THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POSITION OF ALCOHOL. 
163 
earth. The experiences of the Arctic voyagers, of the leaders of 
the great Napoleonic campaign in Kussia, of the good monks 
of St. Bernard, all testify that death from cold is accelerated 
by its ally alcohol. Experiments with alcohol in extreme cold 
tell the like story, while the chilliness of body which succeeds 
upon even a moderate excess of alcoholic indulgence leads 
direct to the same indication of truth. 
3. The conclusive evidence now in our possession that 
alcohol taken into the animal body sets free the heart, so as to 
cause the excess of motion of which the record has been given 
above, is proof that the heart, under the frequent influence of 
alcohol, must undergo deleterious change of structure. It 
may, indeed, be admitted in proper fairness, that when the 
heart is passing through this rapid movement it is working under 
less pressure than when its movements are slow and natural ; 
and this allowance must needs be made or the inference 
would be that the organ ought to stop at once in function by 
the excess of strain put upon it. At the same time the 
excess of motion is unquestionably injurious to the heart and 
to the body at large : it subjects the body in all its parts to 
irregularity of supply of blood ; it subjects the heart to the 
same injurious influence ; it weakens and, as a necessary 
sequence, degrades both the body and the heart. 
4. Speaking honestly, I cannot, by any argument yet 
presented to me, admit the alcohols by any sign that should 
distinguish them from other chemical substances of the ex- 
citing and depressing narcotic class. When it is physiologi- 
cally understood that what is called stimulation or excitement 
is, in absolute fact, a relaxation, I had nearly said a paralysis, 
of one of the most important mechanisms in the animal body 
— the minute, resisting, compensating circulation — we grasp 
quickly the error in respect to the action of stimulants in 
which we have been educated, and obtain a clear solution of 
the well known experience that all excitement, all passion, 
leaves, after its departure, lowness of heart, depression of mind, 
sadness of spirit. We learn, then, in respect to alcohol, that 
the temporary excitement it produces is at the expense of the 
animal force, and that the ideas of its being necessary to resort 
to it, that it may lift up the forces of the animal body into 
true and firm and even activity, or that it may add some- 
thing useful to the living tissues, are errors as solemn as 
they are widely disseminated. In the scientific education of 
the people no fact is more deserving of special comment than 
this fact, that excitement is wasted force, the running down of 
the animal mechanism before it has served out its time of 
motion. 
5. It will be said that alcohol cheers the weary, and that to 
