Alcohol in Infectious Diseases by GEO. K. ABBOTT, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1909

Alcohol in Infectious Diseases

By GEO. K. ABBOTT, M. D.

THAT those addicted to the use of alcohol are more susceptible to such diseases as pneumonia than those not so addicted has been known for many years; also that this disease in drunkards is of a more severe type, and recovery less likely. Scientific evidence more and more confirms the common observation that alcohol distinctly lowers the body’s resistance to germ diseases. And yet, in spite of these facts, there are many who advocate the use of brandy or other heavily alcoholic liquors in pneumonia.

From the standpoint of the teacher, the scientific reason for this lowered resistance to infectious diseases is particularly interesting, since it can be made the basis of a blackboard talk to the pupils of even the intermediate grades. It serves indelibly to impress the mind with the harmful effects of alcohol, quinin, and opium. These latter have in this particular the same effects as alcohol.

The first drawings should represent the white blood-cell in the various forms which it may assume in health, showing its ameba-like movements. Also, how it gets through the blood-vessel wall and travels about through the tissues, not in an aimless manner, but for definite purposes,—one of which may be the finding and destroying of a germ or other foreign particle. The cells of the body produce substances which are harmful to the germ, thus crippling it (Eli Metchnikoff). When the germ becomes less active, the white blood-cell seizes upon it, and literally eats it up. It undergoes digestion in the body of the cell, and is thus destroyed.

But let us note the result when drugs are used. If the movements of the white blood-cells are being watched under the microscope, and some quinin is added, they cease at once (White’s Materia Medica). If quinin (or alcohol) be injected into the blood-vessels, the white corpuscles are prevented from wandering into the tissues. Or if the drug is dropped onto the tissue, then the white cells outside of the blood-vessel are prevented from returning, while those inside continue to emigrate (Sollmann). They thus accumulate in the tissues outside

of the blood-vessels, and are lost to any useful purpose. This poisonous action is so marked in the case of quinin that abscesses may be formed if it is injected under the skin. An abscess is simply an accumulation of dead white blood-cells, and the pus consists of the bodies of these cells.

So much for actual experiment on the activity of the white blood-cells. Does experience with other diseases than pneumonia demonstrate that alcohol lowers the resistance to bacteria? Metchnikoff says: “The vaccinations against hydrophobia carried out on persons bitten by mad animals are almost always successful; but those cases in which the treatment does not stop the outbreak of the disease are most frequently observed in individuals addicted to alcoholism.” Rabbits which have been given alcohol for several days, die when injected with a small dose of anthrax (a disease of sheep); while they rarely succumb, and nearly always enjoy perfect health, if given no alcohol. This impairment of their resistance was manifested by the inactivity of their white blood-cells (Laitinen). The bacteria were permitted to multiply without being checked by a sufficiently strong germ-destroying power of the white blood-cells—the agents of natural defense against microbes. Many other examples might be given, but these are sufficient to settle once and forever in the mind of any candid person the question of the benefit or harm of using alcoholic liquors in either health or disease.

Summing up the experimental knowledge concerning the harmful effects of alcohol and other drugs, Prof. Metchnikoff says: “But it is not only opium and alcohol which hinder the phagocytic (germ-destroying) action. A number of other substances regularly employed in medicine cause the same results. Even quinin, the prophylactic effect of which in malarial fevers is indisputable, is a poison for the white blood-cells. One should, therefore, as a general rule, avoid as far as possible the use of all sorts of medicaments, and limit one's self to the hygienic measures which may check the outbreak of infectious disease. This postulate further strengthens the thesis that the future of medicine rests far more in hygiene than in therapeutics.”

GEO. K. ABBOTT, M. D.