ACTION OF ALCOHOL UPON CIRCULATION— WOOD AND HOYT. 



67 



ordinarily in the plethysmograph insensible movements backward or forward have an enormous 

 influence upon the lever which records the movements of the contained fluid. We have made 

 two experiments with the arm plethysmograph, using- every precaution to avoid fallacies, and 

 employing a person unaccustomed to the use of alcohol. In the first of these experiments 

 whisky was taken, in the second Mumm's extra dry champagne. In examining the results of 

 these experiments it must be remembered that although it is possible to make a plethysmograph, 

 the movements of the lever of which shall have an absolute value — in other words represent the 

 percentage of enlargement of the arm — such instrument must be made with great care and at 

 much expense. 



The university laboratory does not own such an instrument, and our present purposes have 

 not required it; all that we have attempted to do is to show whether there is or is not a distinct 

 increase in the size of the arm following the ingestion of alcohol. In the following tables, when 

 the needle was above the norm, the amount of the ascent is given in millimeters preceded by 

 a +; when the needle was below the norm the descent is given in millimeters with a — . As 

 already shown these millimeters are no measure of the amount of expansion and contraction 

 of the volume of the arm. 



A. 



The above records are entirely concordant with one another, differing only in the fact, which 

 is constantly indicated in human lite, that distilled liquors like whisky act more slowly than does 

 champagne. In each experiment there was a distinct increase in the size of the arm — with the 

 whisk}' slowly and gradually, with champagne, rapidly — developed; and with whisky much more 

 permanently maintained than with champagne, the rise after a time being followed by a slight 

 decrease in the size of the arm below the normal. 



The increase in the size of the arm in these experiments is not readily explainable except 

 with the supposition of increased amount of blood in the organ, due to dilatation of the arterioles 

 and the greater circulation through the vessels of the extremities, the blood not tarrying so long 

 in the great venous system of the abdomen and thorax. The results therefore are entirely 

 concordant and corroborative with those reached by experiments upon animals. 



REMARKS. 



The conclusions which we have established throw much light upon the practical problem of 

 the therapeutic effects and uses of alcohol, indicating that some results which have been supposed 

 to be due to a direct action of the drug are secondarily produced by the increase of the activitv 



