Meanwhile I learned
that across the sea such great physicians as Dr. Benjamin Ward
Richardson, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir Henry Thompson and Sir William
Gull held views which for their latitude were almost equally
radical; and Dr. James Edmunds, founder of the London Temperance
Hospital had demonstrated publicly and on a grand scale the more
excellent way, his hospital having 4-1/2 per cent. fewer deaths
than any other in London, taking the same run of cases, and that
the Royal Infirmary at Manchester reported the medicinal use of
alcohol fallen off 87 per cent. in recent years, with a decrease
in its death-rate of over one-third. Besides all this, and
independent of any such investigation, the 'intuitions' of our
most earnest women were leading them out of the wilderness. As
is their custom, they determined to put this matter to the test
of that 'experience which one experiences when he experiences
his own experience,' and a whole body of divinity upon the
advantages of non-alcoholic treatment could be furnished from
their evidence. I was not able personally to pursue this method,
my own condition of good health having become chronic. Away back
in 1875, in executive committee, one of our leading officers was
stricken with _angina pectoris_. A physician was promptly
summoned. 'Give her brandy,' he said, and insisted so stoutly
upon it as vital to her recovery that we should probably have
sent for it, but the dear woman gasped out faintly, 'I can die,
but I can't touch brandy.' She is alive and flourishing to-day.
Another national officer absolutely refused whisky for a violent
attack of a very different character, the physician telling her
that she could not live through the night without it; but she is
still an active worker--a living witness that doctors are not
infallible. Instances like these have multiplied by hundreds and
thousands in our Woman's Christian Unions and Bands of Hope.
'No, mamma I can't touch liquor; I've signed the pledge,' is a
protest 'familiar as household words.' Meanwhile, I beg you to
contemplate something else that has happened. Behold, our own
beloved beverage itself,

'Sparkling and bright,
In its liquid light,'

has come grandly to our rescue in this crusade against alcohol
in the sick room. Water has become a favorite--nay, even a