PEDIATRICS Vol. 45 No. 4 April 1970, pp. 664
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DR. JOHN THOMSON, THE FATHER OF SCOTTISH PEDIATRICS, AN ABSTEMIOUS MAN HIMSELF, WRITES ABOUT THE MEDICINAL VALUE OF ALCOHOL FOR SICK INFANTS AND CHILDREN

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

Dr. John Thomson (1856—1926), the foremost pediatrician of Scotland in his day, published a textbook of pediatrics in 1898 entitled Guide to the Clinical Examination and Treatment of Sick Children. In this book, acclaimed by many to be one of few classic pediatric texts written in the last hundred years, Thomson, who in all likelihood rarely—if ever—drank himself, strongly recommended alcohol as a medicinal measure for sick infants and children.1 He wrote:

Alcohol is also frequently of great use in acute disease, in childhood as in later life. In ordinary feverish illnesses, stimulants are not required; but, if there are signs of heart failure or if a typhoid condition should set in, they are urgently called for. Alcohol is also useful in various exhausting conditions, such as the pulmonary and other complications of whooping-cough or measles, and in septicaemia. It is often valuable in children with atrophy, and especially in those who have been greatly reduced by diarrhoea and vomiting.

Alcohol may be administered in the form of brandy, whisky, wine, or sherry whey. For dispensary patients in general it is best to order whisky, as it is more easily obtained of good quality than the other forms of stimulants. If it is desirable to give small doses of alcohol to an infant whose surroundings are such as to render it inadvisable to order plain whisky, a few drops of rectified spirit or brandy may be added to each dose of any medicine that he is taking. When whisky is ordered for young babies it must not be given too concentrated —not more than fifteen drops to the teaspoonful.