Alcohol intoxication

“ For the world has at last found out what intoxication means. Alcohol in large doses is a poison, but it is a poison which injures the family and neighbors and friends of the inebriate more than the victim himself. ”

“ Alcohol is a narcotico-acrid poison. In small doses it occasions excitement and intoxication; in larger ones, delirium, somnolency, coma, apoplexy, and death. It acts as a violent nervous stimulant, and, by abstracting water from the soft tissues of the stomach and primæ viæ, destroys their organisation. It is alike poisonous to all animals;—2 drs. will kill a dog. All strong spirits act in the same way, the effect being proportionate to the state of concentration and the quantity taken. On plants it acts as a rapid and fatal poison. ”

“ Researches have shown that the proportion of half a drachm of alcohol to the pound weight of the body, is the quantity which usually produces intoxication, and that an increase of this amount to one drachm immediately endangers the life of the individual. The first symptom which attracts attention, when alcohol commences to take effect upon the body, is an increase in the number of the pulsations of the heart. ”

“ Alcohol, coffee, and tea are especially injurious to children. The celebrated German clinician, Strümpell, writes as follows in the Pædagogical Pathology: “Among the acute as well as chronic intoxications—which can be the cause not only of a temporary, but also of a prolonged psychopathic condition,—intoxication by alcohol, and by stimulants generally, plays the greatest rôle. Such abuse is especially noxious to children, and causes an enormous number of diseases with psychopathic results.” ”

“ For example, a man may get drunk once a month, and at the end of a dozen years he seems scarcely touched by the vice; although, as the physiologist has shown us, upon each indulgence the lining coat of the stomach is strangely inflamed, and changed in appearance; indeed, for three or four days after each debauch the mucous lining of the stomach continues to exude a matter which closely resembles pus. Besides these marked and apparently alarming effects, it is well known that alcohol is a powerful poison to every tissue of the body, especially to the nerve ”

“ Wherever the blame really has lain, one thing is now clear, that alcoholic intoxicants are very rarely useful as a medicine; are at the best dangerous remedies; and that, other things being equal, the less they are resorted to the better for the chances of the patient’s recovery, the better for body and brain, the better for physical, intellectual and moral well-being. Alcohol does not nourish, but pulls down ”

“ Richardson, "whether as spirit, wine, or ale, matters little when its specific influence is kept steadily in view. To say this man only drinks ale, that man only drinks wine, while a third drinks spirits, is merely to say, when the apology is unclothed, that all drink the same danger." In other words, the poisonous nature of alcohol, and the effects which result when it is taken into the stomach, are definite and immutable facts, which are not dependent upon any particular name or disguise under which the poison finds entrance. ”

“ Having once acquired a liking for it, the victim becomes as much a slave to his appetite as the opium eater or the votary of cocaine. In its effect it is much the most injurious of all such practices, for in the course of time it destroys the coating of the stomach, and dooms its victim to a slow and agonizing death. "The druggist who told me about the thing says that as ginger essence contains about one hundred per cent, alcohol, and whisky less than fifty per cent., the former is therefore twice as intoxicating. ”

“ They suffer ultimately from physical ailments, which surely follow the prolonged contact of alcoholic poison with the delicate structures of the body, many of a painful character, and shorten the term of their natural lives; but still they are able to drink without an increase of appetite so great as to reach an overmastering degree. They do not become abandoned drunkards.
NO MAN SAFE WHO DRINKS.
But no man who begins the use of alcohol in any form can tell what, in the end, is going to be its effect on his body or mind. ”

“ One of the signs of the times in the temperance movement is the steady growth among physicians of a sentiment against the administration of liquor of any kind as a medicine. The accepted scientific view of alcohol is that it is a poison, and its administration should be as guarded as that of any other poison used as a medicine. Perhaps the hardest thing a physician finds in his effort to restore his patients to health without the use of liquors is the common, but erroneous, belief that they are 'strengthening,' and that the convalescent, by their use, reaches recovery more quickly. ”

“ And yet, here and meanwhile, this glowing orator announced that not one more nor one less than a million human beings had, in the five years past, perished from being poisoned by liquor—by alcohol, an extremely mild toxicant that in some form or other chemists tell us exists in almost all our food, solid or liquid! ”

“ The effect of continually dosing with this drug is too apparent wherever it is used, benumbing the senses, and rendering more difficult every natural function. Alcohol never sustains the powers of life. It sometimes changes the symptoms of disease, but at the expense of the vitality of the body. What is called its supporting action, is a fever induced by the poison, which finally prostrates the patient. The secret of its action is found in the laws of vitality. The man who takes alcohol to help digest his food, must first throw off the alcohol, before his stomach can act healthfully. ”

“ Channels before unseen open, and the blood disks fly along at a brisker rate. Next, touch the membrane with a drop of pure spirit. The blood channels quickly contract; the cells slacken their speed; and, finally, all motion ceases. The flesh shrivels up and dies. The circulation thus stopped is stopped forever. The part affected will in time slough off. Alcohol has killed it.
The influence of alcohol upon the human system is very similar. When strong, as in spirits, it acts as an irritant, narcotic poison (p. 142, note) . ”

“ Alcoholic stimulants in excess are “a delusion and a snare,” and are one of the most frequent causes of excitement, and therefore both of weakness and of barrenness. Alcohol, pure and undiluted, and in excess, is a poison, and is ranked among the deadly poisons; if a person were to drink at one draught half a pint of undiluted alcohol it would be the last draught he or she would ever, in this world, drink,—it would be as surely fatal as a large dose of either arsenic or strychnine! Brandy, whisky, gin, and wine are composed of alcohol as the principal ingredient ”

“ Brandy which had been previously given in large quantities had proved of no avail and the patient was considered beyond recovery. We found her completely prostrated, temperature 102, pulse 170, and unconscious. The heart very weak and irregular. The brandy was discontinued, salicylate of caffeine and nitrate of strychnia were given with the result that in a short time the patient was convalescent and finally recovered.
"Each case in our hospital is an additional proof that whether found in wines, spirits or beers, alcohol can claim no right as an indispensable medicine." ”

“ This is especially true as one sees men who all their lives have indulged moderately in alcoholic beverages from which seemingly no harm has resulted. The truth, perhaps, is best summed up by the old adage that what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and there is no question that the effects of alcohol in small or moderate doses is vastly different from its effects in large doses, or in long continued, excessive use. ”

“ It is the duty of medical men to direct more attention than formerly to the alcohol question, and by careful study to decide whether recent researches are justified or not in regarding alcohol and alcoholic beverages as a poison and one of the principal causes of degeneration in the human family ”

“ To these are added "Wine, beer, ale, lager, and cider."
We explain that all these have alcohol in them, as may be known by smelling them, or by smelling the breath of those who have drunk even a little of them; and that because they contain alcohol they are called alcoholic liquors. If a person drinks any one of them he will be poisoned, more or less, according to how much he takes. The children are astonished at the word poisoned, but we explain that the very word, intoxicated, means poisoned. So a drunken man is a poisoned man. ”

“ The question of a suitable drink for workers to take the place of alcohol calls for special attention, as, when complicated with alcoholism, both acute and chronic poisonings entail more serious results than they otherwise would do. ”

“ Some individuals have, moreover, a special idiosyncrasy or susceptibility to alcohol, due to heredity or to one of the sequelae of sunstroke or cranial injury. The children of drunkards are usually very susceptible to the poison, becoming intoxicated by a far smaller quantity than is needed by a normal person. ”

“ When, at last, he reached land he told how the young prince and his sister had been drowned, and also a hundred and forty noble youths and girls, and the Captain and the fifty rowers, and everyone else on board except himself—all because of wine.
What a dangerous drink this alcohol is, and how many accidents it has caused! It sends the [92] brain to sleep so that it cannot do its work, and when that is the case we never know what dreadful thing may happen next.
When anything puts the brain to sleep, we call it narcotic. Alcohol is a narcotic poison. ”

“ The extent of the evil effects upon the human body resulting from the consumption of alcoholic liquors is as yet far from being fully known, and stands in need of scientific verification. Many other injurious influences such as unsanitary dwellings, bad feeding, excessive toil, and toxic agents like nicotine, etc., may produce somewhat similar morbid effects. ”

“ It is clear that the value of a drug is not enhanced, and it is certain that a new force-producing, or exploding agency, has been added to the body.
“In experience, any drug which contains alcohol can not be given to persons who have previously used it without rousing up the old desire for drink, or at least producing a degree of irritation and excitement that clearly comes from this source. It is also the experience of persons who are very susceptible to alcohol, that any strong tincture is followed by headache and other symptoms that refer to disturbed nerve centres. ”

“ They proved that when alcohol is taken into the system in any of its dilutions,—wine, cider, spirits, or beer,—the whole animal economy speedily busies itself with its expulsion, and continues to do so until it has expelled it. The lungs exhale it; the pores of the skin let out a little of it; the kidneys do their part; and by whatever other road an enemy can escape it seeks the outer air. Like ether, alcohol enters the body, makes a disturbance there, and goes out of the body, leaving it no richer than it found it. ”

“ The excitement of the central nervous system under alcohol, excitement which seems to be a relief to weariness and to give strength, is nothing more than temporary at best, and injurious, causing in fact symptoms of alcoholic poisoning, abnormal excitement, ending, in extreme cases, in convulsions succeeded By exhaustion of body and mind, and inducing a kind of paralysis. Many cases of stomach and gastric catarrh in children followed by emaciation and debility are due to the early administration of alcoholic drinks ”

“ And he can do a noble and useful work in the rescue of those who are under the control of the drink habit. * * * * *
“Furthermore, every physician owes it to his profession to teach his patients the utter fallacy of the common belief that alcohol is an article of food value. It has no such value. The use of intoxicants in any quantity whatever, or at any time, is entirely useless and unnecessary. The continued use of them gradually induces structural degradations and functional derangements of the great bodily organs, thus leading to the gravest physical disorders.” ”

“ The poisonous element in all forms of intoxicating drinks, and the one so fraught with danger to the bodily tissues, is the alcohol they contain. The proportion of the alcoholic ingredient varies, being about 50 per cent in brandy, whiskey, and rum, about 20 to 15 per cent in wines, down to 5 per cent, or less, in the various beers and cider; but whether the proportion of alcohol be more or less, the same element of danger is always present. ”

“ He injected alcohol into the blood of dogs, which caused death; but the deadly effect was produced, not upon the substance of the blood, but upon the brain. His experiments go far toward explaining why the drinking of alcoholic liquors does not sensibly retard digestion. It seems that, when we take wine at dinner, the alcohol does not remain in the stomach, but is immediately absorbed into the blood, and swiftly conveyed to the brain and other organs. ”

“ I should say, from my experience, that alcohol is the most destructive agent that we are aware of in this country. I would like to say that a very large number of people in society are dying day by day, poisoned by alcohol, but not supposed to be poisoned by it. ”

“ The latest researches in regard to alcohol reveal it as a poison to the human system in whatever way it may be diluted or disguised. Its effect is always the same in proportion to the amount taken. It is impossible to habitually use it in any form, even in small quantities, without disease and degeneration resulting therefrom. When taken into the stomach the action is the same as with any other narcotic ”