In prescribing tinctures and elixirs, one is too prone to forget that they contain alcohol and to think only of the drug which forms the main constituent of the medicine.
I have been able to find no reference in textbooks of materia medica and therapeutics to susceptibility of patients to alcohol given in minute doses. The case reported below is unique, therefore, because of the patient's marked idiosyncrasy to alcohol even in very small quantities.
REPORT OF CASE
Mrs. C., aged 28, Chinese, whose previous history was unimportant, when seen, Nov. 21, 1918, reported that six months previously, after giving birth to a child, she developed a cough with hemoptysis. Physical examination disclosed advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The disease progressed steadily until the patient was last seen in June, 1919. At this time both lungs were extensively involved, and a fatal termination of the disease appeared to be near at hand.