第94章 CHAPTER XXVIII.(2)

At the time we began work, however, it had been demonstrated that alcohol is not a medicine. Many years ago Dr. Nottinghham, a great English physician, said: "Alcohol is neither food nor physic." Dr.

Nicols, editor Boston Journal of Chemistry, long ago wrote, "The banishment of alcohol would not deprive us of a single one of the indispensable agents which modern civilization demands. In no instance of disease in any form, is it a medicine which might not be dispensed with."

Dr. Bunge, professor of physical chemistry in the University of Basle, Switzerland, said: "In general let it be understood that all the workings of alcohol in the system which usually are considered as excitement or stimulation are only indications of paralysis. It is a deep-rooted error sense of fatigue is the safety value of the human organism. Whoever dulls this sense in order to work harder or longer may be likened to an engineer who sits down on his safety valve in order to make better speed with his engine." Dr. F. H. Hammond of the U. S. army said: "Alcohol strengthens no one. It only deadens the feeling of fatigue." Dr. Sims Woodhead, professor in Cambridge University, England, had given the following list of conditions in which alcohol should not be used: In those (1) who have any family history of drunkenness, insanity or nervous disease. (2) Who have used alcohol to excess in childhood or youth.

(3) Who are nervous, irritable or badly nourished. (4) Who suffer from injuries to the head, gross disease of the brain and sunstroke. (5)

Who suffer from great bodily weakness, particularly during convalescence from exhausting disease. (6) Who are engaged in exciting or exhausting employment, in bad air and surroundings, in work shops and mines. (7) Who are solitary or lonely or require amusement. (8) Who have little self-control either hereditary or acquired. (9) Who suffer from weakness, the result of senile degeneration. (10) Who suffer from organic or functional diseases of the stomach, liver, kidney or heart.

(11) Who are young.

Much has been said concerning the stimulating effect of alcohol upon the heart, and this had been treated at length. There is an increased action of about four thousand beats in twenty-four hours for every ounce of alcohol used. This fact still misleads some physicians into prescribing it to strengthen the weak heart, but the increase is not due to new force. The heart action normally is the result of arterial pressure and nervous action, two forces mutually balancing each other. The nervous action is diminished by the introduction of the alcohol; this destroys the balance and deranges the arterial pressure. Dr. James Edmunds, a great English physician, years ago said: "When we see a man breathing with great vigor, does it occur to us that he must be in good health? Is it an indication that he gets more air? We all know better. It simply shows that he has asthma or some such disease, and that his breathing is strained and imperfect. He is making use of less air than the person who breathes quietly. This is the case with the blood, work, so it plunges and struggles in the effort. And the cause of both cases is the same. There is more carbonic acid in the blood than either the heart or the lungs can handle. If for example I were suffering from general debility and milk were the food best suited to my needs, and if I should discover a tramp in my apartments drinking of my already too limited supply, would it be reasonable to assert that the exhibition of strength which I made in forcing him to desist is an indication that the entrance of the vagrant bettered my enfeebled condition? The greater activity of the heart is not due to the added strength resulting from recruits of friends but to a desperate struggle to beat back a reinforced enemy."

That alcohol does not allay pain had been established when this committee was organized. The only proper method of allaying pain is to remedy the disorder which produced it. It is no remedy to deaden the nerves so that we cannot feel it. This reasoning had been found good in the case of alcohol as a remedy in "colds." Whiskey does not relieve the uneasiness and oppression we experience when ailing from a cold, it only benumbs the nerves so we do not feel the trouble. The cure is not hastened but delayed in this way.

IS IT THE CAUSE OF DISEASE?

Besides the fact that alcohol had, before this committee's existence, been proved to be neither a drink nor a food nor a medicine, it had also been shown to be the cause of disease. Over five thousand of the most prominent physicians in this country had so stated it, and the proportion was equally great in all the enlightened countries of Europe. The most pronounced in this way, perhaps, have been the great leaders in medical science in Austria, Germany and France. Some of the points made against the use of alcohol were that it interferes with digestion by rendering insoluble the active principle of the gastric juice, and especially by preventing the solution of body-building foods. The natural action of various organs of the body is more or less arrested by alcohol, thus reducing the temperature. This from Dr. Edmunds already quoted: "The blood carries certain earthy matters in it in a soluble state, these earthy matters being necessary for the nutrition of the bones and other parts of the body. You all know that when wine is fermented and turned from a weak sweet wine into a strong alcoholic wine, you get what is called a 'crust' formed on the inside of the bottle. What is that crust? That crust consists of saline or earthy matters which were soluble in the saccharine grape juice, but which are insoluble in the alcoholic fluids.