Extracts from Dr. Benjamin Rush's Inquiry into the effects of ardent spirits upon the human body and mind.

  • Rush, Benjamin, 1746-1813.
Date:
1816
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from Dr. Benjamin Rush's Inquiry into the effects of ardent spirits upon the human body and mind. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    gcrous remedy. I have known many men and wo- men of excellent characters and principles, who have been betrayed by occasional doses of gin and brandy, into a love of those liquors, and have after- wards fallen sacrifices to their fatal effects. The dif- ferent preparations of opium are much more safe and efficacious than distilled cordials of any kind, in fla- tulent or spasmodic affections of the stomach and bowels. So great is the danger of contracting a love for distilled liquors, by accustoming the sto- mach to their stimulus, that as few medicines as pos- sible should be given in spiritous vehicles, in chronic diseases. A physician of great eminence, and un- common worth, who died towards the close of the last century, in London, in taking leave of a young physician of this city, who had finished his studies under his patronage, impressed this caution with peculiar force upon him, and lamented at the same time in pathetic terms, that he had innocently made many sots by prescribing brandy and water in sto- mach complaints. It is difficult to tell how many persons have been destroyed by those physicians who have adopted Dr. Brown's indiscriminate prac- tice in the use of stimulating remedies, the most po- pular of which is ardent spirits, but it is well known, several of them have died of intemperance in this city, since the year 1790. They were probably led to it, by drinking brandy and water to relieve them- selves from the frequent attacks of debility and in- disposition to which the labours of a physician ex- pose him, and for which rest, fasting, a gentle purge, or weak diluting drinks, would have been safe and more certain cures. None of these remarks arc intended to preclude the use of spirits in the low state of short, or what are called acute diseases, for in such cases, they produce their effects too soon, to create an habitual desire for taern^.