EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON NERVOUS SYSTEM. 251 



symptoms. Speech becomes disordered, and symptoms 

 of incoordination, due probably to an effect on the cere- 

 bellum, appear. The respiratory center in the medulla 

 then becomes affected, and at this stage there is coma 

 with stertorous breathing, while the action of the heart 

 still continues, even after respiration has stopped. There 

 can be no question that alcohol taken in sufficient quanti- 

 ties to depress the higher centers of the brain does an 

 infinite amount of harm." 



Dr. Crothers, author of Diseases of Inebriety, says, " I 

 have often been made impatient in listening to the lecturer 

 presenting the ' scientific aspects of the alcohol question ' 

 to an audience, to see him illustrate extensively with 

 charts, and spend hours to show the effects of alcohol 

 upon the coats of the stomach, and upon the structure of 

 the liver and the kidneys, and never allude once to the 

 brain ; when the fact is, alcohol's principal effect is upon 

 this organ, and the functions of this organ so far transcend 

 the functions of all the others, that I might say, there is 

 no comparison." 



Some authors hold that the alterations in the tissues by 

 alcoholic drinks result from the injury to the nerve centers 

 that preside over these tissues ; for their nutrition depends 

 not merely on the direct effect of the blood and lymph 

 supply, but also upon the direct influences of the nerve 

 centers ; they even go so far as to maintain that there is a 

 special set of nerve fibers devoted to the control of the 

 nutrition of the cells, and these nerve fibers they call 

 "trophic nerves" or "trophic fibers." 



" It is clear that the nervous centers, independently of 

 the ill effects on their nutrition by the blood changes, 

 have a certain chemical attraction for alcohol, which 

 accordingly is found in their tissue." CROTHERS. 



