THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ORGANS OF SENSE 413 



Without realizing it, he may slowly poison his system. The primary effect 

 is upon the brain; there is congestion and overexcitement of the nerve 

 cells there conditions which gradually extend to the nerve cells of the 

 spinal cord ; inflammation sets in, and there follows fibrous degeneration 

 of the tissues, substituting an inferior form for the specialized tissues which 

 do the work of the organs in various parts of the body. Paralysis may 

 result, or epilepsy, or dyspepsia from lack of the due amount of nervous 

 influence upon the digestive organs, or any one of a thousand forms of 

 disorder, some of which have been mentioned in preceding chapters. 

 Though a man may never drink to intoxication, and never realize that he 

 is using alcohol to excess, he may nevertheless become seriously diseased 

 in consequence of his moderate indulgence, or what he believes to be such, 

 while wondering why he is not well and strong. Still less does he con- 

 sider the legacy of evil which he may be laying up for his children." 

 Macy, Physiology. (See Laboratory Manual, Prob. LVI.) 



Effect of Alcohol on Ability to do Work. In Physiological Aspects 

 of the Liquor Problem, Professor Hodge of Clark University describes many 

 of his own experiments showing the effect of alcohol on animals. He 

 trained four selected puppies to recover a ball thrown across a gymnasium. 

 To two of the dogs he gave food mixed with dietetic doses of alcohol, while 

 the others were fed normally. The ball was thrown 100 feet as rapidly as 

 recovered. This was repeated 100 times each day for fourteen successive 

 days. Out of 1400 times the dogs to which alcohol had been given brought 

 back the ball only 478 times, while the others secured it 922 times. 



Dr. Parkes experimented with two gangs of men, selected to be as 

 nearly similar as possible, in mowing. He found that with one gang 

 abstaining from alcoholic drinks and. the other not, the abstaining 

 gang could accomplish more. On transposing the gangs the same results 

 were repeatedly obtained. Similar results were obtained by Professor 

 Aschaffenburg of Heidelberg University, who found experimentally that 

 men " were able to do 15 per cent less work after taking alcohol." Profes- 

 sor Abel of Johrs Hopkins University says, " Both science and the ex- 

 perience of life have exploded the pernicious theory that alcohol gives any 

 persistent increase of muscular power." 



The Effect of Alcohol upon Intellectual Ability. With regard to the 

 supposed quickening of the mental processes Horsley and Sturge, in their 

 recent book, Alcohol and the Human Body, say : " Kraepelin found 

 that the simple reaction period, by which is meant the time occupied in 

 making a mere response to a signal, as, for instance, to the sudden ap- 

 pearance of a flag, was, after the ingestion of a small quantity of alcohol 

 (J: to ounce), slightly accelerated ; that there was, in fact, a slight 

 shortening of the time, as though the brain were enabled to operate more 

 quickly than before. But he found that after a few minutes, in most cases, 

 a slowing of mental action began, becoming more and more marked, and 

 enduring as long as the alcohol was in active operation in the body, i.e. 



