all along since alcohol came into
common use there have been physicians who distrusted, and opposed it.
They learned, too, that some of the most distinguished physicians of
America and of England were using little or no alcohol in their
practice, and that a hospital had been established in London, England,
which was clearly demonstrating the superiority of non-alcoholic
medication by its small death-rate in comparison with hospitals using
alcohol.

This knowledge encouraged those possessing it so that they began to
refuse alcoholics as remedies in their own households, and rarely did
they find physicians unwilling or unable to supply another agent when
asked to do so, and thousands of women can now testify to the fact of
having recovered from ill health without the wine, beer or brandy they
were advised to take. So the W. C. T. U. discovered several good reasons
for opposing alcohol in medicine.

1. Its liability to create or revive an uncontrollable appetite.

2. A considerable number of the leading physicians of America
and of Great Britain discard it from their list of remedies,
considering it harmful rather than helpful.

3. The lessened mortality consequent upon its entire disuse
demonstrated by the London Temperance Hospital.

4. By their own experience they knew that alcohol is not
necessary to the restoration of health, nor to the upbuilding of
strength.

The first active work touching the medical use of alcohol was a memorial
from the National W. C. T. U. to the International Medical Congress of
1876, which met in Washington, D. C. This memorial was suggested by Miss
Frances E. Willard, and co-operated in by the National Temperance
Society. It asked for a deliverance from the Congress upon alcohol as a
food and as a medicine.

The Congress was divided into sections for the more thorough discussion
of the various topics. Upon the program was a paper on "The Therapeutic
Value of Alcohol as Food, and as a Medicine," by Ezra M. Hunt, M. D.,
delegate from the New Jersey Medical Society. This paper was read before
the "Section on Medicine," and, after earnest discussion, the
conclusions of the author were adopted "quite unanimously" as the
sentiments of the Section on Medicine. As such they were reported for
acceptance to the General Congress, and by it ordered to be transmitted
as a reply to the memorialists.

The report was published in full by the National Temperance S