Henry Smith Williams

“ So I am bound to believe, on the evidence, that if you take alcohol habitually, in any quantity whatever, it is to some extent a menace to you. I am bound to believe, in the light of what science has revealed: (1) that you are tangibly threatening the physical structures of your stomach, your liver, your kidneys, your heart, your blood-vessels, your nerves, your brain; (2) that you are unequivocally decreasing your capacity for work in any field, be it physical, intellectual, or artistic ”

“ Alcohol as a Brain Stimulant The celebrated physicist Von Helmholtz, one of the foremost thinkers of the nineteenth century, declared that the very smallest quantity of alcohol served effectively, while its influence lasted, to banish from his mind all possibility of creative effort; all capacity to solve an abstruse problem. The result of recent experiments in the field of physiological psychology convince one that the same thing is true in some measure of every other mind capable of creative thinking. ”

“ The development of the same psychosis, in a modified degree, through the continued use of small quantities of alcohol, emphasizes the causal relation between the use of alcohol and the genesis of timidity. It shows how pathetically mistaken is the popular notion that alcohol inspires courage; and, to anyone who clearly appreciates the share courage plays in the battle of life, it suggests yet another lamentable way in which alcohol handicaps its devotees. ”

“ The Ally of Tuberculosis Not many physicians, perhaps, will go so far as Dr. Muirhead of Edinburgh, who at one time claimed that he had scarcely known of a death in a case of pneumonia uncomplicated by alcoholism; but almost every physician will admit that he contemplates with increased solicitude every case of pneumonia thus complicated. Equally potent, seemingly, is alcohol in complicating that other ever-menacing lung disease, tuberculosis. ”

“ You will rise with the conviction that alcohol is not merely a poison, but the most subtle, the most far-reaching, and, judged by its ultimate effects, incomparably the most virulent of all poisons.
Alcohol and Disease Here are a few corroborative facts, stated baldly, almost at random: Rauber found that a ten per cent. solution of alcohol "acted as a definite protoplasmic poison to all forms of cell life with which he experimented — including the hydra, tapeworms, earthworms, leeches, crayfish, various species of fish, Mexican axolotl, and mammals, including the human subject." ”

“ Open any work on the practice of medicine quite at random, and whether you chance to read of diseased stomach or heart or blood-vessels or liver or kidneys or muscles or connective tissues or nerves or brain — it is all one: in any case you will learn that alcohol may be an active factor in the causation, and a retarding factor in the cure, of some, at least, of the important diseases of the organ or set of organs about which you are reading. ”

“ Heart failure, one of the most frequent causes of death in people of adult and advanced years, is often due to fatty degeneration, and a patient who suffers from alcoholic degeneration necessarily runs a much greater risk of heart failure during the course of acute fevers or from overwork, exhaustion, and an overloaded stomach, and the like, than does the man with a strong, healthy heart unaffected by alcohol or similar poisons. ”

“ Is Alcohol A Poison? It is perhaps hardly necessary to cite further experiments directly showing the depressing effects of alcohol, even in small quantities, upon the mental activities. Whoever examines the evidence in its entirety will scarcely avoid the conclusion reached by Smith, as the result of his experiments already referred to, which Dr. Abel summarizes thus: "One half to one bottle of wine, or two to four glasses of beer a day, not only counteract the beneficial effects of 'practice' in any given occupation, but also depress every form of intellectual activity ”

“ To any one who may reply that he is willing to pay this price for the sake of the pleasurable emotions and passions that are sometimes permitted to hold sway in the absence of those higher faculties of reason which alcohol tends to banish, I would suggest that there is still another aspect of the account which we have not as yet examined. We have seen that alcohol may be a potent disturber of the functions of digestion, of muscular activity, and of mental energizing. ”

“ Stated otherwise, the question is this: Is alcohol a poison to the animal organism ? A poison being, in the ordinary acceptance of the word, an agent that may injuriously affect the tissues of the body, and tend to shorten life. ”

“ Hereditary Effects of Alcohol If additional evidence of the all-pervading influence of alcohol is required, it may be found in the thought-compelling fact that the effects are not limited to the individual who imbibes the alcohol, but may be passed on to his descendants. The offspring of alcoholics show impaired vitality of the most deep-seated character. ”

“ Even when the patient has advanced far toward recovery from an acute infectious disease, it is held still to be highly unwise to administer alcohol, since this may interfere with the beneficent action of the anti-toxins that have developed in the tissues of the body, and in virtue of which the disease has been overcome. ”

“ Certainly all the evidence goes to show that no mind is capable of its best efforts when influenced by even small quantities of alcohol. If any reader of these words is disposed to challenge this statement, on the strength of his own personal experience, I would ask him to reflect carefully as to whether what he has been disposed to regard as a stimulant effect may not be better explained along lines suggested by these words of Professor James: "The reason for craving alcohol is that it is an anesthetic even in moderate quantities. ”

“ At a given signal — say a flash of light — he releases the key. The time that elapses between signal and response — measured electrically in fractions of a second — is called the simple or direct reaction-time. This varies for different individuals, but is relatively constant, under given conditions, for the same individual. Exner found, however, that when an individual had imbibed a small quantity of alcohol, his reaction-time was lengthened, though the subject believed himself to be responding more promptly than before. ”

“ As typesetting is paid for by measure, such a worker would actually earn ten per cent. less on days when he consumed even this small quantity of alcohol."
In the light of such observations, a glass of beer or even the cheapest bottle of wine is seen to be an expensive luxury. To forfeit ten per cent, of one's working efficiency is no trifling matter in these days of strenuous competition. ”

“ In a tolerably wide experience of men of many nations, 1 have never known an habitual drinker who did not sometimes take more alcohol than even the most liberal scientific estimate could claim as harmless. ”

“ Welch, "that the general mortality from diseases of the liver, kidney, heart, blood-vessels, and nervous system is much higher in those following occupations which expose them to the temptation of drinking than in others." Strumpell declares that chronic inflammation of the stomach and bowels is almost exclusively of alcoholic origin; and that when a man in the prime of life dies of certain chronic kidney affections, one may safely infer that he has been a lover of beer and other alcoholic drinks. ”

“ We may conclude, and that confidently, that alcohol promotes tubercle, not because it begets the bacilli, but because it impairs the tissues, and makes them ready to yield to the attacks of the parasites. ”

“ The effect of alcohol on muscular activity has a larger measure of popular interest; indeed, it is a question of the utmost practicality. The experiments show that alcohol does not increase the capacity to do muscular work, but distinctly decreases it. ”

“ Alcohol and Acute Infections In connection with experiments in rendering animals and men immune from certain contagious diseases through inoculation with specific serums, Deléarde, working in Calmette's laboratory in Lille, showed that alcoholized rabbits are not protected by inoculation, as normal ones are, against hydrophobia. ”

“ It must be obvious that these words give a clue to the agency of alcohol in shortening the lives of tens of thousands of persons with whose decease the name of alcohol is never associated in the minds of their friends or in the death certificates. ”

“ Neither in England nor America, fortunately, would it be possible to gather statistics comparable to these as to the effects of alcohol on growing children; for the Anglo-Saxon does not believe in alcohol for the child, whatever his view as to its utility for adults. The effects of alcohol upon the growing organism have, however, been studied here with the aid of subjects drawn from lower orders of the animal kingdom. Professor C. F. Hodge, of Clark University, gave alcohol to two kittens, with very striking results. ”

“ As Voit remarks, it gives, not strength, but, at most, the feeling of strength. A man may think he is working faster and better under the influence of alcohol than he would otherwise do; but rigidly conducted experiments do not confirm this opinion. "Both science and the experience cf life," says Dr. John J. Abel, of Johns Hopkins University, "have exploded the pernicious theory that alcohol gives any persistent increase of muscular power. The disappearance of this universal error will greatly reduce the consumption of alcohol among laboring men. ”

“ The mental image that it brings up is precisely comparable to that which would arise were we to examine the life histories of the inmates of any institution whatever where dependent or delinquent children are cared for, be it idiot asylum, orphanage, hospital, or reformatory. ”

“ This is natural enough, since alcohol is a very curious drug, and the human organism a very complex mechanism. The effects of this drug upon this mechanism are often very mystifying. Not many persons are competent to analyze these effects in their totality. Still fewer can examine any of them quite without prejudice. But in recent years a large number of scientific investigators have attempted to substitute knowledge for guesswork as to the effects of alcohol, through the institution of definitive experiments. ”

“ Sometimes this impaired vitality is manifested in the non-viability of the offspring; sometimes in deformity; very frequently in neuroses, which may take the severe forms of chorea, infantile convulsions, epilepsy, or idiocy. ”

“ Perhaps it should be noted that the subjects of the experiment were all men habituated to the use of liquor, one of them being accustomed to take four glasses of beer each week day, and eight or ten on Sundays. ”