J. H. KELLOGG, M.D by John Harvey Kellogg

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 9, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 48.

J. H. KELLOGG, M.D

By John Harvey Kellogg

One of the signs of intemperance, which its victims put forth the most strenuous efforts to suppress, is that peculiar enlargement of the nose, with intense redness, so appropriately termed the “rum blossom.” The effect of alcohol is to paralyze the nerves of the blood-vessels; and when its frequent use occasions the almost constant paralysis and engorgement of the blood-vessels of the face and nose, more particularly the latter, it grows too fast, and by this means may acquire enormous size.

The significance of the toddy blossom is by no means small. The red nose and flushed face of the drunkard indicate a similar condition of other parts of the body. When a moderate drinker’s face is flushed by wine, his brain is flushed as well, and not his brain only, but his muscles, his heart, his stomach, his liver, and every part of his body blushes at the indignity to which it is subjected.

Is it any wonder that the toper feels depressed and enervated, and in need of a “pick me up” the next morning after a debauch? or that he falls so easy a victim to causes of disease which others escape? It was long ago observed that drunkards were the favorite victims of cholera, the plague, sunstroke, and other causes of speedy death. The system is prepared, by the paralyzing influence of the drug, for almost any form of disease to which human flesh is heir.

The brain of a man who carries a rum blossom on his face is pretty certain to be in a state of disease. When healthy, the brain is so soft that it would scarcely retain its shape if it were not for the skull. The sharpest knife is required to cut it without mangling its structure. It is necessary to immerse the organ in alcohol for weeks, or even months, in order to harden it, when a careful examination is necessary. But a drunkard’s brain presents a marked contrast. It is already hardened—pickled, almost. In the dissecting room, it affords rare pleasure for a medical student to secure the desiccated brain of an old toper. A celebrated anatomist declared that he could tell a drunkard’s brain in the dark, by the sense of touch alone. A London physician reported a case in which he found, upon making a post-mortem examination, a strong odor of alcohol emanating from the brain; and when he applied a match to it, it burst into flame. The quantity of alcohol in the brain is sometimes so great that it can be collected by distillation after death.

It must not be supposed that every drunkard’s brain is as hard as a pickled one; but it may be fairly supposed that the hardening effect of alcohol has no little influence in the production of degenerations of the brain, such as result in various forms of progressive paralysis. Numerous functional disorders of this organ are also traceable directly to the habitual use of alcoholic liquors. Locomotor ataxia, an almost hopeless malady, involving the brain and spinal cord, is very often the result of intemperance.

The blossom is a thorough index to the condition of the drunkard’s dilapidated body. To the eye of the physiologist, it tells the startling tale of the effects of alcohol upon the heart. When the drug is taken into the blood, it soon comes in contact with the nerve centers which govern the action of the heart. Its effects are the same as upon the other nerve centers. It paralyzes them, just as chloroform does the brain. Then the heart is like a steam engine without a governor, or a clock from which the pendulum weight has been removed. It runs down with wonderful rapidity. This effect is largely due, also, to the influence of alcohol upon the small blood-vessels; the nerves which control them becoming paralyzed, they become dilated or relaxed, and so afford less resistance to the action of the heart, allowing it to beat too rapidly. This increased action is most unfortunately mistaken for increase in strength on the part of the organ, when it is mere increase of action—wasted force. The amount of extra work done by the heart under the influence of liquor may be readily estimated. Dr. Parkes, by a series of careful experiments, found that the pulse of a man whose heart beat about 74 times a minute, or 106,560 times in twenty-four hours, when drinking only water, was, when under the influence of one ounce of alcohol per day, compelled to beat 430 times more in a day. Two ounces of alcohol per day caused an increase of 1,872 beats a day. Four ounces required 12,960 extra beats a day. Six ounces drove the pulse up to 18,432 extra beats, and eight ounces, to 25,488 unnecessary beats, or nearly one-quarter more than when taking only water.

It must not be supposed that the evils referred to are solely the result of the use of a large quantity of alcohol. Dr. Carpenter, the eminent English physiologist, is authority for the statement that the changes in the corpuscles and the fibrine of the blood take place when not more than one part of alcohol to 500 of blood is employed. Thus it will be seen that the very weakest wines are unsafe, since none of them contain less than three to five per cent. Even small beer would be capable of doing mischief in this way. It is apparent, then, that the only safe ground to take in relation to alcoholic liquors is that of total abstinence. Alcohol may be very useful as a chemical agent, occasionally convenient as a preservative, and possibly sometimes productive of good as a medicine, tho it may be doubted whether there are not better remedies which may well be substituted for it; but it is not only of no value as a food, but in the highest degree injurious if regularly used, even in small quantities.