A memorandum signed by a great many very eminent medical
snen,—De. Burrows, Mr. Bask, Sir Henry Holland, Sir W. Fergusson, Sir Jamee Paget, Dr. Actand, Dr. Quain, Dr, Sieve- king, Dr, Farre, and others equally eminent,—the purport of which is to protest against the indiscriminate recotnmendation of alcohol by medical men to their patients,—has been published in the Times. Its drift is to enforce the necessity of strictly limiting the quantities of alcohol to be prescribed by medical man, and to urge on them the duty of making the great danger of a too free use of it widely known among their patients. The memorandum also expresses a strong opinion that the value of alcohol as an article of diet has been greatly over-estimated of late years, and offers strong support to any legislative measure tending to diminish the general consumption of alcoholic drinks and to promote habits of temperance. The intemperance of the masses is a tremendous evil, with which surgeons and physicians have had little to do, —which they neither caused nor can hope to cure. But for the intemperance caused by their pleasant recommendations of agree- able remedies,--whether of alcohol or chloral,—to their patients in the middle classes, many of them are no doubt greatly respon- sible; and certainly they seem to us bound to prescribe not only exactly how much of these remedies should be taken, but when they should be abandoned, and to advise the leaving off with as much decision and authority as their administration.
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