Having just read pkbites interesting thread about Wisconsin’s ratification of national Prohibition, I’m reminded of another Prohibition-related question. As most people know, there was at least one major loophole–medicinal liquor prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist. Courtesy of Wikipedia, here’s an interesting picture of a prescription.
Today, in states that have legal medicinal marijuana, those opposed to it say it’s far too easy to get, and that you don’t have to be terribly sick to qualify. As far as that goes, they probably have a point. Without going any further into the subject of medical marijuana, my question is this: in the days of alcohol prohibition, how much consternation was there over the medical distribution route? Did many prominent “Dry” leaders decry that system, saying that doctors were handing out scripts on bad faith? Or that some drugstores where selling booze to all and sundry, whether or not they had prescriptions? And were there any famous busts or convictions involving doctors or pharmacists?
ISTR reading somewhere (Wikipedia, maybe) that Walgreen’s went from 40 locations to 400 in a few years during Prohibition, on the strength of their sales of alcohol.
And then, of course, you had the hassle and expense of going to a doctor, which would certainly be a deterrent, hence the whole Jamaican ginger (70-80% alcohol)–Jake leg disaster.
Depends on how you look at it. There was also a dispensation for alcoholic beverages used in religious services, which allowed companies like Christian Brothers to survive. Some people will dig up figures suggesting huge rises in these uses during prohibition. But remember, even if they went up ten fold, the amount was still tiny compared to alcohol consumption before prohibition, or, for that matter, compared to the amount consumed illegally during prohibition.
Yes, the Dry’s decried the use of medicinal alcohol in addition to the use of alcohol for religious purposes. They claimed that alcohol has absolutely no medicinal value and encouraged doctors not to prescribe it. Organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union gave out pamphlets explaining why grape juice should be used to communion and why whiskey had no medicinal value. I don’t believe drug stores sold their alcohol to all comers for the most part. Why would they? They were doing just fine selling to those who had prescriptions and the number of people who had prescriptions for alcohol jumped quite a bit following 1919.
What was really unregulated were people buying wine for religious purposes. There really wasn’t much the government could do about someone claiming to be a rabbi who needed sacramental wine.
So - for what conditions could alcohol be prescribed medicinally, bearing in mind that history has shown there are no medicinal uses that involve consumption (as opposed to sterilisation, etc). I base this on the observation that no doctor now says “Aha! You have a case of Throckmorton’s Grip! Hie thee to an hostelry and get up the piss, old son!”
There may be one exception that I can think of - methanol poisoning - but that is not done by prescribing alcohol to be taken at leisure, but in carefully monitored hospital conditions.
This thread reminded me of FS Fitzgerald’s classic novel “THe Great Gatsby”.
One of the characters (Tom Buchanan) is explaining to Nick Carraway, about how Jay Gatsby made his money:
(Tom): “he (Gatsby) and this Wolfsheim boght up all these drugstores…and then sold grain alcohol over the counter”
So what Tom was describing was what was going on. You could get a prescription for medicinal alcohol (from a compliant physician), and buy your booze at the local pharmacy.
I’m told that in Boston, during prohibition, the number of pharamcies licenses to sell medicinal alcohol increased by over 500%, from 1918 to 1930.
This was touched upon in the new Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition, which aired a couple of weeks ago on PBS. Prescriptions for “medicinal” whiskey did jump dramatically during Prohibition, though there were laws restricting quantity (a couple of bottles a month, IIRC). That apparently didn’t stop some doctors from writing prescriptions for whiskey to multiple people within a family.
Alcohol has a pretty long history as being considered helpful to one’s health. John Woodall’s The Surgion’s Mate (1617) recommends wine used to fortify the health of sailors and to treat/prevent the onset of scurvy. For many years alcohol was considered to be a stimulant. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, when Lucy is at death’s door Van Helsing immediately orders her to drink a glass of brandy (I think it was brandy). I have several newspaper ads from 1908 touting the healthful benefits of drinking beer (liquid bread) and even several ads for medicinal whiskey. For many years people thought alcohol was a stimulant but by the end of the 19th century scientist/doctors knew this wasn’t the case. However, whiskey remained in use as a medicine well into the 20th century.
Not really, fomepizole is the preferred treatment for either ethylene glycol (antifreeze) or methanol poisoning. It’s far, far easier to administer and to give the correct dosage.
Ethanol: tastes great! Fomepizole: less filling!
Sivilotti ML
Ann Emerg Med. 2009;53(4):451.
Probably the oldest example in the Western cultural heritage is St. Paul’s suggestion to Timothy that he take a little wine “for the sake of his stomach”. Interestingly, this has been cited by Christians on either side of the temperance issue; the abstentionists saying that Paul was advocating only medicinal use, the more liberal sects asserting it’s a general endorsement of wine drinking.
