| Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says: "The capacity of the alcohols | | | | alcohol as containing a food power, says: "When I say |
| for impairment of functions and the initiation and | | | | that it, of all other causes, is most prolific in exciting |
| promotion of organic lesions in vital parts, is | | | | derangements of the brain, the spinal cord and the |
| unsurpassed by any record in the whole range of | | | | nerves, I make a statement which my own experience |
| medicine. The facts as to this are so indisputable, and | | | | shows to be correct." |
| so far granted by the profession, as to be no longer | | | | Another eminent physician says of alcohol: "It |
| debatable . Changes in stomach and liver, in kidneys | | | | substitutes suppuration for growth. It helps time to |
| and lungs, in the blood-vessels to the minutest capillary, | | | | produce the effects of age; and, in a word, is the |
| and in the blood to the smallest red and white blood | | | | genius of degeneration." |
| disc disturbances of secretion, fibroid and fatty | | | | Dr. Monroe, from whom "Alcohol, taken in small |
| degenerations in almost every organ, impairment of | | | | quantities, or largely diluted, as in the form of beer, |
| muscular power, impressions so profound on both | | | | causes the stomach gradually to lose its tone, and |
| nervous systems as to be often toxic these, and such | | | | makes it dependent upon artificial stimulus. Atony, or |
| as these, are the oft manifested results. And these | | | | want of tone of the stomach, gradually supervenes, |
| are not confined to those called intemperate." | | | | and incurable disorder of health results. Should a dose |
| Professor Youmans says: "It is evident that, so far | | | | of alcoholic drink be taken daily, the heart will very |
| from being the conservator of health, alcohol is an | | | | often become hypertrophied, or enlarged throughout. |
| active and powerful cause of disease, interfering, as it | | | | Indeed, it is painful to witness how many persons are |
| does, with the respiration, the circulation and the | | | | actually laboring under disease of the heart, owing |
| nutrition; now, is any other result possible?" | | | | chiefly to the use of alcoholic liquors." |
| Dr. F.R. Lees says: "That alcohol should contribute to | | | | Dr. T.K. Chambers, physician to the Prince of Wales, |
| the fattening process under certain conditions, and | | | | says: "Alcohol is really the most ungenerous diet there |
| produce in drinkers fatty degeneration of the blood, | | | | is. It impoverishes the blood, and there is no surer road |
| follows, as a matter of course, since, on the one hand, | | | | to that degeneration of muscular fibre so much to be |
| we have an agent that retains waste matter by | | | | feared; and in heart disease it is more especially hurtful, |
| lowering the nutritive and excretory functions, and on | | | | by quickening the beat, causing capillary congestion |
| the other, a direct poisoner of the vesicles of the vital | | | | and irregular circulation, and thus mechanically inducing |
| stream." | | | | dilatation." |
| Dr. Henry Monroe says: "There is no kind of tissue, | | | | Sir Henry Thompson, a distinguished surgeon, says: |
| whether healthy or morbid, that may not undergo fatty | | | | "Don't take your daily wine under any pretext of its |
| degeneration; and there is no organic disease so | | | | doing you good. Take it frankly as a luxury one which |
| troublesome to the medical man, or so difficult of cure. | | | | must be paid for, by some persons very lightly, by |
| If, by the aid of the microscope, we examine a very | | | | some at a high price, but always to be paid for. And, |
| fine section of muscle taken from a person in good | | | | mostly, some loss of health, or of mental power, or of |
| health, we find the muscles firm, elastic and of a bright | | | | calmness of temper, or of judgment, is the price." |
| red color, made up of parallel fibres, with beautiful | | | | Dr. Charles Jewett says: "The late Prof. Parks, of |
| crossings or striae; but, if we similarly examine the | | | | England, in his great work on Hygiene, has effectually |
| muscle of a man who leads an idle, sedentary life, and | | | | disposed of the notion, long and very generally |
| indulges in intoxicating drinks, we detect, at once, a | | | | entertained, that alcohol is a valuable prophylactic |
| pale, flabby, inelastic, oily appearance. Alcoholic | | | | where a bad climate, bad water and other conditions |
| narcotization appears to produce this peculiar | | | | unfavorable to health, exist; and an unfortunate |
| conditions of the tissues more than any other agent | | | | experiment with the article, in the Union army, on the |
| with which we are acquainted. 'Three-quarters of the | | | | banks of the Chickahominy, in the year 1863, proved |
| chronic illness which the medical man has to treat,' | | | | conclusively that, instead of guarding the human |
| says Dr. Chambers, 'are occasioned by this disease.' | | | | constitution against the influence of agencies hostile to |
| The eminent French analytical chemist, Lecanu, found | | | | health, its use gives to them additional force. The |
| as much as one hundred and seventeen parts of fat | | | | medical history of the British army in India teaches the |
| in one thousand parts of a drunkard's blood, the highest | | | | same lesson." |
| estimate of the quantity in health being eight and | | | | But why present farther testimony? Is not the |
| one-quarter parts, while the ordinary quantity is not | | | | evidence complete? To the man who values good |
| more than two or three parts, so that the blood of the | | | | health; who would not lay the foundation for disease |
| drunkard contains forty times in excess of the ordinary | | | | and suffering in his later years, we need not offer a |
| quantity." | | | | single additional argument in favor of entire abstinence |
| Dr. Hammond, who has written, in partial defense of | | | | from alcoholic drinks. He will eschew them as poisons. |