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Tribune Extras Lecture and Letter Scries. 



:he innurnnce companies have been looking to it. There 

 a fearful cutting short of life and usefulness by tlia 

 nabitual use of alcoholic drinks. I mean wine 

 nrt the whole list. If there is any differ- 

 e ce between wine and rum. there is an 

 article in each which produces the effect. The other in- 

 erredieuts are like ',ue clothing we have on; it may be 

 Winter or Summer clothing. When you come to the 

 matter of beverages, I suppose, as about 80 parts of the 

 body are water, water is the only beverage on earth 

 tliat repairs the system. You take the milk that 

 wo pec from the mother's breast. It is only water 

 we have, thmi.v!i there is also sugar anil c.iscin. I am 

 ?xceedinglv anxious to see this go on. I will talk with 

 pou some other time about the cure of inebriates, for I 

 Jon't airree with you there. We want a military man- 

 igeineut of these fellows, as we have at West Point, 

 riio.v are to be re-educated, and moved at the tap of the 

 drum. 



Dr. Hammond If yon can treat them as soldiers and 

 lunatics, I think you can cure them. I don't say that 

 chrome alcoholism is absolutely incurable. I say the 

 present inebriate asylums will not cure them. That is, 

 according to my experience. 



Dr. Parker The inebriate asylums have- been very 

 great instructors. I find there are three classes of 

 inebriates. One class Is made up of respectable gen tie- 

 men young men or the heads of families, who have 

 yielded to a social feeling, and by that have got to a cer- 

 tain point where they cannot live without liquor. Their 

 will power is cone. There is another class where the de- 

 sire is inherited, and who have their fits once a month, or 

 once a year. In all creation, no human power can re- 

 strain them. I have known it to come on from 

 the individual's going into an apothecary-shop 

 and picking up a cologne-bottle and smelling it. Then 

 we have a third class, many of them raised, in our 

 cities, the children of those who have suddenly come 

 to wealth, children who have no true education; 

 who feel that having money they must get the worth of 

 it. The only tiling that can bo done for them is to have 

 a place for incurables, and place them there in order to 

 protect their families and friends. 



REMARKS OP DR. J. C. PETERS. 



Dr. J. C. Peters I have but few remarks to make. I 

 have paid but little attention to the subject of late; but 

 30 years ago In 1844 I made many post mortems on the 

 cadaver of drunkards, and in many of those cases I was 

 surprised to tind the small amount of injury done to the 

 stomach where alcohol had not been used 

 iu large quantities; but when taken to excess the ap- 

 pearance was certainly as great as that referred to 

 by Dr. Lente as being heuiorrhagic. The amount 

 of hemorrhage found in the mucus membrane 

 of the stomach, bowels and bladder, Is certainly 

 extensive, and the injury was very great. 

 I regard the effect of alcohol in larger quantities 

 upon the stomach As very little short of a corrosive 

 poison. The shock is almost equal to that of a sureical 

 shock, and is very much like it. It occurs 

 In the course of a very few hours; nnd I pre- 

 sume that shock falls upon the great solar plexus, 

 ulthoiiL'li I presume the injury to the mucous membrane 

 of the stomach itself Is very great. Wo can tlnd a sma/ 

 quantity of alcohol in the peritoneum : \ve will not llnd 

 It lower down in the bowels, as it Is absorbed very 

 rapidly. 



Experiments, Mr. President, similar to those which 

 you have performed, in which alcohol has been detected 

 ill the brain, are numerous. Christiaou and others have 



extracted a quantity of alcohol sufficient to be 

 burned, as we burn it usually in a lamp. I 

 might say a few words upon the point which 

 you have especially noticod in connection with your 

 account of my experiments, namely, the great firmness 

 of the, brain of one who has used alcohol to excess. It was 

 a fact which struck me very forcibly. We. know that 

 alcohol will coagulate albumen. The brain substance is 

 composed in a great degree of albuminous substances, 

 and it is the great affinity of alcohol for the albumen 

 which, I presume, is the grand reason why the brain is 

 so often found in this hardened condition. We 

 know also that alcohol is a stimulant; 

 that it stimulates the stomach and improves digestion. 

 It will increase the quantity of the gastric juice which is 

 thrown out, and this operation of the stimulant will 

 help many a weak stomach to digest food which would 

 otherwise lie in an undigested mas^. Alcohol in excess 

 causes the pepsin to be precipitated, and digestion is 

 stopped. I have been exceedingly cautious in advising 

 alcohol for any sick person, especially in the case of 

 women nervous, hysterical women because I am so 

 fearful of establishing a habit of using it; but 

 when I do prescribe it, it is for the pur- 

 pose of food. I never allow alcohol to be taken 

 on an empty stomach under any circumstances. 

 I prescribe it in fixed quantities, as I would arseuic, 

 and when its work is finished I order it stopped, as I do 

 any other medicine after it has accomplished the object 

 for which it was intended to bo administered. 1 was 

 also, at the tirno I speak of, 30 years ago, 

 struck with the infrequency of tubercular 

 diseases in drunken .persons, and those who died 



om an e 

 cohol ii 



alcohol in this disease has gradually worked its way 

 into the profession until whiskies aud spirits of all va- 

 rieties is almost an established treatment in diseases of 

 a tubercular character. 



Dr. Aloiizo Calkins thought th:it in making these ex- 

 periments with alcohol an excessive quantity had been 

 used, as innch often as two ounces of pure alcohol. The 

 result would be expected to be different if one half- 

 ounce were used. It is analogous to taking an immod- 

 erate quantity of food in the stomach; a portion 

 is absorbed, while the greater part passes off indlces- 

 tion, and only a part of it is appropriated. So it might 

 be with alcohol; a small part of alcohol might bo appro 

 priated, but the greater part would pass away. 

 REMARKS OF DR. MEREDITH CLYMER. 



Dr. Meredith Clymer, who was present by invitation, 

 said: Dr. Parker put this question, "What becomes 

 of the portion of the alcohol retained in the system 1" 

 in view of recent experiments showing that a portion 

 of the alcohol taken into the system passes out, and a 

 portion remains in. Now, that question is connected 

 with the question of food. This is an interesting subject 

 to us all. Dr. Hammond stated that he could not 

 explain it. and it seems to me that these experiments 

 are decidedly in opposition to the conclusion 

 that alcohol is food. It it were food it would bo assim- 

 ilated ; and yet wo find by these novel and admirable, 

 experiments which Dr. Hammond has shown us, that 

 after a certain time it is retained in the nervous tissues. 

 I only wisli these experiments had gone further, 

 and that he had submitted to the same tests 

 tho other organisms of the body the stomach, liver, 

 Ac. and 1 am quite confident he would have 

 found the same results that they would have 

 appeared in those tissues just the same as 

 in the brain. The experiments are of great 



