opposing the use of alcohol, has published during the year a number of articles showing the impossibility of alcohol’s being of service as a medicine, and has dwelt especially upon its harmful effects in fevers, diseases in which it is still much prescribed.  The two influential temperance societies composed of American physicians have, during the past year, kept up the agitation against alcohol as a medicine, and good is coming from it, as gradually medical journals are giving more and more space to the question.  The following international manifesto has been issued by the leading physicians of the world: 

          Internationalmedical manifesto.

“The following statement has been agreed upon by the Council of the British Medical Temperance Association, the American Medical Temperance Association, the Society of Medical Abstainers in Germany, the leading physicians in England and on the continent.  The purpose of this is to have a general agreement of opinions of all prominent physicians in civilized countries concerning the dangers from alcohol, and in this way give support to the efforts made to check and prevent the evils from this source.

In view of the terrible evils which have resulted from the consumption of alcohol, evils which in many parts of the world are rapidly increasing, we, members of the medical profession, feel it to be our duty, as being in some sense the guardians of the public health, to speak plainly of the nature of alcohol, and of the injury to the individual and the danger to the community which arise from the prevalent use of intoxicating liquors as beverages.

We think that it ought to be known that: 

1.  Experiments have demonstrated that even a small quantity of alcoholic liquor, either immediately or after a short time, prevents perfect mental action, and interferes with the functions of the cells and tissues of the body, impairing self-control by producing other markedly injurious effects.  Hence alcohol must be regarded as a poison, and ought not to be classed among foods.

2.  Observation establishes the fact that a moderate use of alcoholic liquors, continued over a number of years, produces a gradual deterioriation of the tissues of the body, and hastens the changes which old age brings, thus increasing the average liability to disease (especially to infectious disease,) and shortening the duration of life.

3.  Total abstainers, other conditions being similar, can perform more work, possess greater powers of endurance, have on the average less sickness, and recover more quickly than non-abstainers, especially from infectious diseases, while altogether escape diseases specially caused by alcohol.

4.  All the bodily functions of a man, as of every other animal, are best performed in the absence of alcohol, and any supposed experience to the contrary is founded on delusion, a result of the action of alcohol on the nerve centers.