44 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. X, NO. 3. 



it. :>. Alcohol in moderate quantities has also no direct action on the walls of the 1>1 1 vessels, either on their 



muscular portions or on the peripheral terminations of their vasomotor nerves. (Physiological Aspects of the 

 Liquor Problem. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., vol. 11, p. 91.) 



Led by the importance of this subject, the authors of the present memoir applied to the 

 National Academy of Science for a grant from the Bache fund of $300; this sum of money has 

 become the basis of the present investigation. The literature of alcohol has been studied 

 over and over again, with impartiality and with partiality, with critical acumen, with partizan- 

 ship, with judicious candor, with shallowness and with thoroughness, and so variously that it has 

 seemed to us that the possibility of further usefulness in any such study is exhausted. In the 

 two works already cited the reader can find the past epitomized. The intent of the present 

 research is to investigate the question de novo, with mind kept as free as is humanly possible 

 from the predisposing effects of previous beliefs. The experiments are reported in the memoir 

 in unusual detail, so as to afford experts opportunity for studying the evidence which is 

 brought forward. 



It is perhaps proper to state that although the actual work of making the experiments was 

 chiefly performed by Doctor Hoyt, Doctor AVood took part in and overlooked all experiments 

 of importance, so that the authors of this memoir are equally responsible for the accuracy of 

 the experimental work and of its results. 



EXPERIMENTATION. 



The experiments which we have made with alcohol bad for their intent the finding out of 

 certain facts, and therefore naturally arrange themselves into series, each series being directed 

 to the determining of an individual fact or of several facts closely allied. These series are — 



First. Experiments made upon the uninjured animal to determine the effect of alcohol upon 

 the arterial pressure. 



Second. Experiments made upon dogs suffering from an infective fever to determine 

 whether alcohol acts under these circumstances as it does upon the normal animal. 



Third. Experiments made upon dogs with variously situated sections of the spinal cord, in 

 order to determine the effect of alcohol upon the arterial pressure when the general vascular 

 system has been separated from its dominant vasomotor centers. 



Fourth. Experiments as to the effect of alcohol upon the arterial pressure after the aorta 

 has been tied in the middle thoracic or upper abdominal region. 



Fifth. Experiments made upon normal dogs with the Ludwig stromuhr to determine the 

 effect of alcohol upon the rate of the blood flow. 



Sixth. Experiments to determine the influence of alcohol upon the isolated reptilian heart. 



SERIES FIRST. 



In this series we performed two sets of experiments — those in which the alcohol was given 

 by inhalation and those in which it was administered intravenously. 



In the inhalation experiments the method adopted was to allow the dog to breathe through 

 a tracheal tube which was connected with a double tube bottle in such way that the air had to 

 bubble through a considerable mass of SO per cent alcohol. It was found that under these 

 circumstances the air was loaded with the vapor of alcohol, whilst an abundant supply of air 

 was furnished the animal. Usually the inhalation was not accompanied by any struggling or 

 excitement, but it was not found possible to produce a complete amesthetic unconsciousness. 

 This was contrary to the result reached many years ago by Dr. H. C. Wood, that animals could 

 be anaesthetized with simple alcohol placed in an imperfectly closed inhaler. 



It is evident that the anaesthesia which was produced in the earlier experiments of Doctor 

 Wood was largely the outcome of a slow asphyxiation due to an imperfect supply of air. Alcohol 

 when given in the method adopted in the present series of experiments usually failed to produce 

 rise of the arterial pressure, and in the exceptional case only caused such rise very late in the 

 poisoning, at a time when the respiration had been profoundly affected by pulmonary congestion 



