Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 275, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1914 — DOCTORS WILL NOT HELP LIQUOR SALE [ARTICLE]

DOCTORS WILL NOT HELP LIQUOR SALE

*< V, Rensselaer Physicians Agree to Give No Prescriptions For Sale of Intoxicants. ■I ■ ■ . Rensselaer physicians are, to be congratulated. They have agreed not to give prescriptions for intoxicating liquors and this should prove a great aid to the cause of temperance. It is the unanimous verdict of the physicians of this city that there is no occasion as a nftedical aid Ip write a prescription for whiskey or other intoxicating beverage then there would seem no sufficient reason why any liquor should be sold at all, and it would be a grand thing if the druggists would also enter into an agreement not to sell it. The law, and about the mean-, est law ever* placed on the statute books of Indiana, gives the druggist the right to sell whiskey in quantities of a quart at a time. The only requirement is that the buyer sign a statement that he js ill and needs the whiskey as medicine. The druggist is presumed to have knowledge of the buyer and to sell the liquor only when he believes the person who signs the statement is in actual need of it for medicinal purposes. Now, if all the doctors of a community are so certain that whiskey is hot needed for reasons of health that they will not give a prescription, then there would seem to be no reason why it should be sold at all and here is an opportunity for the druggists to get entirely out of the business.

As a matter of fact 95 per cent of all the quart sold liquor is not for sickness at all. It ,is bought to satisfy an appetite for it and the buyer and the druggist know this to be true. If the’doctor’s position .is correct and we have every reason to believe it is, then there is no need of liquor as a medicine and no reason for the druggists to accept the statement of any person that he needs it. A man recently arrested on a charge of to justify his position by the claim that he was doing the same thing that the druggists were doing and was not deserving of censure any more than they. The Republican does not know to what extent, if at all, the Rensselaer druggists sell whiskey. They may exercise every precaution that seems necessary to them, but they might sieze this

opportunity to join with these seven Rensselaer physicians and thus do a great deal toward making Rensselaer actually “dry.” The statement given by the physicians follows: ‘The undersigned physicians o<f Rensselaer in a called meeting at 8 p. m., Thursday, Nov. 19th, entered into the agreement to write no prescriptions for intoxicating liquors. The‘occasion for such 'an agreement being our reluctance to contribute to the prevalent drunkenness, to the prevalent idea among the legal profession as to the legality of a prescription given for less than a quart and the apparent fact that we as a profession have nothing to do with the sale of a beverage. Signed:

E. N. LOY. - ' , I. M. WASHBURN, C. E. JOHNSON. A. R. KRESLER. F. H. HEMPHILL. E. C. ENGLISH. IM. D. GWIN. • Richmond Pierson Hobson, hero of Santiago Bay, is to lecture-, at Fowler Monday night. His subject will be ’“The United States in the Twentieth -Century.” Everything good, fresh and best quality for the Thanksgiving seast& at Murray’s grocery. Mr. and Mrs. Charles z ßuffert, of Milwaukee, went to Lafayette last Thursday after a visit of three weeks with Joseph Nagc-1 and family.. ’ The Fowler town board has changed its meeting night from Wednesday to Thursday nights. Presumably all the members wanted to attend 'prayer meeting on Wednesdayyiight, in >■- ■I w ■I. ■ The Good Cheer class of the Presbyterian Sabbath school will hold a market in the Princess’ theatre the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 25. Everything for the Thanksgiving dinner will be for sale. Orders solicited. —Phone 368. George P. Daugherty was 87 years of age Wednesday, ,Nov. 18th, and was very well and happy that day. Since then, however, he has not been feeling very well and has been suffering from bronchial trouble. He is very much better, however, than he was some two years ago.