Here's to Your Health

October 31, 1998 Here's to Your Health Is it now "medically correct" for a physician to prescribe a little wine to lower the risk of heart disease? By R. Curtis Ellison, M.D. The United States and most of the countries of northern Europe are what are known as "temperance communities," where alcohol is less commonly consumed in the form of wine as it is in the form of beer or spirits, where the public focus is on the abuse of alcohol and where the extremes of abstention and excessive use are common.