1870.] 



Alcohol on the Human Body. 



391 



tracings show a more rapid contraction of the ventricles, but less power 

 than in the alcoholic period. The brandy acted, in fact, on a heart whose 

 nutrition had not been perfectly restored. 



The peripheral circulation was accelerated and the vessels were enlarged ; 

 and the effect was so marked as to show that this is an important influence 

 for good or for evil when alcohol is used. 



Referring only to this healthy man, it is clear that the amount of alcohol 

 the heart will bear without losing its healthy sphygmographic tracing is 

 small, and it must be supposed that some disease of heart or vessels would 

 eventually follow the overaction produced by large doses of alcohol. 



3. Although large doses of alcohol lessened appetite, they did not ap- 

 pear to impede primary digestion, as far as this could be judged of by the 

 sensations of the man ; nor did they seem to check the normal chemical 

 changes in the body which end in the elimination of nitrogenous excreta, 

 of phosphoric acid, and of free acidity. In other words, we were unable 

 to trace either the good or the evil ascribed to alcohol in this direction : it 

 neither depressed these chemical changes nor obviously increased them ; 

 it neither saved the tissues nor exhausted them; and even in the period of 

 ephemeral fever its effects were negative. 



But, of course, in these experiments we were not dealing with diseased 

 tissues, nor with structures altered in composition by long-continued excess 

 of alcohol. The results in such cases might be different ; and it may be 

 desirable to repeat that though appetite was lessened, the amount of food 

 taken was the same each day. 



4. Neither pure alcohol nor brandy, in the quantities given, lessened the 

 temperature ; in other words, they did not arrest the chemical changes 

 which produce animal heat., or lessen the processes which regulate its 

 amount, any more than they influenced nitrogenous tissue-change. Alcohol 

 in no way influenced the rise of temperature during the attack of ephemeral 

 fever ; it neither lowered nor increased it. This appears to us conclusive 

 against the proposal to use alcohol as a reducer of febrile heat. 



On the other hand it is not clear that alcohol increased the temperature : 

 it produced subjective feelings of warmth in the stomach, in the face, round 

 the loins, and over the shoulders ; but at the time when these were felt 

 (for about one hour after tolerably large doses) the thermometer in the 

 axilla and rectum showed no rise. This is best seen by comparing the 

 two o'clock observations, which were taken about half an hour after dinner. 

 The feelings result from the enlargement of the vessels and the greater 

 flow of blood through them ; so, also, the ephemeral fever was decidedly 

 not made worse by it. 



5. An effect on the nervous system was not proved by any evidence of in- 

 crease or decline in the amount of phosphoric acid ; but there were marked 

 subjective feelings ; and possibly also the increased action of the heart was 

 a nervous condition, as the short contractions of the ventricle were like 

 those ascribed to alterations in the nervous currents. The feelings which 



