The Digestion of Food 133 



and congested, its connective tissue becomes excessive, its 

 power of secreting gastric juice diminishes, and its mucous 

 secretion becomes abnormally abundant. 1 



As a result, the habitual user of alcoholic beverages usu- 

 ally surfers from the effects of a disordered and retarded 

 digestion, viz., obstinate dyspepsia and its familiar symp- 

 toms, loss of appetite, acid eructation, nausea, vomiting, 

 headache, unnatural thirst, and mental depression. Remem- 

 ber that alcoholic drinks are not necessary or desirable to 

 arouse the appetite and stimulate digestion. 



201. Effect of Alcohol upon the Liver. The portal vein, 

 as you should remember, brings the blood from the 

 stomach and intestines to the liver to be acted upon. Now 

 when alcohol, which is rapidly absorbed by the blood vessels 

 of the stomach, is brought to the liver, we should natu- 

 rally expect this great blood-purifying organ to suffer from a 

 marked effect of the narcotic. And so it does. The tissues 

 become at first irritated, then inflamed, and finally may be 

 seriously diseased. The fine bands, or septa, which serve 

 as partitions between the hepatic lobules seem to suffer 

 from prolonged alcoholic ingestion. The liver is at first 

 enlarged, but soon becomes contracted ; the secreting cells 

 are compressed, and are less able to perform their proper 

 work. 



1 Professor Chittenden has made careful experiments upon the effect of 

 varying amounts of alcohol upon gastric digestion. He finds, in digestion 

 experiments made with mixtures of digestive juice outside the body, that 

 even small amounts of alcohol retard digestion. The same amounts cause 

 a slight increase in the secretion of gastric juice when taken into the body. 

 The retardation effects, however, somewhat more than neutralize the secre- 

 tion effects, for the experimenter says : " The results obtained suggest a 

 tendency towards prolongation of the period during which the meat 

 remains in the stomach when alcoholic fluids are present." American 

 Journal of the Medical Sciences, vol. cxi ; American Journal of Physiology^ 



VOl. 1, pp. 202, 203. 



