566
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
A very wide field is open in the discussion of the medical bearings of the question. I made attempts to obtain statistics concerning the crimes committed in the city as the result of intoxication, but I could obtain no real information. I tried, also, to obtain the death records, to see what proportion of deaths resulted from causes depending in any degree upon the use of wine and beer. But to obtain valuable records will require a vast amount of long-continued and accurate research. I had interviews with a number of the leading physicians of Vienna, and found, in reply to questions, that, in their opinion, no effect upon the mortuary statistics is produced by the drinking habits of the people.
Dr. Sigmund, the eminent syphilologist and alienist, said there was no predominance of diseases of the liver and kidneys ; that there was a very small proportion of patients in the insane asylum from the effects of alcohol. Dr. Grunfeld, assistant in the syphilitic wards of Dr. Sigmund, said there was not an unusual amount of Bright’s disease, but that occasional cases of delirium tremens were received into hospital. Dr. Neumann, author of a well-known work on skin diseases, agreed substantially with the above statements. He had studied in the hospitals of Paris and other continental cities, and was of the decided opinion that there was less of liver and kidney disease in Vienna than in those cities. Mr. Holmes, an American engineer and contractor, and well known through England and on the continent, informs me that he had never seen so much drunkenness anywhere as in some districts in Scotland. He remarked again and again upon the marked sobriety of Vienna. '*
There seems to be in Vienna: unrestrained use of wine and beer, with almost complete absence of public intoxication. Law is rigidly enforced, and some of the unpleasant results of this freedom are perhaps thereby restrained. The people, however, seem to use these liquors as food, more than as means for dissipation.
FRED. W. RUSSELL, M. D.
Winchendon Mass., April 2, 1874.