ALCOHOL AND HUMAN EFFICIENCY

Unknown author(s)

JAMA · 1924 · 11 citations · 0 references

Concepts

Abstract

Five years ago, Dr. Abraham Jacobi,<sup>1</sup>sponsoring a popular treatise called "The Whole Truth About Alcohol," remarked that the temptation for lay prohibitionists is their ignorance. They do not know or they ignore the fact that the most positive and strongest medicines may exhibit antagonistic features. At the beginning of the last century of medicine, for instance, he adds, they had prolonged discussions about opium. They knew that opium was a depressant, even a narcotic; they also fought for opium as a stimulant—"non sedat, mehercle non sedat." So was alcohol a stimulant (or irritant) in some places, whereas in other gospels it was a depressor, a paralyzer. The "whole truth" about alcohol has by no means been completed for formulation, however, with the pharmacologist's decision as to whether the much debated substance is a stimulant or a depressant. The question as to whether or not it is in any