THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POSITION OF ALCOHOL. 
159 
open to the eye, the vascular enlargement would be equally 
manifest. 
In course of time, in persons accustomed to alcohol, the 
vascular changes, temporary only in the noviciate, become 
confirmed and permanent. The bloom on the nose which 
characterizes the genial toper is the established sign of alcoholic 
action on vascular structure. 
Recently some new physiological enquiries have served to 
explain the reason why, under alcohol, the heart at first beats 
so quickly and why the pulses rise. At one time it was ima- 
gined that the alcohol acted immediately upon the heart, 
stimulating it to increased action, and from this idea — false 
idea, I should say — of the primary action of alcohol, many 
erroneous conclusions have been drawn. We have now learned 
that there exist many chemical bodies which act directly by pro- 
ducing a paralysis of the organic nervous supply of the vessels 
which constitute the minute vascular circuit. These minute 
vessels when paralysed offer inefficient resistance to the stroke of 
the heart, and the heart thus liberated, like the mainspring of a 
clock from which the resistance has been removed, quickens in 
action, dilating the minute and feebly-acting vessels, and giving 
evidence really not of increased but of wasted power. 
The phenomena noticed above constitute the first stage of 
alcoholic action on the body ; we may call it the stage of 
excitement ; it corresponds with a similar stage or degree caused 
by chloroform. 
If the action of alcohol be carried further, a new set of 
changes are induced in another part of the nervous system — 
the spinal system. Whether this change be due simply to the 
modification of the circulation in the spinal cord, or to the 
direct action of the alcohol upon the nervous matter, is not 
yet known, but the fact of change of function is well marked, 
and it consists of deficient power of co-ordination of muscular 
movement. The nervous control of certain of the muscles is lost, 
and the nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. The muscles 
of the lower lip in the human subject usually fail first of all, 
then the muscles of the lower limbs, and it is worthy of remark 
that the flexor muscles give way earlier than the extensors. 
The muscles themselves by this time are also failing in power ; 
they respond more feebly than is natural to the galvanic sti- 
mulus ; they, too, are coming under the depressing influence of 
the paralysing agent, their structure temporarily changed, and 
their contractile power everywhere reduced. This modification 
of the animal functions under alcohol marks the second degree 
of its action. In this degree, in young subjects, there is usually 
vomiting, and in birds this symptom is invariable. Under 
chloroform there is produced a degree or stage of action holding 
the same place in the order of phenomena. 
