PHYSIOLOGICAL POSITION OF ALCOHOL. 219 



God. They saw an Inscrutable Providence in all these things. But, 

 When their children had learned a better husbandry and better sanitary 

 conditions, the " visitations " ceased. 



In the perfect providence of God there are no surprises. If there 

 seem to be, it is that we have suffered ourselves to be taken unawares. 

 We must work out our own salvation. The book of natural phenom- 

 ena is opened wide before every man, and -he is set to learn it for his 

 own good. If he will not study it through reverence and love, he is 

 taught it through pain. But the pain itself is the beneficence of a 

 perfect law, and it is a constant testimony to the goodness and tender- 

 ness of God that calamity not less than prosperity is a Scrutable 

 Providence. Christian Union. 



-<>- 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POSITION OF ALCOHOL. 



By B. W. BICIIAKDSON, M. D., F. E. S. 



IN" whatever mode alcohol may be passed into the living body to 

 produce modification of physical action, the changes it excites are 

 remarkably uniform, and, other things being equal, the amount required 

 to induce the changes is also uniform. Thus, I have found, by many 

 researches, that the proportion of sixty grains of alcohol to the pound 

 weight of the animal body is the quantity capable of producing an ex- 

 treme effect. 



The order of the changes induced is, in like manner, singularly uni- 

 form, and extends in a methodical way through all classes of animals 

 that may be subjected to the influence; and, as the details of this part 

 of my subject are the facts that concern us most, I shall expend some 

 time in their narration. 



The first symptom of moment that attracts attention, after alcohol 

 has commenced to take effect on the animal body, is what may be called 

 vascular excitement ; in other words, over-action of the heart and arte- 

 rial vessels. The heart beats more quickly, and thereupon the pulse 

 rises. There may be some other symptoms of a subjective kind symp- 

 toms felt by the person or animal under the alcohol but this one 

 symptom of vascular excitement is the first objective symptom, or that 

 which is pi'esented to the observer. I endeavored in one research to 

 determine from observations on inferior animals what was the actual 

 degree of vascular excitement induced by alcohol, and my results were 

 full of interest. They have, however, been entirely superseded by the 

 observations made on the human subject by Dr. Parkes and Count 

 Wollowicz. 



These observers conducted their inquiries on the young and healthy 



