e not found a single patient injured by the
disuse of alcohol, or a constitution requiring it; indeed, to
find either, although I am in my seventy-seventh year, I would
walk fifty miles to see such an unnatural phenomenon. If I
ordered or allowed alcohol in any form, either as food or as
medicine, to a patient, I should certainly do it with a
felonious intent."--_Ipswich Tracts. No. 346._

In 1839 Dr. Julius Jeffreys drew up a medical declaration which was
signed by seventy-eight leaders of medicine and surgery. This document
declared the opinion to be erroneous that wine, beer or spirit was
beneficial to health; that even in the most moderate doses, alcoholic
drinks did no good. This, of course, dealt only with the beverage use of
alcoholics. In 1847 a second declaration was originated, signed by over
two thousand of the most eminent physicians and surgeons. This also
referred only to liquor as a beverage. In 1871 a third declaration,
signed by two hundred and sixty-nine of the leading members of the
medical profession was published in the London _Times_.

This declaration was in part as follows:--

"As it is believed that the inconsiderate prescription of large
quantities of alcoholic liquids by medical men for their
patients has given rise, in many instances, to the formation of
intemperate habits, the undersigned, while unable to abandon the
use of alcohol in the treatment of certain cases of disease, are
yet of opinion that no medical practitioner should prescribe it
without a sense of grave responsibility.

"They are also of opinion that many people immensely exaggerate
the value of alcohol as an article of diet, and they hold that
every medical practitioner is bound to exert his utmost
influence to inculcate habits of great moderation in the use of
alcoholic liquids."

In the same year the American Medical Association passed a resolution
that "alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs, and when
prescribed medically, it should be done with conscientious caution, and
a sense of great responsibility."

The physicians of New York, Brooklyn and vicinity not long afterward
published a declaration practically the same as that of the A. M. A.,
adding: "We are of opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a
beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease."

The publication of these later declarations was the beginning o