ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.
Although nearly all of the foremost scientific investigators of the
effects of alcohol upon the body have lost faith in the old views of the
usefulness of alcoholic liquors as remedial agencies a considerable
proportion of the medical profession do not seem yet to have learned how
to treat disease without recourse to the alcohol therapy. This is
largely due to the fact that the new thought has not yet crystallized to
any large extent in the medical text-books, and also to the widely
variant views held by professors of medicine.
The medical use of alcohol has been, and still is, the great bulwark of
the liquor traffic. The user of alcoholics as beverages always excuses
himself, if hard pressed by abstainers, upon the ground that they must
be of service or doctors would not recommend them so frequently. In all
prohibitory amendment, and no-license campaigns, the cry of "Useful as
Medicine" has been the hardest for temperance workers to meet, for they
have felt that they had to admit the statement as true, knowing nothing
to the contrary. Indeed, thousands of those who advocate the prohibition
of the sale of liquor as a beverage, use alcohol in some form quite
freely as medicine, and are as determined and earnest in defence of
their favorite "tipple" as any old toper could well be. Many use it in
the guise of cordials, tonics, bitters, restoratives and the thousand
and one nostrums guaranteed to cure all ills to which human flesh is
heir.
The wide-spread belief in the necessity and efficacy of alcoholics as
remedies is the greatest hindrance to the success of the temperance
cause. It is impossible to convince the mass of the people that what is
life-giving as medicine can be death-dealing as beverage. The two stand,
or fall, together. Hence there is no more important question before the
medical profession, and the people generally, than that of the action of
alcohol in disease, and, as a goodly number of the most distinguished
and successful physicians of Europe and America declare it to be harmful
rather than helpful, it behooves thoughtful people to carefully study
the reasons they assign for holding such an opinion. Certainly it is
true that if physicians and people would all adopt the views of the
advocates of non-alcoholic medication the temperance problem would be
solved, and the greatest source of disease, crime, pauperism, insanity
and misery would be driven from the face of the earth.
To understand the arguments advanced in favor of non-alcoholic
medication it is needful to make some study of the effects of alcohol
upon the body, and of the purposes for which alcoholics are prescribed
medically.
_Alcohol is used in sickness as a food, when solid foods cannot be
assimilated, "to support" or sustain, the vitality; it is used as a
stimulant, a tonic, a sedative or narcotic, an anti-spasmodic, an
antiseptic and antipyretic; it is used in combination with other drugs,
in tinctures and in pharmacy._ It is not wonderful that the people
esteem it above all other drugs, for none other is so variously and so
generally employed. Those who discard it as a remedy teach that only in
human delusions is it a food or a stimulant, and for the other uses to
which it is put, outside of pharmacy, there are different agents which
may be more satisfactorily employed.
IS ALCOHOL FOOD?
So well agreed are all the scientific investigators that alcohol has no
appreciable food value that it would seem foolish to spend time upon a
discussion of alcohol as food were it not that the idea of its
"supporting the vitality" in disease, in some mysterious way is deeply
rooted in the professional, as well as the popular mind.
_Foods are substances which, when taken into the body, undergo change by
the process of digestion; they give strength and heat and force; they
build up the tissues of the body, and make blood; and they induce
healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions._
Alcohol does none of these. It undergoes no change in the stomach, but
is rapidly absorbed and mixed with the blood, and has been discovered
hours after its ingestion in the brain, blood and tissues, unchanged
alcohol. In many of the experiments made with it upon animals,
considerable quantities of the amount swallowed were recovered from the
excretions of the body, without any change having taken place in its
composition. This, of itself, is sufficient evidence to show that it is
a substance which the body does not recognize as a food.
_Foods build up the tissues of the body._ All physiologists are agreed
that since alcohol contains no nitrogen it cannot be a tissue-forming
food; there is no difference of opinion here. Dr. Lionel Beale, the
eminent physiologist, says that alcohol is not a food and does not
nourish the tissues.
"There is nothing in alcohol with which any part of the body can
be nourished."--Cameron's _Manual of Hygiene_.
"Alcohol contains no nitrogen; it has none of the qualities of
the structure-building foods; it is incapable of being
transformed into any of them; it does not supply caseine,
albumen, fibrine or any other of those substances which go to
build up the muscles, nerves and other active organs."--SIR B.
W. RICHARDSON.
"It is not demonstrable that alcohol undergoes conversion into
tissue."--DR. W. A. HAMMOND.
If it is a food why do all writers and experimenters exclude it from the
diet of children, and why is the caution always given people to not
take it upon an empty stomach? Foods are supposed to be particularly
suited to an empty stomach.
_Foods induce healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions._
The chapter upon "Diseases Produced by Alcohol" is evidence that by this
test alcohol shows up in its true nature as a poison, and not a food.
Alcohol destroys healthy normal action of all the bodily functions, and
builds up impure fat, fatty degeneration, instead of strong, firm
muscle. Dr. Parkes, one of the most famous of English students of
alcohol, says:--
"These alcoholic degenerations are certainly not confined to the
notoriously intemperate. I have seen them in women accustomed to
take wine in quantities not excessive, and who would have been
shocked at the imputation that they were taking too much,
although the result proved that for them it was excess."
Dr. Ezra M. Hunt, late secretary of New Jersey State Board of Health,
remarks:--
"The question of excess occurs in sickness as well as in health,
and all the more because its determination is so difficult and
the evil effects so indisputable. The dividing line in medicine,
even between use and abuse, is so zigzag and invisible that
common mortals, in groping for it, generally stumble beyond it,
and the delicate perception of medical art too often fails in
the recognition."
All non-alcoholic writers assert that the continuous use of alcohol as a
medicine is equally injurious to all the bodily functions as the
employment of it as a beverage. Calling it medicine does not change its
deadly nature, nor does the medical attendant possess any magical power
by which a destructive poison may be converted into a restorative agent.
Dr. Noble, writing recently to the _London Times_, said:--
"The internal use of alcohol in disease is as injurious as in
health."
Since foods induce healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions,
and alcohol injures every organ of the body in direct proportion to the
amount consumed, by this test it is proved to not be a food.
_Foods give strength._ Alcohol weakens the body. This has been
determined again and again by experiments upon gangs of workmen and
regiments of soldiers. These experiments always resulted in showing that
upon the days when the men were supplied with liquor they could neither
use their muscles so powerfully, nor for so long a time, as on the days
when they received no alcoholic drink. Of the results of such tests Sir
Andrew Clark, late Physician to Queen Victoria, said:--
"It is capable of proof beyond all possibility of question that
alcohol not only does not help work but is a serious hinderer of
work."
So satisfied are generals in the British army of the weakening effect of
alcohol that its use is now forbidden to soldiers when any considerable
call is to be made upon their strength. The latest example of this was
in the recent Soudan campaign under Sir Herbert Kitchener. An order was
issued by the War Department that not a drop of intoxicating liquor was
to be allowed in camp save for hospital use. The army made phenomenal
forced marches through the desert, under a burning sun and in a climate
famous for its power to kill the unacclimated. It is said that never
before was there a British campaign occasioning so little sickness and
showing so much endurance. Some Greek merchants ran a large consignment
of liquors through by the Berber-Suakim route, but Sir Herbert had them
emptied upon the sand of the desert. A reporter telegraphed to
England:--
"The men are in magnificent condition and in great spirits. They
are as hard as nails, and in a recent desert march of fifteen
miles, with manoeuvring instead of halts, the whole lasting
for five continuous hours, not a single man fell out!"
This was in decided contrast to the march in the African war some years
before when, as they passed through a malarial district, and a dram was
served, men fell out by dozens. Dr. Parkes, one of the medical officers,
prevailed upon the commander-in-chief to not allow any more alcoholic
drams while the troops were marching to Kumassi.
Experiments in lifting weights have also been tried upon men by careful
investigators. In every case it was found that even beer, and very
dilute solutions of alcohol, would diminish the height to which the
lifted weight could be raised. As an illustration of the deceptive power
of alcohol upon people under its influence, it is said that persons
experimented upon were under the impression, after the drink, that they
could do more work, and do it more easily, although the testing-machine
showed exactly the contrary to be true.
Athletes and their trainers have learned by experience that alcohol does
not give strength, but is, in reality, a destroyer of muscular power. No
careful trainer will allow a candidate for athletic honors to drink even
beer, not to speak of stronger liquors. When Sullivan, the once famous
pugilist, was defeated by Corbett, he said in lamenting his lost
championship, "It was the _booze_ did it"; meaning that he had violated
training rules, and used liquor. University teams and crews have proved
substantially that drinking men are absolutely no good in sports, or
upon the water. Football and baseball teams, anxious to excel, are
beginning to have a cast-iron temperance pledge for their members. So
practical experience of those competing in tests of strength and
endurance teach eloquently that alcohol does not give strength, but
rather weakens the body, by rendering the muscles flabby.
Sandow, the modern Samson, wrote his methods of training in one of the
magazines a few years ago, and stated that he used no alcoholic
beverages. The ancient Samson was not allowed to taste even wine from
birth.
A question worthy of serious consideration is: how are the sick to be
strengthened and "supported" by drinks which athletes are warned to
specially shun as weakening to the body? Either the sick are mistakenly
advised, or the athletes are in error. Which seems the more likely?
Dr. Richardson says in _Lectures on Alcohol_:--
"I would earnestly impress that the systematic administration of
alcohol for the purpose of giving and sustaining strength is an
entire delusion."
In another place he says:--
"Never let this be forgotten in thinking of strong drink: that
the drink is strong only to destroy; that it never by any
possibility adds strength to those who drink it."
Sir William Gull, late physician to the Prince of Wales, said before a
Select Committee of the House of Lords on Intemperance:--
"There is a great feeling in society that strong wine and other
strong drinks give strength. A large number of people have
fallen into that error, and fall into it every day."
Any unprejudiced person can readily see that experience and experiment
unite in testifying that alcohol does not give strength, hence differs
radically from most substances commonly classed as foods. Yet millions
of dollars are spent annually by deluded people upon supposedly
strength-giving drinks, and thousands of the sick are ignorantly, or
carelessly, advised to take beer or wine to make them strong and to
_support_ them when solid food cannot be assimilated. Truly, "My people
is destroyed for lack of knowledge."
_Foods give force to the body._
Dr. Richardson says:--
"We learn in respect to alcohol that the temporary excitement is
produced at the expense of the animal matter and animal force,
and that the ideas of the necessity of resorting to it as a
food, to build up the body or to lift up the forces of the body,
are ideas as solemnly false as they are widely disseminated."
Dr. Benjamin Brodie says in _Physiological Inquiries_:--
"Stimulants do not create nerve power: they merely enable you,
as it were, to use up that which is left."
Dr. E. Smith:--
"There is no evidence that it increases nervous influence, while
there is much evidence that it lessens nervous power."
Dr. Wm. Hargreaves, of Philadelphia:--
"It is sometimes said by the advocates and defenders of alcohol,
that by its use force is generated more abundantly. This it
certainly cannot do, as it does not furnish anything to feed the
blood or to store up nourishment to replenish the expenditure.
For by their own theory, the increase of action must cause an
increase of wear and tear; hence alcohol instead of sustaining
life or vitality, must cause a direct waste or expenditure of
_vital force_."
Dr. Auguste Forel, of Switzerland:--
"All alcoholic liquors are poisons, and especially
brain-poisons, and their use shortens life. They cannot
therefore be regarded as sources of nourishment or force. They
should be resisted as much as opium, morphia, cocaine, hashish
and the like."
Dr. W. F. Pechuman, of Detroit, in his valuable little treatise,
_Alcohol--Is it a Medicine?_ says clearly:--
"When alcohol or any other irritant poison is put into the
system, the conservative vital force, recognizing it as an
enemy, at once makes an effort through the living matter to rid
the system of the offender;--the heart increases in action and
new strength seems to appear. Now, right here is where the great
mass of people and a large number of physicians are deluded.
They mistake the extra effort of the vital force to preserve the
body against harmful agencies for an actual increase in strength
as the result of the agent given; we wonder that they can be so
blind as not to see the reaction which invariably occurs soon
after the administration of their so-called stimulant."
Dr. F. R. Lees, of England:--
"All poisons lessen vitality and deteriorate the ultimate tissue
in which force is reposited. Alcohol is an agent, the sole,
perpetual and inevitable effects of which are to avert blood
development, to retain waste matter, to irritate mucous and
other tissues, to thicken normal juices, to impede digestion, to
deaden nervous sensibility, to lower animal heat, to kill
molecular life, _and to waste, through the excitement it creates
in heart and head, the grand controlling forces of the nerves
and brain_."
If alcohol is a destroyer of bodily force, as any ordinary observer of
drinking men can readily see, it is a problem beyond solving, how it is
going to give force to, or sustain vitality in, the patient hovering
between life and death. Too often has it been the means of hastening
into eternity those who, but for its mistaken use, might have recovered
from the illness affecting them.
_Food gives heat to the body._
Alcohol does not, but really robs the body of its natural warmth. This
finding of science was received with the utmost incredulity when first
presented to the medical world, but the invention of the clinical
thermometer settled it beyond controversy. It is now believed by all but
a very few of those who have knowledge of the physiological effects of
alcohol. While Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, was the first to demonstrate
this fact, it was Dr. B. W. Richardson, of England, who succeeded in
putting it prominently before the attention of physicians.
The normal temperature of the human body is a little over 98 degrees by
Fahrenheit's thermometer. If the temperature is found to be much above
or below 98 degrees the person is considered out of health; indeed by
this condition alone physicians are able to detect serious forms of
disease. By the use of the clinical thermometer, placed under the
tongue, it is easy to determine what agents acting upon the body will
cause the temperature to vary from the natural standard. When alcohol is
swallowed there is at first a decided feeling of warmth induced; if the
temperature be taken now it will be found that in a person unaccustomed
to alcohol the warmth may be raised half a degree; in one accustomed to
alcohol the warmth may be raised a full degree, or even a degree and a
half beyond the natural standard. But this warmth is only temporary, and
is soon succeeded by chilliness.
Dr. Richardson says in his _Temperance Lesson Book_:--
"The sense of warmth occurs in the following way: When the
alcohol enters the body, and by the blood-vessels is conveyed to
all parts of the body, it reduces the nervous power of the small
blood-vessels which are spread out through the whole of the
surface of the skin. In their weakened state these vessels are
unable duly to resist the course of blood which is coming into
them from the heart under its stroke. The result is that an
excess of warm blood fresh from the heart is thrown into these
fine vessels, which causes the skin to become flushed and red as
it is seen to be after wine or other strong drink has been
swallowed and sent through the body. So, as there is now more
warm blood in the skin than is natural to it, a sense of
increased warmth is felt. The skin of the body is the most
sensitive of substances and the sense of warmth through, or over
the whole surface of the skin is conveyed from it to the brain
and nervous centres of the body, by which we are enabled to
feel.
"The warmth of surface which seems to be imparted by alcohol,
only _seems_ to be imparted. Positively the warmth is not
imparted by the alcohol, but is set free by it.
"In a short time the sense of warmth is succeeded by a feeling
of slight chilliness. Unless the person is in a very warm room,
or has recently partaken of food, the thermometer will now show
a decided decrease in temperature, reaching often to a degree.
Should the person go out into a cold air, and especially should
he go into a cold air while badly supplied with food, the fall
of temperature may reach to two degrees below the natural
standard of bodily heat. In this state he easily takes cold, and
in frosty weather readily contracts congestion of the lungs, and
that disease which is known as bronchitis. If the person drinks
to drunkenness his temperature will be found to be from two and
a half to three degrees below the natural standard. It takes
from two to three days, under the most favorable circumstances,
for the animal warmth to become steadily re-established after a
drunken spree.
"The excitement of the mind in the early stages of drunkenness
is not natural; it is exhaustive of the bodily powers, and
exhaustive for no useful purpose whatever. * * * * *
"As nothing has been supplied by the alcohol to keep up the
supply of heat the vital energy is rapidly exhausted, and if the
person is exposed to cold, the exhaustion becomes extreme,
sometimes fatal. All great consumers of alcohol are chillier
during winter than are abstainers, and as they labor under the
delusion that they must take wine or ale or spirits to keep them
warm, they keep on making matters worse by constantly resorting
to their enemy for relief."
Dr. Newell Martin makes this very clear in his physiology, _The Human
Body_.
"Our feeling of being warm depends on the nerves of the skin. We
have no nerves which tell us whether heart or muscles or brain,
are warmer or cooler. These inside parts are always hotter than
the skin, and if blood which has been made hot in them flows in
large quantity to the skin, we feel warmer because the skin is
heated. As alcoholic drinks make more blood flow through the
skin, they often make a man feel warmer. But their actual effect
upon the temperature of the whole body is to lower it. The more
blood that flows through the skin, the more heat is given off
from the body to the air, and the more blood, so cooled, is sent
back to the internal organs. The consequence is that alcohol, in
proportion to the amount taken, cools the body as a whole,
though it may for a time heat the skin."
If other evidence that alcohol is not heat-producing in the body were
necessary it could be found in the fact that the products of combustion
are decreased when it is present in the body. The quantity of carbonic
acid exhaled by the breath is proportionately diminished with the
decline of animal heat.
Arctic explorers learned by experience what science discovered by
experiment. Dr. Hayes, the explorer, says:--
"While fresh animal food, and especially fat, is absolutely
essential to the inhabitants and travelers in Arctic countries,
alcohol, in almost any shape, is not only completely useless,
but positively injurious."
Lieutenant Johnson, who accompanied Nansen upon his northern expedition,
said, when interviewed by a reporter of the London _Daily News_:--
"The common opinion that alcohol becomes in some way a necessity
in cold countries is entirely a mistaken one. This has been
conclusively proved by the expedition. In making up his list of
the _Fram's_ equipments, Nansen did not include any spirits,
with the exception of some spirits of wine for lamps and
stoves."
In the list of stores taken upon the long sledging expedition after
leaving the _Fram_ no liquors are mentioned. See _Farthest North_, by
Nansen. The omission of spirits was not because of any "temperance
fanaticism," but because the experience of former Arctic expeditions had
shown clearly that men freeze more readily after partaking of alcohol
than when they totally abstain from it.
That wine is not a fuel-food was shown conclusively in the
Franco-Prussian war during the siege of Paris. Food was scarce in the
French Army, and wine was liberally supplied. The men complained
bitterly of the extreme chilliness which affected them. Dr. Klein, a
French staff surgeon, was reported in the _Medical Temperance Journal_
of England, October 1873, as saying of this:--
"We found most decidedly that alcohol was no substitute for
bread and meat. We also found that it was no substitute for
coals. We of the army had to sleep outside Paris on the frozen
ground. We had plenty of alcohol, but it did not make us warm.
Let me tell you there is nothing that will make you feel the
cold more, nothing which will make you feel the dreadful sense
of hunger more, than alcohol."
There is no evidence against alcohol stronger than that which shows it
to be not heat-producing, as commonly believed, but a reducer of heat in
the body. Indeed, this question of bodily temperature is used in recent
times to decide whether a man who has fallen upon the street is troubled
by apoplexy, or influenced by alcoholism. If the clinical thermometer
shows the temperature to be above normal, it is apoplexy; if below
normal, it is alcoholism.
"Alcohol is clearly proved to be not a fuel-food, for if it were
it would enable the body to resist cold, instead of making it
colder; and in the extreme degrees of cold it would go on
burning like other fuel-foods, and would maintain, instead of
helping to destroy, life."--Richardson's _Lesson Book_.
Yet because it creates a glow of warmth in the skin immediately after
drinking it, thousands of people will discredit all evidence that it is
a reducer of bodily heat. Clinical thermometers, and after-sensations of
chilliness, are unheeded, for "Wine is a mocker," and multitudes are
willing to be deceived by it.
So, also, with the conclusions against it as a strengthening agent;
because it dulls the sense of hunger and of fatigue, those who crave it
will declare in the face of all scientific testimony that it strengthens
them, and takes the place of food. They will cite, too, the cases of
people who "lived upon whisky" during an illness of greater or less
duration. Of the sustaining of life upon alcohol only, Dr. N. S. Davis
has said:--
"The falsity of all such stories is made apparent by the fact
that nineteen-twentieths of all the alcoholic drinks given to
the sick are given in connection with sugar, milk, eggs or
meat-broths, which furnish the nutriment, and would support the
patients better if given with the same perseverance without the
alcohol than with it. While we have quite a number of examples
of men living on nothing but water forty or fifty days, I have
never seen or learned of a well-authenticated case of a man's
taking or receiving into his system nothing but alcohol for half
of that length of time, without becoming sick with either
gastro-duodenitis, nephritis, or delirium tremens."
_Some of the defenders of the medicinal use of alcohol claim that since
it has been shown to reduce tissue waste it should be classed as an
indirect food, a conserver of tissue._ Of this claim, Dr. N. S. Davis
says in the _Bulletin of the A. M. T. A._, November, 1895:--
"A careful study of the conditions and processes necessary for
both tissue building or nutrition, and tissue waste or
disintegration, in all the higher order of animals, will show
that neither process can be materially retarded without
retarding or preventing the other. Both processes take place
only in bioplasm or vitalized matter, supplied with oxygen,
water and heat. Neither the assimilation of new material food,
nor its use in tissue building can be effected without the
presence of free oxygen and nuclein, or corpuscular elements of
the blood. And without the presence of the same elements we can
have no natural tissue disintegration and removal of the waste.
The processes of tissue building and tissue disintegration, are
therefore, so intimately related, and dependent upon the same
materials and forces, that neither can be hastened or retarded
from day to day without influencing the other. When alcohol or
any other substance, introduced into the blood, retards the
tissue waste, as shown by the diminished amount of excretory
products, it must do so by either diminishing the amount of free
oxygen in the blood, by impairing the vasomotor and trophic
nerve functions or by direct impairment of the properties of the
nuclein or protogen elements of the blood and tissues. The
popular idea, both in and out of the profession is, that the
alcohol, by further oxidation in the blood, lessens the amount
of oxygen to act on the tissues, and generates heat or 'some
kind of force.' Those who advocate this theory of saving the
tissues by combining the oxygen with alcohol seem to forget that
in doing so they are diverting and using up the only agent,
oxygen, capable of combining with, and promoting the elimination
of, all natural waste products as well as the various toxic
elements causing disease.
"But the theory that alcohol directly combines with the oxygen
of the blood by which it would be converted into carbonic acid
and water with evolution of heat is completely refuted by the
well-known fact that its presence in the blood diminishes both
temperature and elimination of carbonic acid as already stated.
Physiologists of the present day very generally agree that the
capacity of the blood to receive oxygen from the lungs, and
convey it to the systemic capillaries and various tissues,
depends chiefly on its hemoglobin (red coloring matter),
protein, or albuminous and saline elements.
"Both experimental and clinical facts in abundance show that
alcohol at all ordinary temperatures displays a much stronger
affinity for these elements of the blood and tissues, than it
does for oxygen. And when present in the blood, it rapidly
attracts both water and hemoglobin from the corpuscular and
albuminoid elements of that fluid, and thereby diminishes its
reception and distribution of oxygen. We are thus enabled to see
clearly how the alcohol diminishes the oxygenation and
decarbonization of the blood, and retards all tissue changes
both of nutrition and waste without itself undergoing oxidation
with evolution of heat. Consequently, instead of acting as a
shield or conservator of the tissues by simply combining with
the oxygen, the alcohol directly impairs the properties and
functions of the most highly vitalized elements of the blood
itself, and thereby not only retards tissue waste but also
equally retards the highest grades of nutrition, and favors only
sclerotic, fatty and molecular degenerations, as we see
everywhere resulting from its continued use. Can an agent
displaying such properties and effects be called a _food_,
either direct or indirect, without a total disregard for the
proper meaning of words?"
In another place he says:--
"This lessening of the elimination of tissue waste is simply an
evidence of the accumulation of poisonous substances within the
body, through the lessened activity of liver and kidneys and the
impairment of the blood."
Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says in _Alcohol as Food and as Medicine_, page 37:--
"It sounds conservative of health to say of a substance that it
delays the breaking down of tissue, but the physiologist does
not allow a substance which occasions such delay, to possess,
because of that, either dietetic or remedial value. To increase
weight by prolonged constipation is not a physiological
process."
Dalton says:--
"The importance of tissue change to the maintenance of life is
readily shown by the injurious effects which follow upon its
disturbance. If the discharge of the excrementitious substances
be in any way impeded or suspended, these substances accumulate
either in the blood or tissues, or both. In consequence of this
retention and accumulation they become poisonous, and rapidly
produce a derangement of the vital functions. Their influence is
principally exerted upon the nervous system, through which they
produce most frequent irritability, disturbance of the special
senses, delirium, insensibility, coma, and finally, death."
The power to retard the passage of waste matter from the system is one
of the gravest objections to the use of alcohol in sickness, as the
germs of disease are thereby caused to remain longer in the body than
they would, were no alcohol or drug of similar action, used. Thus
recovery is delayed, if not effectually hindered.
The preponderance of scientific evidence is all against alcohol as
possessing food qualities. It contains no elements capable of entering
into the composition of any part of the body, hence cannot give
strength; it is not a fuel-food as it does not supply heat to the body,
but decreases temperature; and its classification as indirect food
because it retards the passage of waste matter is shown to be utterly
unscientific, as any agent which interferes with the natural processes
of assimilation and disintegration is a dangerous agent, a poison rather
than a food.
The question naturally arises:--
If these drinks are not liquid food, as we have been taught to believe,
how is it, since they are made from food, as barley, corn, grapes,
potatoes, etc?
These drinks are not food, although made from food, because in the
process of manufacturing them the food principle is destroyed. The grain
is malted to change starch into sugar--loss of food principle begins
here--then the malted grain is soaked in water to extract the saccharine
matter. When the sugar is all in the water the grain goes to feed cattle
or hogs, and the sweetened water is fermented. The fermentation changes
the sugar into alcohol.
Analyses of beer by eminent chemists show an average of 90 per cent.
water, 4 per cent. alcohol, and 6 per cent. malt extract. The malt
extract consists of gum, sugar, various acids, salts and hop extract.
Starch and sugar are all of these capable of digestion, and the amount
of them would be equal to 39 ounces to the barrel of beer. Liebig, the
great German chemist, said:--
"If a man drinks daily 8 or 10 quarts of the best Bavarian
beer, in a year he will have taken into his system the
nutritive constituents contained in a 5 pound loaf of bread."
Eight quarts a day for a year would be 2,920 quarts, or a little more
than 23 barrels. If sold to the consumer at the low rate of five cents a
pint, it would cost him $292; a high price for as much nourishment as in
a 5 pound loaf!
Analyses of wine by reliable chemists show that the consumer must pay
$500 for the equivalent in nourishment of a 5 pound loaf of bread, wine
being higher priced than beer. Wines average 80 per cent. water, about
15 per cent. alcohol, and 5 per cent. residue. This residue is composed
of sugar, tartaric, acetic and carbonic acids, salts of potassium and
sodium, tannic acid, and traces of an ethereal substance which gives the
peculiar or distinguishing flavor. The only one of these ingredients
possessing food value is sugar; this exists chiefly in what are called
sweet wines. Yet how many thousands of people spend money they can ill
afford for wines and beers to build up the failing strength of some
loved one! A costly delusion, and too often a fatal one!
"Distilled liquors, if unadulterated, contain literally nothing
but water and alcohol, except traces of juniper in gin, and the
flavor of the fermented material from which they have been
distilled."--_Influence of Alcohol_, by N. S. Davis, M. D.
It is the solemn duty of those to whom the people look for instruction
in matters of health to undeceive the toiling masses as to the
food-value of alcoholic liquids. Some of the medical profession are
faithful in this regard, but too many others are themselves deceived, or
care not for the destruction of the people.
IS ALCOHOL A STIMULANT?
A lady asked her family physician several years ago what he thought of
the views of those medical writers who class alcohol as a narcotic, and
not a stimulant. He answered with some heat, "Any one who says alcohol
is not a stimulant is either a fool or a knave!" He could not have been
aware that some of the most distinguished professors in American medical
colleges teach that alcohol is not, properly speaking, a stimulant, but
a narcotic.
The accepted definition of a stimulant in medical literature is some
agent capable of exciting or increasing _vital activity_ as a whole, or
the natural activity of some one structure or organ.
Dr. N. S. Davis has said repeatedly that both clinical and experimental
observations show that alcohol directly diminishes the functional
activity of all nerve structures, pre-eminently those of respiration and
circulation, thus decreasing the internal distribution of oxygen, which
is nature's own special exciter of all vital action.
"Consequently it is antagonistic to all true stimulants or
remedies capable of increasing vital activity. Instead,
therefore, of meriting the name of _stimulant_, alcohol should
be designated and used only as an anaesthetic and sedative, or
depressor of vital activity."
The following is taken from an editorial article in the _American
Medical Temperance Quarterly_ for January, 1894:--
"Drs. Sidney Ringer and H. Sainsbury in a carefully executed
series of experiments on the isolated heart of the frog, found
that all the alcohol when mixed with the blood circulating
through the heart, uniformly diminished the action of that organ
in direct proportion to the quantity of alcohol used, until
complete paralysis was induced. In closing their report in
regard to the action of different alcohols, they say that 'by
their direct action on the cardiac tissue these drugs are
clearly _paralyzant_, and that this appears to be the case from
the outset, _no stage of increased force of contraction
preceding_.'
"Professor Martin, while in connection with the Johns Hopkins
University, performed an equally careful series of experiments
in regard to the action of ethylic, or ordinary alcohol,
directly on the cardiac structures of the dog, and with the same
results. He makes the following explicit statement of the
results obtained by him. 'Blood containing one-fourth per cent.
by volume, that is two and a half parts per 1000 of absolute
alcohol, almost invariably diminishes, within a minute, the work
done by the heart; blood containing one-half per cent. always
diminishes it, and may even bring the amount pumped out by the
left ventricle to so small a quantity that it is not sufficient
to supply the coronary arteries.'
"In 1883, R. Dubois, by direct experimenting upon animals, found
that the presence of alcohol in the blood much intensified the
action of chloroform and thereby rendered a much less dose
fatal.
"Prof. H. C. Wood of the University of Pennsylvania, in an
address upon Anaesthesia to the Tenth International Medical
Congress, of Berlin, in 1890, said: 'In my own experiments with
alcohol, an eighty per cent. fluid was used largely diluted with
water. The amount injected into the jugular vein varied in the
different experiments from 5 to 20 c. c.; and in no case have I
been able to detect any increase in the size of the pulse or in
the arterial pressure produced by alcohol, when the heart was
failing during advanced chloroform anaesthesia. On the other
hand, on several occasions, the larger amounts of alcohol
apparently greatly increased the rapidity of the fall of
arterial pressure, and aided materially in extinguishing the
pulse.
"Sir Henry Thompson says: 'That alcohol is an anaesthetic and
paralyzant is a fact too well established to be questioned or
contradicted.'
"Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, has published elaborate tables,
showing that even small doses of alcohol, averaging one
tablespoonful of spirits--not quite half a wineglass of claret
or champagne, and not quite a quarter of a pint of ale--impair
vision, feeling, and sensibility to weight, without the
subject's being conscious of any alteration. Dr. Scougal, of New
York, has repeated and confirmed these experiments, and also
demonstrated that the hearing was similarly affected.
"Drs. Nichol and Mossop, of Edinburgh, conducted a series of
experiments on each other, examining the eye by means of the
ophthalmoscope while the system was under the influence of
various drugs. They found that the nerves controlling the
delicate blood-vessels of the retina were paralyzed by a dose of
about a tablespoonful of brandy.
"Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Conn., has deduced some
valuable facts from his experiments with the sphygmograph, upon
the action of the heart. He has found by repeated experiments
that while alcohol apparently increases the force and volume of
the heart's action, the irregular tracings of the sphygmograph
show that the real vital force is diminished, and hence its
apparent stimulating power is deceptive."--Extract from the
Annual Address before the Medical Temperance Association at San
Francisco, Cal., June 8, 1894, by Dr. I. N. Quimby, of Jersey
City, N. J.
Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Mich., has made extensive
experiments as to the effects of alcohol. In summing up the results of
these he says:--
"It would seem that no further evidence could be required that
alcohol is a narcotic and an anaesthetic, rather than a
stimulant, and that its use as a supporting and tonic remedy is
a practice without foundation in either scientific theory or
natural clinical experience."
Sir B. W. Richardson at a medical breakfast in London in 1895, stated
that though alcohol produced an increase in the motion of the heart it
was ultimately weaker in its action, so he resolved to give up using
such an agent.
Dr. A. B. Palmer of the University of Michigan prepared a "Report" upon
alcohol in 1885 for the Michigan State Medical Society in which he cited
experiments showing that the opinion that alcohol stimulates the heart
by an increase of real force, is an error. It creates a flutter, but
decreases power.
"Increased frequency of pulsation is often the strongest
evidence of diminished power--as the fluttering pulse of extreme
weakness."
He classes alcohol with chloroform.
"If chloroform is a narcotic, alcohol is a narcotic. If
chloroform is an anaesthetic, alcohol is an anaesthetic. If one is
essentially a depressing agent, so is the other. Their strong
resemblance no one can question. The chief difference is that
the alcoholic narcosis is longer continued, and its secondary
effects are more severe."
In closing his summary of the changes in scientific knowledge of this
drug he says:--
"We said it was a direct heart exciter. We now know it is a
direct heart depressor. We said, and nearly all the text-books
still say, it is a direct cardiac stimulant. We know from most
conclusive experiments it is a direct _cardiac paralyzant_."
The following is taken from one of the many excellent papers upon
alcohol written by that Nestor among physicians, Dr. N. S. Davis:--
"Alcoholics are very generally prescribed in that weakness of
the heart sometimes met with in low forms of fever and in the
advanced stage of other acute diseases. It is claimed that these
agents are capable of strengthening and sustaining the action of
the heart under the circumstances just named, and also under the
first depressing influence of severe shock.
"There is nothing in the ascertained physiological action of
alcohol on the human system, as developed by a wide range of
experimental investigation, to sustain this claim. I have used
the sphygmograph and every other available means for testing
experimentally the effects of alcohol upon the action of the
heart and blood-vessels generally, but have failed in every
instance to get proof of any increased force of cardiac action.
"The first and very transient effect is generally increased
frequency of beat, followed immediately by dilatation of the
peripheral vessels from impaired vasomotor sensibility, and the
same unsteady or wavy sphygmographic tracing as is given in
typhoid fever, and which is usually regarded as evidence of
cardiac debility. Turning from the field of experimentation to
the sick-room, my search for evidences of the power of alcohol
to sustain the force of the heart, or in any way to strengthen
the patient has been equally unsuccessful. I was educated and
entered upon the practice of medicine at a time when alcoholic
drinks were universally regarded as stimulating and
beat-producing, and commenced their use without prejudice or
preconceived notions. But the first ten years of direct clinical
or practical observation satisfied me fully of the incorrectness
of those views, and very nearly banished the use of these agents
from my list of remedies. While it is true that during the last
thirty years I have not prescribed for internal use the
aggregate amount of one quart of any kind of fermented or
distilled drinks, either in private or hospital practice, yet I
have continued to have abundant opportunity for observing the
effects of these agents as given by others with whom I have been
in council; and simple truth compels me to say that I have never
yet seen a case in which the use of alcoholic drinks either
increased the force of the heart's action or strengthened the
patient beyond the first thirty minutes after it was swallowed.
* * * * *
"Nothing is easier than self-deception in this matter. A patient
is suddenly taken with syncope, or nervous weakness, from which
abundant experience has shown that a speedy recovery would take
place by simple rest and fresh air. But in the alarm of patient
and friends something must be done. A little wine or brandy is
given, and, as it is not sufficient to positively prevent, the
patient in due time revives just as would have been the case if
neither wine nor brandy had been used."
In the _Medical Pioneer_ of November, 1895, Prof. E. MacDowel Cosgrave,
Professor of Biology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, says:--
"The result of all recent investigation is to show that the use
of alcohol when a stimulant effect is desired, is an error; and
that, from first to last alcohol acts as a narcotic."
Dr. Edmunds, of London, said in an address given in Manchester:--
"By giving alcohol as a stimulant in exhausting diseases, I
believe we always do as we should in giving a dose of opium and
brandy and water to comfort a half suffocated patient; i. e.,
increase his danger. If that be so, we reduce alcohol not only
from the position of food medicine, but we reduce it from the
position of a goad; and we say that the supposititious
stimulating or goading influence of alcohol is a mere delusion;
that in fact alcohol always lessens the power of the patients,
and always damages their chance of recovery, when it is a
question of their getting through exhausting diseases."
Many more such quotations might be adduced. Enough are given to show
that the popular use of alcohol, when a stimulant is required, is
considered a grave error by those who have most thoroughly studied the
effects of this drug.
ALCOHOL AS A TONIC.
Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, says:--
"The action of alcohol in relaxing unstriped muscular fibre,
which entitles it to be called an anti-spasmodic, robs it of all
claim to give tone. The sense of exhilaration which follows
small doses of alcohol has been mistaken for real strength and
increase of vitality. It is well known that relaxation of the
blood-vessels throughout the body is one of the first effects of
alcohol. The arteries of the retina have been observed to dilate
after very small doses of alcohol. The diminution of tone is
well seen in the tracings of the pulse under the influence of
alcohol. If one needs a tonic, therefore, alcohol is one of the
things to be shunned altogether.
"But alcoholic beverages contain other things beside alcohol.
Beer contains infusion of hops, or other bitter stomachics. Some
wines contain tannin. These ingredients, by creating or
stimulating the appetite, increase the strength and vital power
in certain cases. But we have a large number of drugs which
will do the same without the disadvantages arising from the
presence of alcohol, and, if the flavor be objected to, many of
them can be taken in the form of coated pills.
"The external use of cold, either by a dripping sheet, cold
sponging, or a shower-bath, according to the power of reaction,
is a valuable means of giving real tone.
"Wine is frequently prescribed for those young persons who are
growing rapidly, and whose strength does not seem to keep pace
with their growth. It is important to know that alcohol is not
desirable in such circumstances. There is often found in such
cases a defective appetite, perhaps even sub-acute gastric
catarrh, which may be due to imperfect mastication through bad
teeth, or aggravated by it. There are other causes, such as late
hours, bad habits, improper food or irregular meals. In such
cases those means must be resorted to which are so effectual in
improving the condition and strengthening the heart of athletes.
Regular and regulated meals, exercise in the fresh air, a good
amount of rest and sleep--these will do more than anything else
to invigorate the bodily health."
Dr. N. S. Davis says:--
"Although I was taught, like all others, to use alcohol as a
tonic when patients were sick, to hasten their recovery and
promote their strength, yet it did not take me very long to find
out that here and there was one already a teetotaler who would
not take wine long, nor any kind of alcoholic drink unless
prescribed, just as castor-oil, dose by dose, but who, when he
got beyond the necessity of having it as a medicine, took no
more. What was the comparison? My patients who refused, or did
not take alcohol, got strong quicker and had less tendency to
relapse than those who continued its use. Here was the first
step in progress, and consequently I came soon to cease the
recommending it merely to hasten recovery of strength. As a
tonic, I found it of no value."
Dr. James Miller, of Edinburgh, says in _Alcohol, Its Place and Power_,
written many years ago:--
"It may be well here to correct an important error, yet very
current, in regard to the medicinal use of alcohol. People
regard it as a simple and common tonic; and are ready to accept
its supposed help as such in every form of weakness and general
disorder of health. But it is ordinarily, no true tonic."
Dr. Ernest Hart, editor of the _British Medical Journal_, stated some
years ago at a meeting of the British Medical Temperance Association
that "the medical profession were nearly all agreed that alcohol is
neither a food nor a tonic."
Many drunkards have been made, especially among women, by the delusion
that alcohol has tonic effect. As a sample of these sad cases the
following is given, taken from a recent number of _The National
Advocate_:--
"There is in the jail at Elizabeth, N. J., a woman who was
arrested while participating in wild drunken orgies with a gang
of tramps in the woods near the town. She appears nothing but a
besotted hag, but was only a short time ago a dutiful wife of a
respectable man, and the mother of three beautiful children. Her
father, who is said to be living in a village in New York State,
is a highly respected minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Her children are in an asylum, and her husband is a
wanderer in the West. The cause of her ruin was beer, prescribed
for her by the family physician as a tonic. At first she refused
to take it, having always been a teetotaler, but persuaded to
obey the physician, she soon acquired a taste for the drink that
speedily developed into the overmastering appetite, which has
brought her and hers to this sad condition."
ALCOHOL AS A SEDATIVE.
Dr. J. J. Ridge says in the _Medical Pioneer_, April, 1893:--
"Alcohol, chiefly in the form of spirits, is often given to
procure sleep and to relieve pain, such as that of neuralgia,
dyspepsia, colic and diarrhoea. It is as a sedative that
alcohol is so insidious and seductive in cases of chronic
disease, as, if frequently resorted to, the drink craving is
almost certainly developed. Hence the importance in many cases
of rather bearing the ills we have than of flying to others that
we know not of. It is clear that other narcotics, such as opium,
morphia, chorodyne, chloral, are open to the same objection, and
the victims of these drugs are terribly numerous. * * * * * In
many instances some form of dyspepsia is the cause of the
sleeplessness, palpitation or other uneasy feeling for which a
sedative is desired, and when this is cured the symptoms
vanish."
A prominent minister in a large American city was afflicted with
insomnia a few years ago, and, after trying various remedies, was
advised by a physician to try whisky "night-caps." He became a hopeless
drunkard. A young medical student in New York appealed to one of his
professors for aid in overcoming aggravated insomnia. The professor
advised whisky and morphine! The advice led to the ruin of the young
man.
ALCOHOL AS AN ANTIPYRETIC.
"By the power of alcohol to retard the evolution of heat in
retarding molecular changes in the tissues, the liquids
containing it may be used as antipyretics when the temperature
is too high, and to retard the processes of waste when these are
too rapid. But the antipyretic influence of alcohol is so feeble
in comparison with the proper application of water to the
surface, or with the internal administration of sulphate of
quinia, salicylic acid, digitalis, etc. that no one thinks of
using it for antipyretic purposes."--Dr. N. S. Davis in
_Principles and Practice of Medicine_.
PROFESSOR ATWATER'S CONCLUSIONS UPON ALCOHOL AS A FUEL-FOOD.
In 1899 a decided sensation was caused by the announcement that Prof.
Atwater, of Middletown, Conn., had proved that alcohol is a fuel-food
equal in value to carbohydrates and fats. The study later of Prof.
Atwater's report of his investigations led to prolonged discussions
among medical men interested in the alcohol question, and his theory
that alcohol is a food because it is oxidized in the body was vigorously
opposed by many scientists of high standing. Professor Abel, of Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, an investigator of alcohol who worked
with the Committee of Fifty, said on this point:--
"Oxidizability cannot be made the measure of usefulness in
regard to this substance."
Professor Gruber, president of the Royal Institute of Hygiene, Munich,
said:--
"Does alcohol truly deserve to be called a food substance?
Obviously, only such substances can be called food material, or
be employed for food, as, like albumen, fat, and sugar, exert
non-poisonous influence in the amounts in which they reach the
blood and must circulate in it in order to nourish * * * *
Although alcohol contributes energy it diminishes working
ability. We are not able to find that its energy is turned to
account for nerve and muscle work. Very small amounts, whose
food value is insignificant, show an injurious effect upon the
nervous system."
Sir Victor Horsley, the well-known London surgeon, said:--
"We know that alcohol lowers the temperature of the body. It can
only do that by diminishing the activity of the vital processes.
It also diminishes very greatly the power of the muscles, and it
diminishes the intellectual power of the nervous system. To call
an agent that causes such diminution of activity throughout the
whole body a food is ridiculous."
An editorial in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ said:
"The fallacy of the reasoning which would place alcohol among
the foods is very apparent when we put it in the form of a
syllogism: All foods are oxidized in the body; alcohol is
oxidized in the body; therefore alcohol is food. As logically we
might say: 'All birds are bilaterally symmetrical; the earthworm
is bilaterally symmetrical; therefore the earthworm is a bird.'
Oxidation within the body is simply one of several important
properties of food, as bilateral symmetry is one of several
important characteristics of a bird."
Schafer's Physiology says:--
"It cannot be doubted that any small production of energy
resulting from the oxidation of alcohol is more than
counterbalanced by its deleterious influences as a drug upon the
tissue elements, and especially upon those of the nervous
system."
The _Bulletin_ of the A. M. T. A. for July, 1899, contained an article
upon Prof. Atwater by Dr. J. H. Kellogg, from which the following is
taken:--
"Starch, sugar and fats become foods or fuels only through their
assimilation. Abundant physiological evidence attests that no
substance can act as a food, or as a true source of energy,
unless it has first entered into the composition of the body. It
must be assimilated. The forces manifested by the body, the
muscular forces, or nervous energy, are the result of the
breaking down of organized structure into simpler forms. For
example, in the case of nervous energy, material from which
nerve energy is derived is stored up in the nerve cell, and can
be seen with the microscope in the form of minute granules,
which disappear as the cell energy is expended, leaving the cell
blank and shriveled when in a state of extreme fatigue from
overwork. The same is essentially true of the muscle cell. The
source of muscular energy is glycogen, an organized substance
which becomes a part of the muscle tissue in a well-nourished
muscle in a state of rest.
"Experiments have clearly shown that fat, sugar and starch must
all alike be converted into the form of glycogen and enter into
the muscle structure before they can become a source of energy.
"Professor Atwater tells us that alcohol can not form tissue,
hence the query is pertinent, How can it be a source of vital
energy? The body does not burn food as a stove does fuel. Food
can be called fuel only in a highly figurative sense. The
oxidation of food in the body does not take place directly. Food
is assimilated, becoming a part of the tissue. Oxygen is also
assimilated, entering into the composition of the tissue along
with the food elements under the action of special organic
ferments brought into play by nervous impulses received from the
central ganglia.
"The molecules of these residual tissues which form the
storehouse of energy in the body are rearranged in simpler
forms, thereby giving up a portion of the energy which holds
them together in the state in which they exist in the tissues,
and this energy thus set free appears as muscle force, mental
activity, glandular work and various other forms of functional
activity."