Alcohol, Effects of. - When we use the word alcohol we require to be clear as to the meaning of the word and the thing. We know now that the term is employed by the chemists to indicate a long series of chemical bodies, having certain properties in common and exhibiting the same chemical constitution in respect to the elements which enter into the composition of them. These elements, three in number-carbon, hydrogen and oxygen - never vary except in quantity or amount, and one of them, the oxygen, remains always the same, even in amount, in every member of the family. The other two elements, the hydrogen and the carbon, invariably present, exist in different quantities in different members of the family, and it is on this difference that the family differences depend. In the first or primary member of the family, the elements stand in the following form: there is one proportion or part of carbon, four of hydrogen and one of oxygen. This alcohol, called methylic alcohol or wood spirits, is a light fluid which boils at 140° Fahrenheit, and is so far volatile that I have succeeded in putting warm-blooded animals to sleep by making them inhale its vapor. We have in this methylic alcohol the lightest of the family group. If we pass to the thirtieth of the group we find a solid alcohol, called melytic, or by some, melissic, really a wax-like substance. The proportion of oxygen is just the same in this variety as in the last-named, but the proportions of carbon and of hydrogen have so greatly changed that the change in the quality of the substance need not be wondered at. The heavy element, carbon, has increased from one part in the methylic alcohol to 30 in the melytic, and the hydrogen has risen to 61. If we go back in the series we shall find another alcohol, the fifth from the methylic, called usually amylic alcohol, fusel oil, or, sometimes, potato spirits. This is a heavy oily fluid of disagreeable odor and of high boiling point, 270° Fahrenheit. It differs from the wood spirits in its weight, being very much heavier. It is composed of five parts of carbon and 12 of hydrogen, with the usual unit of oxygen.

The variations here noticed extend all through the series, and all through in regular sequence, the carbon increasing

one part and the hydrogen two parts each step. If we could add one more of carbon and two more of hydrogen to methylic alcohol we should get another alcohol composed of two parts of carbon, six parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen, and this would be the common alcohol of commerce, ethylic alcohol, the spirit which forms the staple of all the wines, spirits, ales and other so-called spirituous drinks supplied in such large quantities to our communities for drinking purposes. All the alcohols are products or results of fermentation of one or other fermentable substance. The common or ethylic alcohol is the product of the fermentation of grain and of fruit, and is by far the largest product of any, because, by what has become the almost universal consent of the civilized world, it has been and is demanded as a beverage and stimulant. We may say of it, practically, that it alone is the alcoholic drink of those who indulge in the use of a stimulant; for although it is true that amylic alcohol and some other alcohols get mixed by accident, or carelessness, or it may be sometimes by design, with common alcohol, they are not supposed to be present in it, and the general effects of alcoholic drinking are attributable to it alone.

DIFFUSION OF ALCOHOL THROUGH THE BODY.

With the few facts above stated clearly before us on the position of common alcohol, from a chemical point of view, we may turn to the study of the effects of it on man and other living things subjected to its influence. For all living things it has a certain physical affinity, for the simple reason that all living things contain, and as a rule are largely made up of water, for which the alcohol has a strong affinity. Itself a mobile fluid, it mixes with water in all proportions and with the utmost readiness: in fact, it is by virtue of this readiness that it is received into the body. No one would ever learn to drink alcohol, under any circumstances, unless it were first largely diluted with water, as it is in wine, beer, brandy, rum, gin, whiskey and other spirits. Waen in any of these it is present in great strength, it is again diluted by the addition of more water, because if it were not so diluted it would create a burning sensation in the mouth and throat and would inflict serious injury on the stomach. Diluted with water it enters the body of man or animal with the water, and soon diffuses through the body whereever there is water in the tissues. Thus, for a short time after a portion of alcohol has entered the body, and before it has had the opportunity of being removed, it can be detected in all the fluid secretions. The late Dr. Percy discovered it present in the fluid of the ventricles of the brain. I have found it in the same fluid, in the blood, in the urine, in the fluids which lave the serous membranes, and, in short, in all the fluids derived from the blood. With some of the tissues it maintains a very close affinity, especially with the tissues of the liver and the brain. So close is its affinity for the brain-substance that it becomes a most difficult, nay even an impossible task, to distill from brain-matter all the ethylic alcohol with which it can be saturated. Hence in confirmed alcoholic inebriates it becomes, veritably, part and parcel, so to say, of the cerebral organization.

The usual mode of taking alcohol into the living body is to imbibe it by the mouth, as a drink; but it can effectively be introduced in other ways. If it be diluted and injected into the cellular tissue, under the skin, it will be absorbed from there. I found by experiment that it is rapidly absorbed from the peritoneal surface of a lower animal when it is freely diluted with water. I also found that at a sufficiently high temperature the vapor of it could be made to enter the lungs in sufficient quantity to be absorbed from the lungs and to produce by its diffusion through the blood its specific effects. Lastly, I have known it to be absorbed by the skin in so distinctive a manner as again to prove its transmission through the blood to all parts. The easy and rapid diffusibility of alcohol through the body is the reason why its effects are so speedily realized after it has been received by the body, and it is on this account that it has gained so wide a popularity as a quick restorer. It seems to those who are wearied to restore the lost power so speedily that they are led to consider it a panacea in all cases of need or of emergency. How far this view is true we shall see better as we pro

PRIMARY OR ACUTE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON THE BODY.

So soon as the diffusion of alcohol has been made through the system of a human being, effects are manifested. The effects are modified by the amount taken, and by some other circumstances, such as temperature of the air, the dilution of the spirit with water, and above all the habits of the person who has partaken of it, whether he be an abstainer from it habitually or one accustomed to it. But as a rule we may state that the action, varying in degrees under different circumstances, is exceedingly uniform and regular. The effects which ensue may emphatically be called nervous in character, that is to say, they are phenomena due to a disturbance emanating from the nervous centers, the centers of the sympathetic or organic nervous system, and afterwards from the centers of the voluntary nervous organism. The impression made through the stomach upon the organic nerves is exceedingly rapid, being manifested often within a few minutes after the alcohol has been imbibed, and becoming well developed in 20 minutes to half an hour. These first effects, extending through the nervous distribution to the whole of the vascular system, institute what I have called the first stage or degree of alcoholic disturbance, the stage of paresis of the arterial vessels to their extremities. These vessels, held naturally in a state of proper tension and of resistance to the stroke of the heart, become relaxed under the action of the alcohol, as a result of its interference with the function of the organic nerves which follow these vessels to their extremities and attune their muscular contraction so as to permit the necessary quantity of blood to make its course through them. The quantity of blood thrown out by the stroke of the heart is treated with less resistance than is natural in every part where blood circulates, beginning with the circulation of the blood through the heart itself and extending to the circulations through the brain, through the visceral organs-like the stomach, intestines and liver-as well as through the active organs of locomotion, the groups of muscles that move the body. The result is that action through every part and organ of the body that is capable of action which can be felt, as well as of parts in which action is not sensibly felt-such as the involuntary muscles is for the moment intensified, and phenomena are induced which are strictly indicative of the over-action. The heart is quickened in its beat, and owing to the checked flow of blood through itself the force of its beat is also increased. The vessels of the surfaces of the body, like those of the skin and mucous membranes, are injected with blood - a fact evidenced in the increased redness of the skin which is always seen during this stage. The mind becomes a little exalted, and ideas seem to flow more freely. The larger quantity of warm blood sent into the skin communicates a sensible glow, which feels to the person affected like an increased warmth of body generally. The secretions of the different visceral glands are increased. The muscles appear to be endowed with renewed power, and, taking all the phenomena experiened into account, it really seems, on a superficial view, as if during this stage all the vital powers were being carried on with an advanced vitality. The feeling is as pleasant as it is delusive, as cheering as it is deceptive.

It is not until we come to measure up the effects of this first stage with the precision of an observer who is looking at the phenomena without feeling them, that the truth is made manifest. Then it comes out clearly that the over-action felt, subjectively, is waste without compensation-lost energy, and so lost that in no sense whatever is it regained. If at the moment when the over-action is at its height the muscular power be tested, it will be found wanting. By a beautiful series of experiments, Dr. Ridge has demonstrated that if at this particular time of over-action the refined involuntary muscular movements be tested, they are in the most uncertain condition for action. The sense of delicate touch for balancing weights is made absolutely worthless; sensibility of touch is rendered imperfect; the adjustment of the muscles of vision is made uncertain and feeble, so that the act of aiming at a mark is extremely faulty; and the sense of hearing faint sounds is decisively impaired. These facts relate to the action of the involuntary muscles, but they apply with equal correctness to the voluntary.

I myself studied, with the greatest care, the effects of alcohol during the first stage of its action on the voluntary muscles, not only of man but of inferior animals; and I detected invariably that, other things being equal, the actual strength of the voluntary muscles is reduced under alcoholic excitement, except for the briefest moments, in which no sustained work is being carried out.

Precisely the same state of things is observable in respect to mental phenomena. The mind seems more active, and may be so, but it is less precise and less strong in its efforts. Words, which come forth at one moment in haste, are forgotten the next, or refuse to come into remembrance, and in the art of spelling words the greatest confusion is often apt to prevail. To these failures of mind, excitement of mind is often an accompaniment followed by depression and irritability. To sum up, the first degree of effect from alcohol is towards helplessness of mind and body when the full influence is calculated. What seems good about it is delusive; what seems bad is definitely bad, and admits of scarcely any qualification.

The first stage or degree passing away may leave nothing more than a depression, but if it has been induced by a quantity of alcohol which leads to an extension of symptoms, then a second stage or degree is evidenced, in which all the signs of failure are more strikingly portrayed. In this second degree the worst indications of the first are exaggerated, and the failures of muscular precision and power and of mental equilibrium are much advanced. In this degree the voluntary muscles begin to show the same aberration that was instanced in the involuntary at an earlier period. The smaller voluntary muscles, like those of the lip, are, as a rule, the first to become enfeebled and uncertain. Afterwards the muscles of the limbs follow the imperfection of function, and the brain also becoming reduced in power the muscular and mental acts begin to be aberrant simultaneously. Meantime, in this degree, the temperature of the body begins to fall. The great surface of blood that has been exposed to the air in the first stage is now flowing more tardily and, receiving no sufficient supply of warmth from within the body, is cooling down, leaving all parts reduced in warmth like itself.

The second degree of alcoholic effect always leaves behind it considerable depression of body and of mind, even if not succeeded, as it may be, by a third degree from a still deeper dose of alcohol. This third degree, if it does ensue, is marked by a more complete prostration, by an entire want of proper control of the voluntary as well as of the involuntary muscles, by delirium and mental imbecility, and at last by complete collapse both of body and mind.

To this third stage of alcoholic depression there may succeed a fourth, in which there is absolute paralysis of the will, and of all voluntary muscular power. In this stage the mind, quite unconscious, is buried in the deepest coma or sleep. The body is now entirely anæsthetized, so that a surgical operation of the severest character might be performed on it without the slightest pain. In this stage also the temperature of the body, which has been falling through the whole of the third degree, sinks to the lowest point practically compatible with the continuance of life, namely to 92° or over 6° below what is natural. To such a low ebb, in short, has life been brought, that only two nervous centers remain true to their function, the center which presides over respiration and the center which stimulates the heart into motion. Upon the fidelity of these two centers, so acting until the body begins to be set free from the alcohol by its slow elimination recovery entirely depends, recovery always attended, under the most favorable conditions, by many hours and even days of depression and degradation of nutrition.

IS ANY GOOD DONE?

In the above description of the effects of alcohol on the body the acute effects alone have been considered. Before passing to a new point it may be well to make a note on one or two questions which the narrative suggests. The first question we are led to ask is, Whether in the course of the variation from the natural standard of vital actions which follow the action of alcohol to and through any degree, any good, useful or necessary thing has been done? The admitted answer to this question must on all sides be, that after the effects of the first

degree have been obtained no good thing can have been done, while some amount of evil may have been effected. It is indeed accepted now by all authorities that the phenomena of alcoholism manifested in the primary and stimulating periods of its action are the only phenomena that can be productive of service. These are the phenomena of stimulation; and as they are well defined we can study them, one by one, and ask their value.

1. There is the phenomenon of quickened circulation of the blood and quickened motion of the heart. Is that good? It may be good to call a languidly acting heart into more vigorous motion, but to do this with the rest of the body in repose, by means of an internal stimulant, is certainly very bad practice. The heart that wants to be called into more action requires invigoration by reasonable exercise in which the other muscles of the body can share, not by exercise in which it alone is engaged. The heart stimulated alone soon begins to feel the habitual necessity of the special stimulant, and learning in time to depend upon its artificial support lives as it were upon that support; and becoming over-active and out of harmony with the rest of the organs of the body so long as it is supplied with its stimulant, it fails in the most lamentable manner if by any accident its stimulant be withdrawn. Here is the reason why even so-called temperate consumers of alcohol feel so acutely, at first, the withdrawal of alcohol. They feel as if they had lost blood, and numbers who try to abstain are driven back from the trial of abstinence because they have not the resolution to persevere until the heart learns to work without the artificial spur to its action. The spur all through is deceptive and bad. It takes the place of exercise without performing the proper duty. It produces derangement just bordering on disease of the heart. It often lays the foundation of actual disease of that organ, and it leads to inactivity of other functions of the body and to general inaptitude for the active duties of life until a stimulant has been taken. We cannot, therefore, count this part of the action of alcohol as a good action.

2. There is the phenomenon of warmth induced by the primary action of alcohol. Is that good? This warmth is always