146 THE NEXT GENERATION 



Before the operation began, the doctor said there was but 

 one chance in a thousand that the boy would live. After it was 

 over, he said it was those quarts of splendid blood that saved 

 the lad that the new blood had given feeble cells a new 

 environment and made it possible for them to do what was 

 necessary to keep the body alive. 



Now suppose both Charlie and the student had been 

 drinkers. 1 What about the outlook then ? Sir Frederick 

 Treves says : " Having spent the greater part of my life in 

 operating, I can assure you that there are some patients that 

 I don't mind operating on and some that I do ; but the person 

 of all others that I dread to see entering the operating theater 

 is the drinker. He is a most dangerous feature in connection 

 with the surgical life." 



The fact is that alcohol gets into the blood more easily 

 than does any food, that it is carried by the blood directly 

 to all the cells of the body, and that it seriously poisons 

 every cell it reaches. It does this whether the cell is part 

 of brain, nerve, or muscle. 



Now cells reached by alcohol-bearing blood suffer in two 

 ways : (i) they are slower in getting nourishment from the 

 blood ; (2) they are slower in getting rid of their waste. This 

 is why the surgeon dreads an alcoholic person. As a rule, his 

 wounds are slower in healing and his heart is not so reliable 

 during the operation. 



Every cell is affected, but no cells suffer more promptly 

 than those in the brain. 



Last summer, on a steamboat between Seattle and Van- 

 couver, I myself saw what happens when alcohol is in the 

 environment of brain cells. 



1 The student had never used either alcohol or tobacco ; neither had his 

 ancestors for three generations. 



