Charles Edward Nammack

“ Although it is unquestionably true that alcohol may take the place of some fat or carbohydrate in the food, it is an extraordinary food, to be used only under certain conditions when its ease of oxidation may be of great benefit, and on account of its peculiar toxic effect it should not be taken except when needed. ”

“ The antecedent accessories of nutrition are the preparation of the food, its mastication, its deglutition, its digestion, its absorption, its distribution by the circulatory system, and its selection by the individual cells from the capillaries direct or from the tissue plasma. Physiologists and biologists believe that all foods are built up into protoplasm; that is, they are selected and made part of the living cell. A food must therefore satisfy the following conditions: First, it must be digestible and absorbable by the organism which it is to nourish ”

“ It is probable that if alcohol could be stamped out for a century insanity would shrink in prevalence seventy-five per cent. The best and latest authorities all agree that the action of alcohol upon the nervous system is always that of a narcotic, whether the dose be large or small. On the bodily temperature there is no longer any doubt that alcohol produces a reduction, after the primary and transient sensation of heat has passed away. All northern explorers know that the use of alcohol endangers life through cooling of the body. ”

“ It is not enough to prove that potential chemical energy is changed into kinetic energy. The oxidation must take place at the right time and place, before the energy liberated can be useful in function. All food is tissue-building in its assimilation; all food is energy-yielding in its catabolism. The only points alcohol possesses in common with the foods are two: first, it is oxidized within the body ”

“ Physiologically, it is both unwise and incorrect to advise that the continued use of alcohol in moderate doses is harmless. Alcohol, like salt water in a steam boiler, should be used only in emergencies. To understand this, we must consider its physiological action in the human body.
Physiologists now universally believe that the cell is the scene of all vital processes. The essential processes of nutrition are the metabolic changes which take place within the cells of the body, all other steps of nutrition being either antecedent or succedent accessories. ”

“ From a sociological standpoint, we are compelled by incontrovertible evidence to acknowledge that it is of all causes the most frequent source of poverty, unhappiness, divorce, suicide, immorality, crime, insanity, disease, and death. ”

“ Alcohol has a special affinity for nervous tissue, and as a result chiefly of its direct contact, but partly from its effects on the blood current, the working cells of the brain shrink, the supporting structure hardens, the cerebrospinal fluid, which should act as a protective water-jacket, increases in quantity and exerts injurious pressure, giving the familiar picture of "wet brain" so common in the autopsy room of hospitals caring for large numbers of habitual drunkards. ”

“ Delirium tremens is a variety of alcoholism occurring in some subjects from sudden excess of a periodical kind, in others from a failure of the stomach to dispose, not only of food, but of the accustomed stimulus, and in another group—common in hospitals and jails—to sudden deprivation of liquor in steady drinkers when under confinement for injury or crime. ”

“ There are cases of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and diphtheria in which alcohol is a most valuable help, and in some other conditions its use may be advisable. Careful observations of its effects, in private practice and in extensive hospital experience, compel the writer to subscribe to this conclusion: "Alcohol in health is often a curse; alcohol in disease is mostly a blessing." ”

“ In small doses alcohol increases the action of the heart and the cutaneous circulation; a slight rise of temperature is observed, and all the functions are for the time being more energetically performed. On the nervous system its first effect is to increase the functional activity of the brain; the ideas flow more easily, the senses are more acute, the muscular movements more active. With increased action of the alcohol, the excitement becomes disorderly, the ideas incoherent and rambling, the muscular movements uncontrolled and inco-ordinated. ”

“ The power of alcohol to diminish muscular work and agility is so well known that athletes rigorously abstain during training, and the records of the prize-ring demonstrate that only the pugilist who has no alliance with alcohol is able to remain in the game. ”

“ Idiosyncrasy is an important factor in the causation of delirium tremens, as is also the use of alcoholic beverages rich in fusel oil—like the cheaper whiskeys. The long-continued action of alcohol on the nervous system produces many other chronic disorders. Loss of sensation, epilepsy, motor-paralysis, and blindness often result from alcoholic excess. ”

“ With an excessive quantity, the functions of the cerebrum are suspended, and complete unconsciousness results. By an extension of the poisonous influence to the nervous centres governing respiration and circulation, these functions may cease, and death result. ”

“ Its use as a drug will then be rightly restricted, as in the case of other drugs, to the intelligent direction of men upon whom the State imposes, at the present day, rigid restrictions as to preliminary education, supplemented by study of the technical knowledge of the profession of medicine. ”

“ In the stomach it causes a sensation of warmth which is diffused over the abdomen and quickly followed by a general glow of the body. In moderate quantity, it induces an increased blood-supply which enables the mucous follicles and gastric glands to produce a more abundant secretion of stomach juices. ”

“ It is useful, in the form of hot drink, to revive a person who has been exposed to cold, but only after the exposure has ceased. Dr. Parkes, in the Ashantee campaign, found that the fatigue of marching in the tropics is better borne without the aid of a spirit ration. ”