When Whisky Was Prescribed: Medicine, Prohibition and Historical Claims

On 21 June 1932, Miss Clore of Crestwood received a prescription for “spiritus frumenti”. That same day, pharmacist John R. Gatewood of LaGrange filled it. The surviving Kentucky prescription captures American Prohibition at the pharmacy counter: whiskey could still be supplied through a pharmacy on a prescription from a physician holding a permit.[5][6]

That permission was not a medical endorsement. Whiskey and brandy had already been removed from the US Pharmacopeia in 1916, and the American Medical Association rejected alcohol’s supposed value as a tonic or stimulant in 1917. The history is therefore about a permitted supply, disputed medical practice and the limits of federal power, not evidence that whisky benefits health.[4][5]

Before Prohibition: medicine and its critics

Edinburgh’s barber surgeons had a recognised right to brew spirits centuries before American Prohibition. On 1 July 1505, Edinburgh’s Town Council granted the Guild of Barbers and Surgeons its Seal of Cause, incorporating it as a Craft of the Burgh. The charter included an “ancient given right” to “brew aqua vitae”, according to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s own history.[1]

Story box: the surgeons’ spirit

Verdict: Documented

Claim: Edinburgh’s barber surgeons received a charter in 1505 that included the right to brew aqua vitae.
What the record shows: The College’s history records the privilege and says it is no longer exercised.
Evidence against or gap: The source does not establish that the privilege was a monopoly.
Earliest known source: The Seal of Cause dated 1 July 1505, as described in the College’s account.
Source: Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, History and Vision, checked November 2026; the exact day is not documented.

In America, medical use and criticism existed alongside one another. The National Archives’ Spirited Republic exhibition describes alcohol as “the first medicine a physician prescribed” for early Americans. Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia professor of medicine, took a critical view in his inquiry into the effects of spirituous liquors.[2][3]

The Wellcome catalogue dates Rush’s first publication to “[1784?]”, leaving the year uncertain. Its 1790 Boston printing added a “moral and physical thermometer”, and the catalogue places the work under temperance and the adverse effects of alcoholic beverages. Here was a medical author examining spirits, not simply recommending them.[2]

When whisky was prescribed: the medical retreat

Alcohol’s standing as a treatment was already in retreat before Prohibition. Ohio State University’s Temperance and Prohibition project describes its widespread use in early nineteenth century treatment, especially in England. By the century’s end, its therapeutic value was “widely disputed, and discredited among the most advanced practitioners”.[4]

Two dates mark that change. In 1916, whiskey and brandy were removed from the list of scientifically approved medicines in the US Pharmacopeia. In June 1917, the American Medical Association resolved that alcohol’s “use in therapeutics as a tonic or stimulant or for food has no scientific value”.[4]

The resolution also called for further discouragement of alcohol as a therapeutic agent and opposed its use as a beverage. Ohio State describes the meeting as contentious: the institutional position was clear, but physicians still disagreed.[4]

Medicinal prescriptions during Prohibition therefore continued after prominent medical institutions had challenged the practice. They were not simply the survival of an uncontested medical consensus from before the ban.[4][5]

How the prescription system worked

A doctor’s prescription opened a legal route to spirits during Prohibition. Physicians used government forms to prescribe distilled spirits, usually whiskey or brandy, which patients obtained from pharmacies. The Eighteenth Amendment banned intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes in the United States, leaving room for medicinal supply. Under the National Prohibition Act, prescribing physicians needed permits and had to observe quantity limits.[4][5]

The Supreme Court’s Lambert v. Yellowley opinion quotes and discusses the provisions below. Their wording matters: the 1919 limit specifies a quantity of spirituous liquor, while the 1921 Act specifies “one-half pint of alcohol”. The latter should not be paraphrased as simply “half a pint of whiskey”.[5]

Dispensing did not end the paperwork. Historian Michael R. Veach explains that pharmacists cancelled and retained filled prescriptions so they could not be reused at another pharmacy. Prescriptions were commonly written for “spiritus frumenti”, he records, wording also found on the surviving Kentucky example.[6]

That document names the people behind the transaction: Miss Clore of Crestwood, whose prescription was issued on 21 June 1932, and John R. Gatewood of LaGrange, the pharmacist who filled it that day. It records an individual dispensing transaction, rather than how often Americans obtained medicinal whiskey.[6]

A physician challenges Congress

Dr Samuel W. Lambert of New York City took the prescription limits to the Supreme Court. Described by the Court as “a distinguished physician”, he sued federal prohibition officials to prevent enforcement of the restrictions. The case was argued on 30 April 1926 and decided on 29 November that year.[5]

Lambert lost by five votes to four. Justice Brandeis’s majority opinion upheld the limits as “admissible measures for enforcing the prohibition ordained by the Eighteenth Amendment”. It acknowledged disagreement among physicians about the medicinal value of malt, vinous and spirituous liquors, but concluded that Congress’s finding could not be regarded as arbitrary.[5]

The dissent focused on the boundary of federal authority. Justice Sutherland, joined by Justices McReynolds, Butler and Stone, wrote that “Direct control of medical practice in the states is beyond the power of the federal government”. The split concerned who could regulate prescribing, not simply whether whiskey worked as medicine.[5]

The American Medical Association’s position also had two distinct strands. The majority cited its 1917 resolution and a 1921 resolution criticising physicians who misused prescriptions. The dissent pointed to an AMA brief calling the Act “arbitrary and unreasonable” and a 1924 resolution concerning interference with the physician and patient relationship.[5]

Opposing alcohol’s supposed therapeutic value was one question; opposing legislative interference with medical judgement was another. Those positions explain why the association’s role in the case cannot be captured by a single quotation.[5]

Distillers, pharmacies and surviving labels

Old Stagg, Golden Wedding, Three Feathers, Walnut Hill and Spiritus Frumenti connect the medicinal whiskey story with brands represented in Buffalo Trace’s Prohibition Collection. Buffalo Trace says its predecessor, the George T. Stagg Distillery, bottled medicinal whiskey under these names. This is the producer’s account of its history; the modern collection does not independently establish those claims.[7]

Ohio State records that the government permitted limited whiskey production and distribution when stocks ran low. That documented supply provides the background against which later accounts of medicinal licences must be assessed.[4]

Each kind of surviving record has a different role. A producer’s account describes its connection with medicinal bottling. A filled prescription records an individual dispensing transaction. A court opinion explains the legal dispute. Read together, they show how the system operated, with each source answering a different question.[5][6][7]

Common mistakes about medicinal whiskey

“Whiskey remained an approved medicine until Prohibition.” The chronology runs the other way. Whiskey’s removal from the US Pharmacopeia came in 1916, followed by the AMA resolution in 1917. Prescribing continued after those developments, not in their absence.[4]

“A doctor could prescribe whatever quantity a patient wanted.” Federal law required a permit and imposed quantity limits. Lambert’s challenge shows that those restrictions were contested.[5]

“The Supreme Court confirmed whiskey was medicine.” The majority upheld Congress’s restrictions while expressly recognising disagreement among physicians. Its decision concerned enforcement powers, not a clinical finding of effectiveness.[5]

“An old prescription proves whisky is good for you.” It proves that a prescription was written and, where the dispensing details survive, filled. Historical practice, medical evidence and legal permission are separate questions; this article records the first and third, not advice for treatment.[4][5][6]

Where to go next

• American Whiskey During Prohibition: What Survived and Why: follow the broader history of whiskey production and survival.
• The History of Bourbon and Kentucky Whiskey: place medicinal bottling within Kentucky’s longer whiskey history.
• The Taft Decision of 1909: What Is Whiskey?: explore a separate dispute over whiskey’s definition.

Sources

[1] Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. History and Vision. Undated institutional history, checked November 2026. https://www.rcsed.ac.uk/the-college/about-us/history-and-vision

[2] Wellcome Collection, copy provided by the US National Library of Medicine. Benjamin Rush, An inquiry into the effects of spirituous liquors on the human body: to which is added, a moral and physical thermometer. Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1790; catalogue notes first publication as “[1784?]”. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ng95aa7e

[3] US National Archives. Spirited Republic. Prologue, Winter 2014. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2014/winter/spirited-republic

[4] Ohio State University, Department of History, Temperance and Prohibition project. Medicinal Alcohol. Undated historical essay, checked November 2026. https://prohibition.osu.edu/american-prohibition-1920/medicinal-alcohol

[5] Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U.S. 581 (1926). Supreme Court opinion decided 29 November 1926. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/272/581

[6] Michael R. Veach. Images of the Past: Prohibition Prescription. 13 December 2019. https://bourbonveach.com/2019/12/13/images-of-the-past-prohibition-prescription/

[7] Buffalo Trace Distillery. Spiritus Frumenti, Prohibition Collection. Undated producer’s account, checked November 2026. https://buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/prohibition-collection/spiritus-frumenti.html

This history uses the supplied verified fact sheet, distinguishing institutional history, historical scholarship, the reproduced court opinion and the producer’s account.

Last checked: November 2026