may not be the clouds of the
material earth, any more than the spiritual kingdom which He came to
establish was a natural kingdom; and it is possible that His second coming
may not be in the manner anticipated by the Christian Church at the time of
His second coming. He intimated as much when He inquired if He should find
faith on earth. Should Christians, then, not watch and pray, and heed the
signs of the times, lest they follow the example of the Jews, and reject
Him at His second coming? Should not clergymen, as well as physicians, be
led in freedom according to reason, and not blindly by prominent religious
professors, clergymen and writers, and creeds formulated in an age of
comparative darkness? Should the traditions and creeds of men be allowed to
make of none effect the Word of God? Do we not see all around us signs of a
most wonderful change going on in the world? Are these changes which we
behold from the Lord, or from man?

I was reared in the Baptist Church. My father was a deacon, and labored
faithfully to bring his children into the Church. I was taught that I must
be converted, or get religion, before being baptized or joining the Church.
What was meant by being converted I never fully comprehended, but I
inferred from the instruction I received that it meant a radical change in
one's feelings, the result of faith in the Lord's "atoning blood;" and that
when this change was effected, I should be able to tell an experience
similar to what I had heard others tell before joining the Church, which
sometimes seemed quite marvelous. I attended "protracted meetings" and
"revival meetings." And, one evening, I remember hoping and almost feeling
that I felt a little change, and I even thought of announcing my feelings
in the meeting; but caution prevailed, and I concluded to wait until the
next day and see if there really was any change in my feelings. When the
next day came, I could see no change, and consequently I made no
announcement. Thus, I grew up and continued, until I was over thirty years
of age, outside of the organized Church. I always respected religion, the
Bible, and religious teachers, but I never got converted.

I had many things during childhood and early youth to be thankful for. My
father and grandfather before him were accustomed to gather the family,
night and morning, and read, or have some member of the family read, a
chapter in the Bible, and then prayer was offered. Now, when this is done
regularly, and especially if the Bible is read, in course, with here and
there a few kindly remarks by the father or mother, no one can tell the
good impression which is made on the children; they learn to reverence the
Bible, and, what is of exceeding great moment, they hear it read through
and through several times before they reach manhood, and they become
comparatively familiar with the good and living precepts therein contained.
The Sabbath-school, once a week for an hour or two, is all very well; but,
in my estimation, it is very little, compared with daily family worship and
acknowledging the Lord, and asking a blessing. O, that all Christian men
and women could be aroused to the importance of such religious observances?

Some years ago, I went with my wife and a friend for a summer outing to the
Catskill Mountains, and spent a few days at the Mountain House. There were
a large number of guests there, of the various religious denominations.
Those religiously inclined had established the custom of meeting every
morning around a table, in a large room, when a chapter from the Bible was
read, followed by singing and prayer. There have been few, if any,
incidents of my whole life that I have more frequently thought of, or with
greater pleasure and delight, than of those large, non-sectarian, and, as
it were, family gatherings and simple services.

My mother died, as stated in the first part of this work, when I was ten
years old. After remaining a widower for three years, during which period
my grandparents, who lived with us, died and my only sister was married, my
father married a widow, the mother of several children, a good Christian
woman and a member of the Baptist Church.

I have always been thankful that I had a step-mother. No own mother could
have been more kind, or have exercised a stronger influence for good over a
son than she strove to exercise over me. She entered our home when I was
thirteen years of age, when I needed a mother's influence and care perhaps
as much as at any period of my life after I had ceased to draw my
nourishment from my mother's breasts. Tears come into my eyes as I recall
the pleasant, useful, and happy evenings and Sunday afternoons which I
spent with her, when we happened to be alone in the house, reading and
conversing about the interesting stories in the Bible and other religious
books and papers that she thought would interest me. She may have had
faults, yet I was about to say I do not remember one; but, unfortunately,
she had one--she was a smoker of tobacco. Years before she had been
troubled with "water brash," and a physician who, without much question,
was himself a smoker, advised her to smoke; so she commenced smoking. He
did not tell her to stop smoking as soon as she felt relief, as any
intelligent physician should have done, if he was so unwise as to make such
a prescription; but it is a question whether she ever experienced any
permanent relief; for she was a bright, intelligent woman, and would have
been likely to stop smoking of her own accord if she had been cured. In my
estimation the physician who made the prescription was much more to be
blamed than she was for the habit which followed. But seventy years ago
very little was known as to the fearful slavery and diseases and mortality
which result from the use of tobacco, compared with what is known to-day.
The sin of ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation of such habits
to-day, as it could then.

As to intoxicating drinks, I remember hearing my grandfather, when he was
over eighty years old, after taking a drink of cider-brandy, exclaim: "A
good gift of God, if taken with faith and prayer."

Fortunately, or providentially, I would say, the temperance reformation
commenced soon after, and my father and other prominent members and the
clergymen of the Baptist and Congregational churches in our town took an
active part in the new movement. My father signed the pledge not to drink
intoxicating drinks, and I followed his example; and I thank the Lord that
I did so, for it gave me the strength and courage to say, "No, I thank you,
I never drink," when invited and tempted to drink intoxicating drinks. No
intoxicating drinks have been publicly sold in that town (Ashfield, Mass.)
for many years. During a recent visit there I found that, within the past
three years, there have been 61 deaths in the town, of whom 15 only were
under 50 years of age, whereas 20 were over 80 years, of whom 4 were over
90 years of age. What do you think of that, Christian brother?

I remember very well the first ideas I had of God when a boy, which I
derived from the preaching and praying of ministers. It was that God and
our Lord Jesus Christ were two distinct Beings. We had for a time a
venerable gray-headed old man who preached one Sabbath, and a young man who
preached the next. I thought the old man represented God the Father and the
young man represented Jesus Christ.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11