358 THE HUMAN BODY. 



The Sense-organs are also affected: their acuteness of per- 

 ception is dulled; and many physicians believe that cata- 

 ract and retinal disease may be produced by drinking. The 

 red inflamed white of the eye of topers is well known. 



The Brain and Spinal Cord are kept in a chronic state of 

 congestion* and over-excitement. This results at first in in- 

 flammatory disease (delirium tremens); later, in fibrous de- 

 generation, leading to certain forms of paralysis or to epi- 

 lepsy, of which there is one variety well recognized by phy- 

 sicians as due to alcohol. 



(c) Moral Deterioration produced by Alcohol. One re- 

 sult of a single dose of alcohol is that the control of the 

 Will over the actions and emotions is temporarily enfeebled; 

 the slightly tipsy man laughs and talks loudly, says and 

 does rash things, is enraged or delighted without due cause. 

 If the amount of alcohol be increased, further diminution 

 of will-power is indicated by loss of control over the mus- 

 cles. Excessive habitual use of alcohol results in perma- 

 nent over-excitement of the emotional nature and en- 

 feeblement of the Will; the man's highly emotional state 

 exposes him to special temptation to excesses of all 

 kinds, and his weakened Will decreases the power of 

 resistance: the final outcome is a degraded moral condi- 

 tion. He who was prompt in the performance of duty be- 



Describe the action of alcohol on the sense-organs. On the brain and 

 spinal cord, and the resulting diseases. 

 Describe the moral deterioration produced by alcohol. 



* " I once had the unusual though unhappy opportunity of observing the same 

 phenomenon in the brain-structure of a man who, in a fit of alcoholic excitement, 

 decapitated himself under the wheel of a railway-carriage, and whose brain was 

 instantaneously evolved from the skull by the crash. The brain itself, entire, was 

 before me within three minutes after death. It exhaled the odor of spirit most 

 distinctly, and its membranes and minute structures were vascular in the ex- 

 treme. It looked as if it had been recently injected with vermillion." Dr. B, Pf. 

 Richardson. 



