ed to contain great virtue
as remedial agents, this phase of their nature and effects has not been
overlooked by those pursuing inquiries concerning them. While full
agreement has not yet been reached by experts as to the value of
alcoholic liquids as medicines, it is noteworthy that some of the most
eminent investigators were led to drop alcohol from their
pharmaceutical outfit, and the remainder to admit that its sphere of
usefulness is extremely limited.

There are now medical colleges of high standing where students are
advised against the use of alcohol as a remedy; hospitals are gradually
using it less and less, some entirely discarding it; and many
progressive physicians, while saying nothing as to their position upon
the alcohol question, yet show their lack of faith in this drug by
ignoring it unless patients or their friends desire it.

CHAPTER II.

THE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION
IN OPPOSITION TO ALCOHOL AS MEDICINE.

When the W. C. T. U. was first organized there was no thought among its
members of antagonizing the use of alcohol in medicine. One almost
immediate result of the organization, however, was that the women began
to study the causes of inebriety, and prominent among the prevailing
influences leading to drunkenness they found the medical use of
alcoholics. The early efforts of these women were chiefly in rescue work
through Gospel temperance meetings, and visitations of jails and
poor-houses. By reason of this contact with the effects of inebriety
they learned many sad tales of ruined lives, blighted homes and lost
souls, through the appetite for strong drink created, or aroused, by
alcoholic prescription. They saw, as time passed, that some of the
drunkards reclaimed through their influence lapsed again into their evil
habits because a little beer, or wine, "for the stomach's sake," or some
other sake, had been advised them. Some of the workers had this trouble
in their own homes, husband, son or other relative enslaved to alcohol
through prescription in disease. Is it any wonder that women of the
spirit of the Crusaders, having once had their attention thoroughly
aroused to the danger of alcohol in medicine, should begin to examine
this stronghold of the enemy to discover, if possible, whether or not,
his fortress, the medicine-chest, was impregnable? Greatly to their joy
they found that the medical profession was not a unit in commending
alcoholics as remedial agencies, that