Grappling with the Monster Part 6

"A person who habitually exerts himself to such an extent as to require the daily use of stimulants to ward off exhaustion, may be compared to a machine working under high pressure. He will become much more obnoxious to the causes of disease, and will certainly break down sooner than he would have done under more favorable circ.u.mstances.

"The more frequently alcohol is had recourse to for the purpose of overcoming feelings of debility, the more it will be required, and by constant repet.i.tion a period is at length reached when it cannot be foregone, unless reaction is simultaneously brought about by a temporary total change of the habits of life.

"Owing to the above facts, I conclude that the DAILY USE OF STIMULANTS IS INDEFENSIBLE UNDER ANY KNOWN CIRc.u.mSTANCES."

DRIVEN TO THE WALL.

Not finding that alcohol possesses any direct alimentary value, the medical advocates of its use have been driven to the a.s.sumption that it is a kind of secondary food, in that it has the power to delay the metamorphosis of tissue. "By the metamorphosis of tissue is meant," says Dr. Hunt, "that change which is constantly going on in the system which involves a constant disintegration of material; a breaking up and avoiding of that which is no longer aliment, making room for that new supply which is to sustain life." Another medical writer, in referring to this metamorphosis, says: "The importance of this process to the maintenance of life is readily shown by the injurious effects which follow upon its disturbance. If the discharge of the excrement.i.tious substances be in any way impeded or suspended, these substances acc.u.mulate either in the blood or tissues, or both. In consequence of this retention and acc.u.mulation they become poisonous, and rapidly produce a derangement of the vital functions. Their influence is princ.i.p.ally exerted upon the nervous system, through which they produce most frequent irritability, disturbance of the special senses, delirium, insensibility, coma, and finally, death."

"This description," remarks Dr. Hunt, "seems almost intended for alcohol." He then says: "To claim alcohol as a food because it delays the metamorphosis of tissue, is to claim that it in some way suspends the normal conduct of the laws of a.s.similation and nutrition, of waste and repair. A leading advocate of alcohol (Hammond) thus ill.u.s.trates it: 'Alcohol r.e.t.a.r.ds the destruction of the tissues. By this destruction, force is generated, muscles contract, thoughts are developed, organs secrete and excrete.' In other words, alcohol interferes with all these.

No wonder the author 'is not clear' how it does this, and we are not clear how such delayed metamorphosis recuperates. To take an agent which is

"NOT KNOWN TO BE IN ANY SENSE AN ORIGINATOR OF VITAL FORCE;

"which is not known to have any of the usual power of foods, and use it on the double a.s.sumption that it delays metamorphosis of tissue, and that such delay is conservative of health, is to pa.s.s outside of the bounds of science into the land of remote possibilities, and confer the t.i.tle of adjuster upon an agent whose agency is itself doubtful. * * * *

"Having failed to identify alcohol as a nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous food, not having found it amenable to any of the evidences by which the food-force of aliments is generally measured, it will not do for us to talk of benefit by delay of regressive metamorphosis unless such process is accompanied with something evidential of the fact--something scientifically descriptive of its mode of accomplishment in the case at hand, and unless it is shown to be practically desirable for alimentation.

"There can be no doubt that alcohol does cause _defects_ in the processes of elimination which are natural to the healthy body and which even in disease are often conservative of health. In the pent-in evils which pathology so often shows occurrent in the case of spirit-drinkers, in the vascular, fatty and fibroid degenerations which take place, in the acc.u.mulations of rheumatic and scrofulous tendencies, there is the strongest evidence that

"ALCOHOL ACTS AS A DISTURBING ELEMENT

"and is very p.r.o.ne to initiate serious disturbances amid the normal conduct both of organ and function.

"To a.s.sert that this interference is conservative in the midst of such a fearful acc.u.mulation of evidence as to result in quite the other direction, and that this kind of delay in tissue-change acc.u.mulates vital force, is as unscientific as it is paradoxical.

"d.i.c.kinson, in his able expose of the effects of alcohol, (_Lancet_, Nov., 1872,) confines himself to pathological facts. After recounting, with accuracy, the structural changes which it initiates, and the structural changes and consequent derangement and suspension of vital functions which it involves, he aptly terms it the 'genius of degeneration.'

"With abundant provision of indisputable foods, select that liquid which has failed to command the general a.s.sent of experts that it is a food at all, and because it is claimed to diminish some of the excretions, call that a delay of metamorphosis of tissue conservative of health! The ostrich may bury his head in the sand, but science will not close its eyes before such impalpable dust."

Speaking of this desperate effort to claim alcohol as a food, Dr. N.S.

Davis well says: "It seems hardly possible that men of eminent attainments in the profession should so far forget one of the most fundamental and universally recognized laws of organic life as to promulgate the fallacy here stated. The fundamental law to which we allude is, that all vital phenomena are accompanied by, and dependent on, molecular or atomic changes; and whatever r.e.t.a.r.ds these r.e.t.a.r.ds the phenomena of life; whatever suspends these suspends life. Hence, to say that an agent which r.e.t.a.r.ds tissue metamorphosis is in any sense a food, is simply to pervert and misapply terms."

Well may the author of the paper from which we have quoted so freely, exclaim: "Strangest of foods! most impalpable of aliments! defying all the research of animal chemistry, tasking all the ingenuity of experts in hypothetical explanations, registering its effects chiefly by functional disturbance and organic lesions, causing its very defenders as a food to stultify themselves when in fealty to facts they are compelled to disclose its destructions, and to find the only defense in that line of demarcation, more imaginary than the equator, more delusive than the mirage, between use and abuse."

That alcohol is not a food in any sense, has been fully shown; and now,

WHAT IS ITS VALUE AS A MEDICINE?

Our reply to this question will be brief. The reader has, already, the declaration of the International Medical Congress, that, as a medicine, the range of alcohol is limited and doubtful, and that its self-prescription by the laity should be utterly discountenanced by the profession. No physician who has made himself thoroughly acquainted with the effects of alcohol when introduced into the blood and brought in contact with the membranes, nerves and organs of the human body, would now venture to prescribe its free use to consumptives as was done a very few years ago.

"In the whole management of lung diseases," remarks Dr. Hunt, "with the exception of the few who can always be relied upon to befriend alcohol, other remedies have largely superseded all spirituous liquors. Its employment in stomach disease, once so popular, gets no encouragement, from a careful examination of its local and const.i.tutional effects, as separated from the water, sugar and acids imbibed with it."

TYPHOID FEVER.

It is in typhoid fever that alcohol has been used, perhaps, most frequently by the profession; but this use is now restricted, and the administration made with great caution. Prof. A.L. Loomis, of New York City, has published several lectures on the pathology and treatment of typhoid fever. Referring thereto, Dr. Hunt says: "No one in our country can speak more authoritatively, and as he has no radical views as to the exclusion of alcohol, it is worth while to notice the place to which he a.s.signs it. In the milder cases he entirely excludes it. As a means of reducing temperature, he does not mention it, but relies on cold, quinine, and sometimes, digitalis and quinine." When, about the third week, signs of failure of heart-power begin to manifest themselves, and the use of some form of stimulant seems to be indicated, Dr. Loomis gives the most guarded advice as to their employment. "Never," he says, "give a patient stimulants simply because he has typhoid fever." And again, "Where there is reasonable doubt as to the propriety of giving or withholding stimulants, it is safer to withhold them." He then insists that, if stimulants are administered, the patient should be visited every two hours to watch their effects.

It will thus be seen how guarded has now become the use of alcohol as a cardiac stimulant in typhoid fevers, where it was once employed with an almost reckless freedom. Many pract.i.tioners have come to exclude it altogether, and to rely wholly on ammonia, ether and foods.

In Cameron's "Hygiene" is this sentence: "In candor, it must be admitted that many eminent physicians deny the efficacy of alcohol in the treatment of any kind of disease, _and some a.s.sert that it is worse than useless_."

ACc.u.mULATIVE TESTIMONY.

Dr. Arnold Lees, F.L.S., in a recent paper on the "Use and Action of Alcohol in Disease," a.s.sumes "_that the old use of alcohol was not science, but a grave blunder_." Prof. C.A. Parks says: "It is impossible not to feel that, so far, the progress of physiological inquiry renders the use of alcohol (in medicine) more and more doubtful." Dr. Anstie says: "If alcohol is to be administered at all for the _relief_ of neuralgia, it should be given with as much precision, as to dose, as we should use in giving an acknowledged _deadly poison_." Dr. F.T. Roberts, an eminent English physician, in advocating a guarded use of alcohol in typhoid fever, says: "Alcoholic stimulants are, by no means, always required, and their indiscriminate use may do a great deal of harm." In Asiatic cholera, brandy was formerly administered freely to patients when in the stage of collapse. The effect was injurious, instead of beneficial. "Again and again," says Prof. G. Johnson, "have I seen a patient grow colder, and his pulse diminish in volume and power, after a dose of brandy, and, apparently, as a direct result of the brandy." And Dr. Pidduck, of London, who used common salt in cholera treatment, says: "Of eighty-six cases in the stage of collapse, sixteen only proved fatal, and scarcely one would have died, _if I had been able to prevent them from taking brandy and laudanum_." Dr. Collenette, of Guernsey, says: "For more than thirty years I have abandoned the use of all kinds of alcoholic drinks in my practice, and with such good results, that, were I sick, _nothing_ would induce _me_ to have resource to them--_they are but noxious depressants_."

As a non-professional writer, we cannot go beyond the medical testimony which has been educed, and we now leave it with the reader. We could add many pages to this testimony, but such c.u.mulative evidence would add but little to its force with the reader. If he is not yet convinced that alcohol has no food value, and that, as a medicine, its range is exceedingly limited, and always of doubtful administration, nothing further that we might be able to cite or say could have any influence with him.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GROWTH AND POWER OF APPEt.i.tE.

One fact attendant on habitual drinking stands out so prominently that none can call it in question. It is that of the steady growth of appet.i.te. There are exceptions, as in the action of nearly every rule; but the almost invariable result of the habit we have mentioned, is, as we have said, a steady growth of appet.i.te for the stimulant imbibed.

That this is in consequence of certain morbid changes in the physical condition produced by the alcohol itself, will hardly be questioned by any one who has made himself acquainted with the various functional and organic derangements which invariably follow the continued introduction of this substance into the body.

But it is to the fact itself, not to its cause, that we now wish to direct the reader's attention. The man who is satisfied at first with a single gla.s.s of wine at dinner, finds, after awhile, that appet.i.te asks for a little more; and, in time, a second gla.s.s is conceded. The increase of desire may be very slow, but it goes on surely until, in the end, a whole bottle will scarcely suffice, with far too many, to meet its imperious demands. It is the same in regard to the use of every other form of alcoholic drink.

Now, there are men so const.i.tuted that they are able, for a long series of years, or even for a whole lifetime, to hold this appet.i.te within a certain limit of indulgence. To say "So far, and no farther." 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 appet.i.te 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. Thousands and tens of thousands, once wholly unconscious of danger from this source, go down yearly into drunkards' graves. There is no standard by which any one can measure the latent evil forces in his inherited nature. He may have from ancestors, near or remote, an unhealthy moral tendency, or physical diathesis, to which the peculiarly disturbing influence of alcohol will give the morbid condition in which it will find its disastrous life. That such results follow the use of alcohol in a large number of cases, is now a well-known fact in the history of inebriation.

During the past few years, the subject of alcoholism, with the mental and moral causes leading thereto, have attracted a great deal of earnest attention. Physicians, superintendents of inebriate and lunatic asylums, prison-keepers, legislators and philanthropists have been observing and studying its many sad and terrible phases, and recording results and opinions. While differences are held on some points, as, for instance, whether drunkenness is a disease for which, after it has been established, the individual ceases to be responsible, and should be subject to restraint and treatment, as for lunacy or fever; a crime to be punished; or a sin to be repented of and healed by the Physician of souls, all agree that there is an inherited or acquired mental and nervous condition with many, which renders any use of alcohol exceedingly dangerous.

The point we wish to make with the reader is, that no man can possibly know, until he has used alcoholic drinks for a certain period of time, whether he has or has not this hereditary or acquired physical or mental condition; and that, if it should exist, a discovery of the fact may come too late.

Dr. D.G. Dodge, late Superintendent of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, speaking of the causes leading to intemperance, after stating his belief that it is a transmissible disease, like "scrofula, gout or consumption," says:

"There are men who have an organization, which may be termed an alcoholic idiosyncrasy; with them the latent desire for stimulants, if indulged, soon leads to habits of intemperance, and eventually to a morbid appet.i.te, which has all the characteristics of a diseased condition of the system, which the patient, una.s.sisted, is powerless to relieve--since the weakness of the will that led to the disease obstructs its removal.

"Again, we find in another cla.s.s of persons, those who have had healthy parents, and have been educated and accustomed to good social influences, moral and social, but whose temperament and physical const.i.tution are such, that, when they once indulge in the use of stimulants, which they find pleasurable, they continue to habitually indulge till they cease to be moderate, and become excessive drinkers. A depraved appet.i.te is established, that leads them on slowly, but surely, to destruction."

A DANGEROUS DELUSION.

In this chapter, our chief purpose is to show the growth and awful power of an appet.i.te which begins striving for the mastery the moment it is indulged, and against the encroachments of which no man who gives it any indulgence is absolutely safe. He who so regards himself is resting in a most dangerous delusion. So gradually does it increase, that few observe its steady accessions of strength until it has acquired the power of a master. Dr. George M. Burr, in a paper on the pathology of drunkenness, read before the "American a.s.sociation for the Cure of Inebriates,"

says, in referring to the first indications of an appet.i.te, which he considers one of the symptoms of a forming disease, says: "This early stage is marked by an occasional desire to drink, which recurs at shorter and shorter intervals, and a propensity, likewise, gradually increasing for a greater quant.i.ty at each time. This stage has long been believed to be one of voluntary indulgence, for which the subject of it was morally responsible. The drinker has been held as criminal for his occasional indulgence, and his example has been most severely censured.

This habit, however, must be regarded as the first intimation of the approaching disease--the stage of invasion, precisely as sensations of _mal-aise_ and chills usher in a febrile attack.