1870.] Alcohol on the Human Body. 379 



Seven days after. 

 (15 minutes after taking a glass of beer.) 



After the alcohol was left off the tracings show indications of its influ- 

 ence, even to the sixth day. The tracing on the eighteenth day (the 

 fourth after the cessation of alcohol) shows a weak and quickly acting 

 heart ; but allowance must be made for the fact that that was a day of com- 

 plete rest in bed. On the sixth day after alcohol the mean pulse was 76*2 

 per minute, and the tracing shows still rapidity and feebleness of the heart's 

 action. This seems to confirm the usual doctrine that increased rapidity 

 of contraction from the action of alcohol is followed by exhaustion ; but 

 it also shous that this effect does not ensue so immediately as is supposed, 

 but that the effect of the alcohol is more persistent. 



When brandy was then given, the effect on the exhausted heart was very 

 obvious ; the ventricle commenced to contract again more rapidly, and, in 

 fact, the effect of the brandy is more marked than that of alcohol. 



It is difficult perhaps to explain all the indications of the brandy tra- 

 cings, but there seems no doubt that the ventricular contraction was very 

 sudden ; the aortic valves opened with violence ; a rapid wave traversed 

 the blood, sending the lever up very high ; the summit of the curve is 

 sharp, and the equilibrium of tension between ventricle and artery must 

 have been soon reached ; the arteries emptied themselves very rapidly. 



After the brandy was left off the tracings are seen gradually returning 

 to the curve of health, though they had not reached it on the morning of 

 the twenty-seventh day (the fourth after brandy), when the experiments 

 were obliged to be discontinued. 



Seven days later the pulse was nearly healthy again. 



It is noticeable that twelve ounces of brandy (containing 48 per cent, 

 of alcohol) had more effect than eight ounces of absolute alcohol, but it 

 must be remembered that when the brandy was given the heart had not 

 recovered from the influence of the alcohol ; in other words, it was not 

 perfectly healthy *. 



* Dr. Burdon-Sanderson was kind enough to look at three tracings, Xo. 1 of the 

 water period, Xo. 2 of the alcoholic period, and Xo. 3 of the brandy period. He writes 

 as follows : — 



" I think (1) that 3o. 1 is a normal pulse. 



" (2) That the changes exhibited in 2sos. 2 and 3 are of the same nature, but different 

 in degree ; i. e. that the degree of modification is greater in 3 than in 2. Hence the 

 explanation of both must be the same. 



" (3) The alteration of form is partly due to the mere increase of frequency ; but in 



