274 Physiology. 



Alcohol and Pain. The nerves of general sensibility in 

 the skin, and elsewhere, are dulled. Hence pain is not 

 felt as when sober. Great injury may occur and pass 

 unheeded, because of this loss of sensibility. The un- 

 fortunate person may be badly burnt, cut, or bruised, and 

 hardly be aware of it. If aware of it, he is not likely to be 

 able to remedy the difficulty. In earlier times, before 

 anesthetics were in general use, it was the custom to make 

 a person drunk, and, hence, nearly or quite insensible, 

 before a surgical operation. Ether or chloroform deaden 

 sensibility much more surely, and without such serious 

 reaction afterward. 



Alcohol and Fatigue. The main reason why alcohol 

 seems to restore a tired person is because it deadens the 

 sense of fatigue. This is also true of the apparent banish- 

 ment of the feeling of depression, or any of the other 

 general sensations. 



Loss of Nerve Sensibility. " It is the diminution of 

 nerve sensibility that renders the individual, first, light, 

 airy, and hilarious, giving the popular idea of excitement 

 or stimulation ; second, dull, hesitating, or incoherent in 

 thought or speech, and unsteady or swaggering in gait, - 

 a stage popularly recognized as incipient intoxication ; and, 

 third, brings on entire unconsciousness and muscular pa- 

 ralysis, constituting dead-drunkenness, or complete anes- 

 thesia. These successive stages are developed in direct 

 ratio to the quantity taken." N. S. Davis, M.D. 



Alcohol not Stimulating. "People appeal to their feel- 

 ings, and as they seem more excited, brisker and livelier 

 after a dose of alcohol, they jump to the conclusion that 

 the alcohol has had a direct stimulating effect upon them. 

 Exact measurements have proved that this is an illusion, 



