Despite discrimination, she became responsible for the rationing of whiskey -- considered a vital medicine -- among her many other duties. She kept a pistol handy to deal with resentful men trying to steal her whiskey. Before the allotment became her charge, she wrote in her memoir: "daily inspection... convinced me that great evils still existed under my rule, in spite of my zealous care for my patients. For example, the monthly barrel of whiskey which I was entitled to draw still remained at the dispensary under the guardianship of the apothecary and his clerks, and quarts and pints were issued through any order coming from surgeons under their substitutes, so that the contents were apt to be gone long before I was entitled to draw more, and my sick would suffer for want of the stimulant." Young surgeons continued to try to remove the barrel from her quarters, but she did have the support of her noncommissioned officers and congressional law on her side. "The monthly barrel was an institution and a very important one," Pember wrote. "Indeed, if it is necessary to have a hero for this matter-of-fact narrative the whiskey barrel will have to step forward and make his bow." Whiskey helped keep men alive, and Pember did everything in her power to make sure the "tempted" surgeons never got their hands on it.