302 THE HUMAN MECHANISM 



poisoned. If such intoxication is frequently repeated, there 

 is a complete breakdown of the nervous system ; the victim 

 of alcoholic indulgence becomes a raving maniac and, with 

 disordered vision, thinks he sees all about him snakes or 

 foul vermin (delirium tr emeus). The silly or foolish stage 

 of this poisoning sometimes provokes smiles or laughter in 

 thoughtless observers, but none can witness the more serious 

 consequences of repeated intoxication by alcoholic drinks 

 without disgust and horror. 



Many steady drinkers, even though they have never been 

 drunk in their lives, are apt ultimately to acquire various 

 diseased conditions of the body, into which we cannot enter 

 in detail. The heart may be injured, or the arteries become 

 diseased ; the repeated irritation of the stomach may produce 

 chronic gastritis ; or the connective tissue of the liver and 

 kidneys may increase, thus crowding upon the living cells 

 and ultimately throwing a large part of them entirely out of 

 use. While it must not be supposed that drinking alcohol is 

 the sole cause of these troubles, for some or all of them 

 may come from other causes, the frequency of their occur- 

 rence in steady drinkers is suspiciously high, and this has 

 led to the very strong conviction among medical men that 

 alcohol plays a large role in producing them. 



19. Summary of the action of alcohol as a drug. In small 

 doses alcohol may be completely oxidized within the body 

 without exerting any pharmacological action. In the forms 

 and amounts usually employed in alcoholic beverages it 

 exerts, in general, a hypnotic or anesthetic action ; the result 

 on the system as a whole depends on the amount taken, 

 and varies from the paralysis of inhibitory processes to the 

 depression of all nervous functions, ending in drunken 

 stupor. Continued excess may produce exaggerated forms 

 of temporary insanity, among which delirium tremens may 

 be mentioned. There is, moreover, good reason for believing 

 that steady drinking is very frequently an important agent 



