Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

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Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Apr 04, 2013 10:29 am

Here we see a good example of something that within a generation completely changed course:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=inlYAAA ... ky&f=false

It is a medical doctor, with the interesting surname of Octerlony, vaunting the merits of genuine Kentucky sour mash bourbon for clinical use. This was mid-1880's, and surely at the high-water mark of favourable medical opinion in relation to alcohol. I don't recall the exact date, but within 10 or 20 years, alcohol was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopia. The permission to doctors to prescribe small amounts to patients in the Volstead Act era was a last gasp of the time when alcohol was viewed with favour by much of the Fraternity, as Dr. Octolony might have put it.

Now, the good doctor practiced in Louisville, thus perhaps one could consider him more inclined than many physicians of the day to view alcohol positively. But even if so, it is unquestionable that many doctors then felt good bourbon whiskey - whiskey whose only perceived equal was old Cognac brandy - was a boon to health when used sanely to be sure.

(One might note what the Louisville doctor viewed as old: 4-6 years. Those whose purse or detection facilities does not permit the purchase of Pappy 15, 20 or 23 might take some comfort from that).

Even then and even 100 years earlier, the doctors were starting to have doubts though. Benjamin Rush and his work in the 1770's is perhaps the first notable example of an American physician raising alarms about spirits consumption. Dr. Octolony might have retorted that sour mash bourbon didn't exist then.

At any rate, after about 1900 drinking was rarely to my knowledge boosted by the docs. There is one book, by a Dr. Maurice Chayfetz I think it was, written after WW II which defended the sane and intelligent use of alcohol by the population. But apart from that, the kind of quotation above (to my knowledge) belongs essentially to history.

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:47 pm

Wow! Thank you, Gary. I've saved a link to this site, possibly for use in future EllenJaye.com articles.
With the "scarlet letter" of evil that both Prohibition- and Pure Food & Drug-lobbyists have forever branded alcoholic beverages (even to this very day -- i.e., "I don't know anything about that. We're not DRINKERS"), it's refreshing to see what real doctors thought about alcohol -- even when "used" recreationally -- before all that started.
A great discovery! Thanks again.

P.S. for those in states that might consider emulating Washington and Colorado, the same applies to recreational marijuana. Please remember that next time you go to vote.
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby bourbonv » Thu Apr 04, 2013 2:30 pm

Gary,
The medical field came out against whiskey as medicine until they were given the monopoly on writing perscriptions and then they came out in total favor of whiskey as medicine. The article you have linked is from the period where doctors were complaining because people were simply getting the whiskey without paying for a doctor's visit and getting a perscription.

Whiskey was perscribed as medicine as later as the 1980s. I forget which state it was but I recently saw a bottle of whiskey with a perscription attached to it from the 1980s, I think it was 1982.
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Thu Apr 04, 2013 2:41 pm

Ah yes... plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Apr 04, 2013 3:29 pm

http://prohibition.osu.edu/american-pro ... al-alcohol

The above states that whiskey and brandy were removed from the Pharmacopeia in 1917. Clearly, the power to prescribe alcohol continued after, and possibly in some States into the 1980's, but whiskey and brandy never re-entered the list of scientifically approved medicines as far as I know after their removal. I am not a doctor but feel safe in thinking that the position of alcohol as a medicine declined significantly in the 1900's and today alcohol is viewed at best scepticaly by doctors, with some approving moderate alcohol use for cardiac health reasons but even there with reservations on the part of many.

In the excerpt I cited from the 1880's, the doctor was not complaining of people using alcohol whether with or without prescription; rather, he was approving its moderate use both socially and for medicine. He did not refer to the prescriptive issue at all from what I saw.

I have read many 1800's references to alcohol in general literature, including in connection with beer in England (which was on average stronger then than now), that have convinced me that many doctors, as the Louisville medico, thought alcohol was useful as a medicine irrespective of the professional interest issue. Many were "for", and some, as Benjamin Rush, were "'agin". But in the end, most went 'agin, is my point.

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Thu Apr 04, 2013 4:05 pm

Virtually all medicines that are administered in liquid form to be taken internally use alcohol as the base medium.
The only exceptions I know of are special formulations for people who cannot tolerate alcohol.

BTW, that means GNS alcohol, not aged bourbon or rye.
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:10 pm

Yes John and alcohol is a great solvent, but there is no appreciable amount ingested I believe, nothing on the order of what one or two standard drinks would deliver.

Still, I take your point about the fact that the medical fraternity did once generally approve of alcohol and the issue is far from cut and dried. Check out Morris Chayfetz's book too, I think he held a senior position with the Federal government in the 50's or 60's.

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:48 pm

Heh-heh, a trick that we high-schoolers knew quite well back in the 60s was that plain ol' vanilla extract, the kind you find in the baking section of the supermarket, is 70% alcohol. That's 140 proof for the newbies out there! And you could buy as many bottles of McCormick Vanilla Extract as you wanted (subject to suspicion, of course). That was probably true during Prohibition as well.
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Apr 04, 2013 7:44 pm

Well yes, and many patent medicines used a lot of alcohol in the base. But at the end of the day, the profession and allied branches largely abandoned the substance as being of any use to the people - we had to find another justification. :)

Dr. Morris Chayfetz was a late dissenter perhaps from this view:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=cLNIAAA ... CFwQ6AEwCQ

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:32 pm

Some information on Dr. Morris E. Chayfetz:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011 ... -e-chafetz

One might argue he and the 1880's doctor discussed earlier were kindred souls.

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:25 pm

Gary,

Unfortunately, the link to Google books' page no longer provides any information at all, other than partial views of the front pages. Apparently Dr. Chayfetz's heirs are more restrictive in their views concerning copyright than was the good doctor.

And thus there is little that can be drawn directly from that source. The subtitle, along with the other link, to Dr. Chayfetz's obituary in 2011, would indicate that the book discusses ACTUAL temperance, as opposed to the meaning that resulted when that word was hijacked by the Anti-Saloon League and its ilk and redefined as ABSTINENCE.

The obituary article described Dr. Chayfetz as "a contrarian Harvard Medical School psychiatrist". One becomes known as "contrarian" when one's support (i.e., funding for his research and publications) comes from those who wish validation of ideas that fall outside the mainstream. I'm not talking about crackpots, here, although Lord knows there are enough of those roaming the halls of Academe! I just mean that if, for example, such a subgroup was willing to support research to disprove the idea that alcohol has true medical benefits, there will always be someone to publish a treatise or two supporting that idea.

So, DOES alcohol have any medical benefits, other than as a sedative?
From the standpoint of one who enjoys drinking alcohol beverages, I'd have to say, "Who Cares?" :)

If a completely non-alcohol beverage that claimed to taste exactly like fine aged bourbon were marketed, how many of us here would even be interested in trying it? Especially if it cost upwards of say, $75 a bottle? My guess is very few.

And of those few (which would probably include you and I, Gary :roll: ), how many would be likely to make such a beverage our daily pour? Since minus figures aren't allowed in scientific surveys, I'd have to say, d@mned few (and those would probably NOT include you or I). The fact is, taste aside (and of course such a beverage would not taste like "real" bourbon), it is the psychosomatic effect that we seek, in some cases as a necessary component of the experience, in other cases as the experience itself. Remember that vodka's main selling point is that you can fool yourself (or perhaps an unsuspecting companion) into thinking that's just fruit juice your're drinking. Smirnoff Leaves You Breathless. So, while a three-manhattan lunch would likely have gotten you fired, the three-martini lunch became a distinct possibility. And of course there never was, nor ever will be, a three-Diet-Pepsi lunch. It's the buzz, man. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do not drink alcohol simply for the taste, as we might drink orange juice or Jack-less Coca-Cola. We demand (and rightfully so) the sedative effects that are, quite simply, medicine.

Of course there is the potential for abuse, as there is for any medicine. Morphine is also a medicine, and when used correctly has definite medical benefits. So are amphetamines. So is Novocain. That doesn't excuse crack-heads, meth-monsters, or heroin junkies, nor does it imply that we all should have available an unrestricted supply of such powerful drugs, to self-dispense as we see fit (while progressively becoming less able to rationally do so).

I am a relatively opinionated person, although I'm nearly always open to reasonable argument and have no problem changing my position when a convincing one is made. However, there are a few concepts that I have difficulty with because I'm very ambiguous about them. I can see rational and convincing arguments on both (or more often, several) sides. Abortion/Birth Control is one of those. Political Conservatism/Liberalism is another. Control of alcohol beverages is another. More than one of my best friends have lost their lives to drunk drivers. My son in law is an alcoholic (sober for several years now), who twice almost lost his marriage and his career. Clearly, the drug C2H5OH can be dangerous in the hands of people who cannot responsibly determine and enforce a proper dosage.

What to do? Certainly prohibition is out of the question, both morally and from the standpoint of enforcement. Fourteen horrible years and an ongoing legacy of organized crime has made that point quite clear. Smaller bottles and limited access? Don't know how that could be done, do you? I, for one, would be an outlaw for sure if such limitations were enacted. Some way to restrict sales to known abusers? Sh!t, we nearly all of us learned how to get around that in high school. Perhaps a strongly-supported media anti-drunk propaganda program, such as has been quite successful against cigarettes. Although I personally abhor that approach, I can see that -- given time -- it works. I would be more in favor of such a thing if the emphasis would be on DRUNKENESS rather than on DRINKING. Show people enjoying liquor; then show them saying, "okay, that's enough for now", and then going on to kill the bad guy or save the lovely lady or whatever.

These are just ramblings brought about by Gary's post. They probably don't belong here -- Mike, feel free to make this a separate thread if you like. I don't want to start arguments, only discussion, and I promise not to respond to further posts until at least half a dozen different members have chimed in. Thanks for indulging me!
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:52 pm

Lots of food for thought there, John.

The only point I wanted to make in the posts about Chayfetz, and the obituary I referenced shows this, is that he was a strong supporter of rational alcohol use. This is what he was contrarian about, since by the time he was writing, the medicos were mostly against alcohol. He ran against the current, in other words, probably incurring some professional wrath because of it.

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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby EllenJ » Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:54 pm

I know I swore to keep my flappin' keyboard shut, but I wanted to make sure my meaning was clear. The point you made is well-taken and not in question. I totally agree with you about the Good Doctor cum Nutty Professor ( :wink: ). I only meant that your posting and your spotlighting of him brought out many thoughts and questions on my part. And that's what I think some of us (which would include you and I) try to do.
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Re: Last Glow in the Sunset of Medical Use of Whiskey?

Unread postby gillmang » Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:02 pm

Okay, well understood, and thank you, John.

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