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 a I B RA RY 
 
 OF THE 
 UN IVERSITY 
 Of ILLI NOIS

 
 [From "The Invalid's Guide," May, 1871.] 
 
 THE 
 
 New Licensing Bill; 
 
 ITS 
 
 INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 Up07t the Sick, the Delicate, and Invalid, 
 
 CONSIDERED MEDICALLY. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND HOLLAND, 
 
 M.D. LONDON, F.R.C.S., 
 
 Author of '' Raddiffe Prize Essay,'' Felloives' Gold Medallist, 
 University College ; 
 
 JOHN HARVEY, 
 
 M.D., L.S.A. LONDON, 
 
 Fellcnv of Royal Anthropological Society, Co7itributor to ''Lancet " and other 
 
 Medical Papers. 
 
 LONDON: 
 DEAN AND SON, 65, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE.
 
 WORKS PUBLISHED BY DEAN & SON. 
 
 Just Published, pkice One Shilling. 
 
 THE INVALID'S GUIDE, 
 
 AND 
 
 MEDICAL ADVERTISER, 
 
 FOR INVALIDS, THE DELICATE, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Indigestion and Stomach Affections. 
 Scarlatina and Small Pox. 
 Gout and Rheumatism. 
 Varicose Veins and Varicocele. 
 
 Tobacco and Smoking. 
 Wines and Wine Drinking. 
 The Teeth and Dentistry. 
 And various Social Articles. 
 
 DR. HARVEY'S WORKS. 
 
 Price is. 
 INDIGESTION, STOMACH, AND NERVOUS COMPLAINTS : 
 
 THEIR Treatment. 
 
 Price IS. 
 
 HovsT TO Get Fat ; the Cure of Leanness. 
 
 P^'ice is. 
 
 THE Barometer of Health. 
 A work on diseases of the skin. 
 
 WORKS BY DR. HOLLAND. 
 
 Price is, 6d. 
 
 Health in the Nursery : 
 with advice to the young matron, and a chapter on 
 
 PAINLESS parturition. 
 
 Price is. 
 VACCINATION : ITS ESSENTIALS. 
 
 DEB RETT'S WORKS OF REFERENCE for 1871 
 
 Contain an immense amount of new information, changes, &c. Prices : i. Debrett's 
 Illustrated Peerage ; and, 2. Debrett's Illustrated Baronetage, with 
 Knightage, bound in cloth gilt, 9s. each ; half bound calf, gilt edges, 12s.' each; or 
 the Two Volumes bound as one, half leather, gilt edges, 17s. 6d. Debrett's Heraldic 
 AND Biographical House of Commons and the Judicial Bench, bound in cloth 
 gilt, 6s. 6d. ; half-bound calf, gilt edges, los. 6d. 
 
 DEAN AND SON, 65, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, E.G.; 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
 
 THE NEW LICENSING BILL 
 
 MEDICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 In the remarks we are about to make upon the 
 New Licensing Bill brought forward by Mr. Bruce, 
 we trust to avoid political bias ; we shall, therefore, 
 not refer " to the depreciation of property," the 
 "absolute confiscation of interests," and the ruin 
 to hundreds and thousands of families, should such 
 a monstrous proposal pass the House of Commons, 
 but confine ourselves more especially to the efiects 
 of this Bill in a medical point of view. 
 
 We object to the Bill for many reasons. It is 
 a question affecting the freedom of the People ; it 
 is a question afiecting the health of the People : a 
 Government is instituted for the protection of the 
 Public, and has no right to restrain the liberty 
 of the subject, except when that liberty becomes 
 injurious to others. 
 
 It is the right of a Government to restrain 
 crime, but it is not the function of a Government 
 to control vice, and the History of mankind tells 
 us that whenever they have attempted such they
 
 2 
 
 have failed. Drankenness is a vice, but so long as 
 it simply affects the individual no Government has 
 a right to interfere. 
 
 When drunkenness is the cause of crime, injury 
 is done to others ; and Government, as the pro- 
 tector of the People, has a right to interfere, and 
 the matter is properly dealt with. 
 
 A Fortiori : to interfere with the moderate and 
 rational enjoyment of the people is a monstrous 
 abuse of power, and the attempt now before the 
 House of Commons is most censurable, being a 
 direct interference with the true liberty of the sub- 
 ject, and giving to a Government a power and 
 function which a Free Government, being the 
 representative of the People, has no right to 
 wield. We had better go back at once to the 
 days of Kiug John and Magna Charta. 
 
 The study of mankind is full of interest, and it 
 is often difficult to deduce from actions the motive 
 power which produce such actions. As physiolo- 
 gists we would give something to know whether 
 the promoters of this Bill act from overweening 
 confidence in their own absolute power, or in pro- 
 found ignorance that in such a Bill they are de^ 
 liberately infringing the Law and Constitution of 
 England. 
 
 Further, even granting that an enlightened 
 Government could assume such a function (which 
 we deny, and all history shows to be false), it would 

 
 be neither wise, just, nor expedient to ruin a trade 
 supporting many thousands and paying millions of 
 direct taxation. Again, this Bill will not make the 
 incorrigible drunkard sober. You cannot cure dis- 
 ease or change man's nature by Act of Parliament. 
 This Bill will not prevent the drunkard from in- 
 dulging his vice, but will deprive the whole people 
 of necessaries and comforts to which they have 
 become accustomed. 
 
 In a medical point of view, it is frightful to 
 consider the injurious effects of the passing of such 
 a measure. It might not be felt amongst the 
 higher classes, but amongst the poor — the thousands 
 and millions who live from hand to mouth — such 
 a measure would be attended with fatal results, and 
 a decided increase in the bill of mortality. 
 
 Beer and wine, within proper limits,* are as 
 much necessaries of life as the more solid foods ; 
 and while liquors in excess are not more injurious 
 than excess in eating, or other deviations from 
 natural laws, wine is intended to gladden man's 
 heart, and in moderation, the healthy stimulus 
 produced by it is most valuable, more especially in 
 these days of competition and excitement. In fact, 
 the moderate use of moderate stimulus is essential 
 and necessary, to prevent undue and injurious wear 
 and tear both of brain and tissue. 
 
 However conflicting the inferences of physio- 
 logical researches may appear, in the estimation of
 
 a pondering community, as to alcohol being, in 
 some form or other, an essential or a non-essential 
 to the healthy human organism, there does not 
 appear to exist, in the mind of the practical phy- 
 sician, a tittle of doubt as to its absolute necessity, 
 in some or other modification, in the every -day 
 treatment of the ills to which the artificial and 
 struggle -for-life existence of 1871 gives a daily 
 creation. No one in the world can entertain a 
 more surpassing abhorrence of the habitual ine- 
 briate than we, and few, perhaps, have witnessed 
 more of the consummate wretchedness he entails on 
 his connections, or regard with such hopelessness 
 his ignominious career. The habitual drunkard 
 is, in fact, a nonentity ; he cannot be relied upon, 
 and he must go to the wall. But the habitual 
 drunkard forms but a fraction of the community 
 who enter the bar of a Licensed House. Inves- 
 tigate, and you will find that, as a rule, for every 
 confirmed sot who lingers at the bar, a hundred 
 busy members of society will pass in and out, take 
 their moderate potation — a glass of ale, a pint of 
 stout, a glass of port — and not only so, but find a 
 convenience and economy in it. The most emi- 
 nent physicians of the day practically attest their 
 faith in the necessity for alcohol as a medicine, by 
 judiciously prescribing it every day in their lives ; 
 and few, we believe, have not a deeply-rooted con- 
 viction that, but for it, many a valuable life would
 
 have slipped through their fingers. The practised 
 accoucheur always makes provision for its heing in 
 readiness, and, by its cautious, yet often free ad- 
 ministration, ians many a flickering life to flame 
 again. 
 
 The surgeon sees in it a sheet anchor — to 
 string the nerves for a capital operation, and 
 steady the heart, and feed the failing forces after- 
 wards. Yes, in this fierce battle-field of struggle 
 for existence, alcohol, in medicinal potations, be- 
 comes an ordinary and habitual necessity; not in 
 the exaggerated libations of the drunkard, but in 
 the graduated modicums of the delicate, the in- 
 valid, and the man of business, who, knowing the 
 responsibilities of a thousand cares, and conscious 
 of a limited existence, feels the immediate necessity 
 of girding up his energies in proportion to the 
 active demands upon them, or of forthwith retiring 
 from the phalanx of competitors. As practical 
 physicians we know that chronic heart disease is 
 extremely common in this country, so common, in- 
 deed, that in some localities, a really sound heart 
 is of exceptional occurrence. Now, the subjects of 
 heart disease, especially as years roll on, are very 
 commonly disposed to faint from very trivial 
 causes, such as a little hurried exertion, or a 
 passing mental excitement ; and, as these latter are 
 absolutely unavoidable in the business transactions 
 of every-day life, it will follow that the man of
 
 6 
 
 business must have an available remedy for such 
 contingencies, or, in other words, he must be 
 able to obtain a stimulant, and a stimulant that 
 is at once pleasant and effectual ; not to make a 
 beast of himself, or to disgrace his cloth or his 
 calling, but as a restorative, to re-establish the 
 pristine vigour, and fit him to bear another dose of 
 the strategy of life. Well, it follows, then, that 
 if some modification of alcohol is so essential to the 
 very existence of the delicate, the invalid, and the 
 man of business, it will ever be of paramount 
 importance that the article should be at all times 
 procurable in limited quantities. The man of 
 competency has his little store, to which, on emer- 
 gency, he can immediately refer; but not so with 
 the poor man. He lives from hand to mouth ; 
 and, of the myriads who throng our crowded 
 thoroughfares, the goodly majority never know the 
 satisfaction of being disencumbered with debt, and 
 are unable to replenish the home cupboard with 
 this valuable medicine ; and when a stimulant is 
 urgently required in the poor man's house, as at a 
 confinement, a case of cholera, or of severe fainting, 
 the invaluable draught is immediately obtained 
 from the nearest licensed house, and a valuable life 
 probably saved by its timely administration. 
 
 We have seen more than one parturient woman 
 perish, when we truly believe a modicum of brandy 
 would have saved her life ; and such is the ex-
 
 perience of every parocliial medical officer in the 
 kingdom. We have seen most startling recoveries 
 directly attributable to its ready and judicious use, 
 and the bill of mortality must swell should this 
 noxious Bill become Law. The exigencies of the 
 lying-in room, the increasing affections of the heart 
 are essentials of a moment, and the timely arrival of 
 an ounce of brandy may add ten years to the span 
 of a valued life, and determine the rise or fall of a 
 whole family. Well, where are the poor to get it ? 
 Their neighbours have none ; they know no wealthy 
 residents to whom they can apply. No, they must 
 have it from the licensed house, or they must die ! 
 Thus it seems to us that a limited supply, at all 
 events, of alcoholic beverage should always be 
 attainable by the sick, the delicate, the way-worn 
 travelle.1% and the honest struggler for existence. 
 
 E. HOLLAND, M.D., F.E.C.S. England. 
 JOHN HAEVEY, M.D., L.S.A., F.A.S. England. 
 
 P.S. — We cannot refrain from drawing the 
 attention of our readers to two extraordinary clauses 
 in this Bill. A fine is inflicted for serving any 
 person under sixteen years of age, and all houses 
 are expected to close at nine o'clock on Sundays. 
 The promoters of the Bill, in our humble opinion, 
 are better calculated to deal with the interior of 
 lunatic asylums than with an Act afiecting so large 
 a portion of the human race,
 
 
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