THE BLOOD AND ITS CIRCULATION 379 



The Effect of Alcohol upon the Blood. — It has recently been 

 discovered that alcohol has an extremely injurious effect upon the 

 colorless corpuscles of the blood, lowering their ability to fight disease 

 germs to a marked degree. This is well §een in a comparison of 

 deaths from certain infectious diseases in drinkers and abstainers, 

 the percentage of mortality being much greater in the former. 



Dr. T. Alexander MacNichol, in a recent address, said : — 



" Massart and Bordet, Metohnikoff and Sims Woodhead, have proved 

 that alcohol, even in every dilute solution, prevents the white blood cor- 

 puscles from attacking invading germs, thus depriving the system of the 

 cooperation of these important defenders, and reducing the powers of 

 resisting disease. The experiments of Richardson, Harlej^ Kales, and 

 others have demonstrated the fact that one to five per cent of alcohol in 

 the blood of the li\ing human body in a notable degree alters the appear- 

 ance of the corpuscular elements, reduces the oxygen bearing elements, 

 and prevents their reoxygenation." 



Emphasis is frequently placed on the destruction and deterioration of 

 the leucocytes or white blood corpuscles by writers on the subject. Dr. 

 Grosvener declares : — 



" The poisoning and paralyzing influences of alcohol lead to the con- 

 clusion that the alcoholized organism presents a lessened resistance to the 

 attacks of microorganisms. The detailed experiments of Abbot upon 

 lower animals lean strongly toward the same conclusion. His experiments 

 upon rabbits showed that the normal vital resistance to some organisms 

 was markedly diminished. . . . 



" Rubin as reported in Journal of Infectious Diseases, May 30, 1904, 

 studied the effect of alcohol upon infectious disease as shown in rabbits. 

 He found that the number of leucocytes was much less in alcoholized than 

 in the control rabbits, that as soon as the leucocytes began to decrease the 

 bacteria increased, that there existed a. negative chemotoxis." 



Alcohol in the stomach is rapidly absorbed and passes into the blood 

 stream. There the strong affinity of alcohol for oxygen, which leads 

 them to enter very rapidly into chemical combination, causes the alcohol 

 to appropriate the oxygen of the red corpuscles of the blood, which, as 

 we have seen, are the great oxygen carriers in the body. This tends to 

 impoverish the blood and render it less valuable to the tissues. — Macy, 

 Physiology. 



The Effect of Alcohol on the Circulation. — Alcoholic drinks 

 affect the very delicate adjustment of the nervous centers control- 

 ling the blood vessels and heart. Even very dilute alcohol acts 

 upon the muscles of the tiny blood vessels, consequently, more 



