CIRCULATION IN WARM BLOODED ANIMALS. 139 



this length of time, without disorder and without weari- 

 ness. To those who venture their lives in ships, it has 

 often been said, that there is only a plank between them 

 and destruction ; but in the body, and especially in the 

 arterial system, there is in many parts only a membrane, 

 a skin, a thread." 



Effects of Alcohol on the circulation. We may sup- 

 pose, says Dr. Barry that the more quick the motion of 

 the blood, the sooner old age will advance, or the soon- 

 er the machine will wear out, and other circumstances 

 being equal, that the number of years which all men 

 may attain, will be in reciprocal ratio to the velocity of 

 their pulses. If we allow 70 years to be the age of 

 man, and sixty pulses in a minute, for the common meas- 

 ure of a temperate man, then we should have 2,209,032, 

 000, as the number of pulsations during his life. But if 

 another, by reason of intemperance forces his blood 

 into motion at the rate of 75 pulses in a minute, then in- 

 stead of living three score and ten years, he will run 

 through his whole number of pulsations in 56 years, 

 thus cutting short his days by the term of 14 years. 



Barry on Digestion, London, 1759. 



This is certainly a sober consideration, and ought to 

 be carefully weighed by those who urge along the cur- 

 rent of their blood by mixing it with alcohol, for as we 

 have already seen, this liquid is taken into the blood in 

 the same state in which it goes into the stomach, the 

 gastric liquid having no power to change it into nourish- 

 ment. The circulating fluid of him who drinks distilled 

 spirits though it be mixed with water, is therefore a com- 

 pound of blood and alcohol, which stimulating the left 

 ventricle and making it contract with unwonted rapid- 

 ity, increases the number of pulsations and exhausting 

 the irritability, produces a weak and flabby condition of 

 the machinery, which finally refuses to perform its func- 

 tions, the miserable possessor sinks down and dies be- 

 fore his time. 



to 



What is said concerning the quickness of the pulse'and the age to which 

 a man may live! How much is it supposed that a person may shorten 

 his days by quickening his pulse five times a minute by stimulants 1 IB 

 alcohol digestible or not ? What is the composition of one's blood who 

 drinks spirits 1 



