The Effects of Alcohol on the Senses. 271 



finish of goods by touch, would be impossible for one whose 

 sense of touch is not keen. 



Experiments on the Effects of Alcohol on the Senses. - 

 During the last few years a number of observers have 

 experimented on the effects of alcohol on the senses. By 

 testing the degree of sensibility after giving small doses of 

 alcohol they have proved that the senses are invariably less 

 keen than before. It is proved that alcohol exercises 

 a narcotic, or deadening, effect on the senses. Dr. Kellogg 

 found that alcohol reduced the sense of touch and the tem- 

 perature sense more than one hundred per cent, while 

 muscular strength was diminished thirty per cent. Alcohol 

 benumbs nerve structures of every sort and does not in- 

 crease the activity of either the nerves or the brain. 



Effects of Alcohol on the Temperature Sense. The tem- 

 perature sense is so closely related to the sense of touch 

 that until late years they were considered to be one and 

 the same thing. Now they are regarded as separate. 

 Along with the dulling of the sense of touch, under the 

 influence of alcohol, comes a deadening of the temperature 

 sense. The drunken man may take hold of a hot iron and 

 severely burn the hand without realizing the injury. Thus 

 the use of pain is lost, for its purpose is to tell us when 

 any organ is injured, and by the pain compel us to remedy 

 the trouble. The drunken person exposed to cold does 

 not feel it. In the first place the increased circulation of 

 blood in the skin gives him a false sense of heat, at the 

 very time when he is losing heat faster than usual. But 

 the main trouble now is that he has lost his sensibility to 

 cold, as well as to heat. He is likely to freeze without 

 knowing the danger. Every winter we read of drunkards 

 who have been thus frozen to death in the streets and 



