The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 36

Medical Declaration

Medical Declaration.

1. In view of the alarming prevalence and ill effects of intemperance, with which none are so familiar as members of the medical profession, and which have called forth from eminent English physicians the voice of warning to the people of Great Britain concerning the use of alcoholic beverages, we, the undersigned, members of the medical profession of New York and vicinity, unite in the declaration that we believe alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs; that, when prescribed medicinally, it should be with conscientious caution, and a sense of grave responsibility.
2. "We are of opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease; that it entails diseased appetites upon offspring; and that it is the cause of a large percentage of the crime and pauperism of our cities and country.
3. We would welcome any judicious and effective legislation—State and National—which should seek to confine the traffic in alcohol to the legitimate purposes of medical and other sciences, art, and mechanism.

While there is a large array of eminent medical authorities which incline to the belief that the moderate use of fermented liquors is not injurious and is often beneficial to health, yet the concurring sentiment of the medical world is against the use of distilled alcoholic beverages. But the weight of the latest and best medical and scientific opinion largely preponderates in favor of the position that alcohol is simply a poison, and should never be introduced to the human organism, even in the forms of fermentation, except as an antidote for disease, like arsenic, strychnine, prussic acid, or any other powerful, but poisonous agency. I do not propose to enter this field of discussion so far as the light domestic wines and drinks of the people are concerned. It is not essential to the grounds of my argument in support of the proposed amendment. It is only just, however, that the position of the medical profession upon the influence of alcohol in any form of administration upon the human system should be fairly stated, and, if in so doing it shall have appeared that the preponderance of opinion is against the use of fermented as well as distilled liquors, it is no fault of mine. It will strengthen the argument against the stronger and more concentrated poison, if it shall be found or believed that fermented liquors contain enough of the pernicious spirit of wine, which one of Shakespeare's immortal characters stigmatizes as " devil to endanger the physical, mental, and moral organism of those who indulge in their habitual use.