Auto-intoxication

“ The present fad among certain physicians for attributing a great many serious symptoms to intestinal auto-intoxication has no basis in physiological chemistry and represents only one of those exaggerations of a minor truth for which medicine is so famous. The idea of self-poisoning, which is all that auto-intoxication means, is a very old one in medicine and the use of drastic purgatives such as calomel in large doses and the antimonial purges and then of blood letting represent the responses to this idea which doctors made in an older time. ”

“ The condition termed auto-intoxication may be induced by many different factors, among which may be mentioned the products of intestinal putrefaction (Senator [20] ) and the waste products from the processes of oxidation, such as uric acid, for example. Animal food is more apt to produce intestinal putrefaction than any of the various other foodstuffs.
There are three important organs which protect us against such a condition of auto-intoxication; these are the kidneys, liver, and thyroid, and possibly also the parathyroids. ”

“ In conditions of debility and weakness, whenever the influx is too large for the demand, or the waste too great for disposal by the organs of elimination, absorption of the poisons generated in fermenting food rubbish retained in the intestinal tract is continuously occurring, and the subject becomes a victim of auto-intoxication, is drunk with the products of his own decomposition. This condition, if long continued, is no less baneful in effect than that of alcoholic saturation, and, in some cases, it may take the form of insanity, while, in all, diminished brain power is evident. ”

“ We have shown in the previous chapters that the degeneration of certain glands with internal secretions, especially the thyroid, liver, and kidneys, will produce a condition of auto-intoxication, as poisonous products will not be destroyed in the proper manner, and also not eliminated from the body. Therefore our whole energy must be turned to working in time against this auto-intoxication of the body. ”

“ Inflammation too generally results in the breaking down of the cells and the distribution of the resulting poisons. Of late years, much has been said of the poisonous property of the body waste not disposed of by excretion, and the theory of auto-intoxication, so-called, has received many adherents. The great scientist, Metchnikoff, has even gravely contended that it would be well for children to have their larger intestine removed entirely, because in that organ putrefaction occurs, the cause of the auto-intoxication he would try to prevent. ”

“ Some of the auto-intoxication or over-eating ills, are—biliousness, coated tongue, foul breath, clammy hands, clammy feet, dry lusterless hair, putty complexion, dulled hearing, dulled vision, dulled taste, dulled smell, early loss of memory, loss of continuous thought and attention, headaches, vertigo, dyspepsia, loss of strength, rheumatism, insomnia, fugitive pains and aches, hysteria, nervousness, nightmare, irregular heart, shortness of breath, brittle nails, dry harsh skin, cancer and premature old age of the doddering and slobbering kind. ”

“ The toxic substances which are generally believed to be associated with the causation of mental disorders may be divided into three great classes: (a) those which arise from the morbific products of metabolism within the body itself “auto-intoxicants”; (b) those due to the invasion of the blood or tissues by micro-organisms; (c) organic or inorganic poisons introduced into the system voluntarily or accidentally.
(a) Auto-intoxication may be due to defective metabolism or to physiological instability, or to both combined. ”

“ The mental condition which is brought about by auto-intoxication is most distressing. While it renders the sub­jects miserable, and unable to concentrate their attention on work or pleasure or to control their tempers, it makes them most unpleasant companions. ”

“ It is, therefore, hardly necessary to remind the physician that it is of the greatest importance to know as correctly as possible both the direct and the indirect influence of every medicine or drink on the action of the kidneys and all other eliminating organs and structures, lest he unwittingly allow the use of such as may not only retard the elimination of the specific causes of disease, but also favor auto-intoxication by retarding the elimination of the natural elements of excretion. ”

“ The control of auto and intestinal intoxication in narcotic [Pg 79] addiction is as a rule of easy accomplishment if the patient is uninhibited and in functional balance and is not over-supplied or under-supplied with the drug of his addiction. The narcotic addict who is non-toxic and in drug balance and is not harassed by worry or fear needs practically no more drastic methods of elimination than his non-addicted brother. If he is over-dosed his elimination is inhibited; if he is under-dosed his eliminative powers are not capable of response. ”

“ And alcohol is not the only substance that inebriates. Opium, morphine, chloral, cocaine, and all drugs of a similar nature, are dangerous, and each not only inflicts its injury on the individual, but transmits its results to posterity in that nerve degeneration which renders the sufferer an easy victim to all forms of intoxication, and intoxication is nothing more nor less than poisoning. ”

“ Different persons are affected in different ways by the same poison. Indulgence in alcoholic drinks may act upon one or more of the cerebral organs; and, as its necessary consequence, the manifestations of functional disturbance will follow in such of the mental powers as these organs subserve. If the indulgence be continued, then, either from deranged nutrition or organic lesion, manifestations formerly developed only during a fit of intoxication may become permanent, and terminate in insanity or dypso-mania. ”

“ But neither this combination of drugs nor any other combination known to man can prevent persons, after they are free from their addiction—be it alcohol or morphin—from going out and repoisoning themselves by taking again the drug which has poisoned them and led them on to their habitual intoxication. ”

“ It is to the element of inhibition of function also that we must look for explanation of what is by far the most [Pg 47] important element in the immediate picture presented by most individual cases. I refer to autotoxicosis and to auto- and intestinal toxemia. The same power that locks up within the body the opiate drug, locks up the toxic products of tissue activity and tissue waste, of intestinal poisons and of insufficient metabolism. Autotoxemia itself is markedly inhibitory in its action, and contributes no little to its own increase and to the further development of narcotic disease. ”

“ In the second variety of the second degree of intoxication, an apoplectic disposition is called into action by the excited state of the circulating system; and death ensues from apoplexy or some other disease of the brain, rather than from simple poisoning. Thus in some instances, as will be more fully mentioned under the head of the morbid appearances, extravasation of blood is found within the head after death, preceded by the usual phenomena of ordinary intoxication. ”

“ By diminishing the quantities of the stimulant we certainly diminish its power for mischief, but as long as the dose is large enough to produce any appreciable effect that effect is a deleterious one.
Various diseases and that artificial disorder called intoxication react on certain faculties of the mind (by affecting their corresponding cerebral organ) as regularly as on the liver or any other part of the human organism. ”

“ The greatest social disaster of all the ages occurred when first alcoholic stimulation, which is only one step in advance of alcoholic intoxication and narcotization, found its place as an adjunct of good-fellowship. All humanity turns in one way or another to artificial stimulants, and while alcohol and narcotics are the worst among these, we cannot slur the fact that many who would shun these agents as they would a pestilence, turn freely to milder, but not altogether harmless, stimulants, such as tea, coffee, and tobacco. ”

“ The symptoms generally come on rapidly, the individual appearing confused, and unable to walk steadily. This degree of intoxication soon passes into the stage of complete stupor and coma, and unless there is vomiting collapse soon sets in. In some cases a remission of the symptoms has occurred, death being postponed for a day or longer.
As the alcohol is eliminated by the lungs, stupor from drink may be detected by the odor of the [Pg 109] breath. The countenance is usually flushed, and the pupils are dilated, but in cases of acute poisoning the patient may be deadly pale. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are generally taken by the lowest class of people for the express purpose of intoxication; and they are much sooner prejudicial to the health than wine, and, indeed, when drunk unmixed, are no better than slow poison. ”

“ In that time the human structure gradually changed to a higher form; then intoxication became impossible, as the introduction of spirits into the system occasioned instantaneous death or agony great as that caused by some other poisons, but not to be relieved by any antidote, as its volatile nature precludes the possibility of extracting it. It flew at once to the brain, and made the poor sufferer feel as if his—I say his, because women left off the habit of drinking alcohol very many years before men had sufficient sense to follow their example—head had suddenly became red-hot metal. ”

“ In other words, in narcotic drug addiction some antidotal toxic substance has become the constantly present poison, and the narcotic drug itself has become simply the antidote demanded for its control. ”

“ In alcoholic intoxication, for instance, we first meet with an unloosening of higher psychic inhibitions; in the initial stage of intoxication there is an apparent heightening of mental and motor activity, and then as the quantity of the poison absorbed by the blood and conveyed to the cerebro-spinal nervous system is increased, a progressive paralysis of psychomotor life sets in. ”

“ Frequent intoxication with alcohol, opium, coca, or haschisch, brings about a structural degeneration of the nerve-material; the consequences of which are to be seen in delirium, softening of the brain, and other forms of general paralysis. "By degrees the nervous centres, especially those on which the particular narcotic used has the most powerful influence, become degraded in structure." A permanent pathological state is thus induced, in which the production of a given narcotic effect is not so easy as in the healthy organism. ”

“ Accordingly, poisons which affect the intelligence are ipso facto poisons of the sensibility. In this respect alcohol does not differ from chloroform. When alcoholic intoxication is only beginning, we find already a notable degree of insensibility; but at the comatose stage the insensibility is total, just as in the last stage of chloroform. Thus intoxication by chloroform and intoxication by alcohol proceed along parallel lines, and we can distinguish a first period of intoxication, properly so called, and a second period of sleep or coma. ”

“ It is not at all impossible that any inhibiting poison constantly present in the body will some day be found to establish a mechanism of protection, similar to that of opiate addiction, and that some of the states now popularly and loosely classified under the general head of “autointoxications” will be recognized as really addiction-states, in which the body has become progressively tolerant of its own poisons. ”

“ Acute poisoning from inhalation of benzine fumes begins with headache, sickness, and attacks of giddiness resembling alcoholic intoxication. If very much has been inhaled, the patient quickly becomes unconscious, with occasionally muscular tremors, convulsions, difficulty in breathing, and cyanosis. ”

“ The third variety of poisoning with spirits in the second degree proves fatal, not in itself, but by some trivial accident happening, from which the individual cannot escape on account of his powerless insensibility. Thus, it is no uncommon thing for persons in a state of deep intoxication to fall down in an exposed place, where they perish from cold, or to tumble with the face in a puddle, and so be suffocated, or to be choked by inhaling the contents of the stomach imperfectly vomited, or by lying in such a posture that their neck-cloth produces strangulation. ”

“ Among the poisons which must be kept out of the body should be mentioned habit-forming drugs, such as opium, morphine, cocain, heroin, chloral, acetanilid, alcohol, caffein, and nicotin. The best rule for those who wish to attain the highest physical and mental efficiency is total abstinence from all substances which contain poisons, including spirits, wine, beer, tobacco, many much-advertised patent drinks served at soda-water fountains, most patent medicines, and even coffee and tea. ”

“ Others, whose walk and demeanor would indicate a considerable degree of intoxication, might be mentally clear and unruffled and even stimulated by intoxicants to precise mental co-ordination and reasoning. ”