2 7 8 



ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY 



room, submerged in a bath just the temperature of the 



body, for several days at a time. 



505. The Discovery of Alcohol. A long time ago learned 



men called alchemists (the predecessors of the chemists of 



the present day) be- 

 lieved that they could 

 succeed in discover- 

 ing the elixir of life, 



j *f A the water of perpetual 



youth. In the year 

 1000, an Arab alchem- 

 ist, while seeking the 

 elixir of life, discov- 

 ered alcohol. Of 

 course it had existed 

 long before, wherever 

 fermentation of sugar 

 took place, and had 

 been drunk in wine, 

 in which it occurs in 

 a diluted condition. 

 But this alchemist suc- 

 ceeded in distilling, or 

 evaporating and con- 

 densing, it from the 

 water of the wine. 

 When he first drank 

 alcohol, he felt that 

 he had some new and 

 strange liquid which 

 he believed would 

 prove to be the water 



FlG. 191. An illustration of the nerve branches 

 and fibers in a case of alcoholic insanity. The 

 patient died of this disease and when the nerve 

 fibers were examined under the microscope, 

 they were shown to be swollen and broken 

 down in the manner illustrated in the drawing. 

 The swellings of the nerve fibers, as seen in this 

 illustration, are characteristic effects produced 

 by alcohol, and are usually seen in the brain 

 of those dying from alcoholic insanity. 



of life. But experi- 

 ence soon showed that the use of it, instead of giving 

 freedom from death and perpetual youth, shortened life 



