More Evidence Against Alcohol by L. A. Hansen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 30, 1916

More Evidence Against Alcohol

By L. A. Hansen

A RECENT mail brought the following item of health news, issued under date of Feb. 23, 1916:—

“ALCOHOL AND PNEUMONIA

“The United States Public Health Service brands strong drink as the most efficient ally of pneumonia. It declares that alcohol is the handmaiden of the disease which produces ten per cent of the deaths in the United States. This is no exaggeration. We have known for a long time that indulgence in alcoholic liquors lowers the individual vitality, and that the man who drinks is peculiarly susceptible to pneumonia. The United States Public Health Service is a conservative body. It does not engage in alarmist propaganda. In following out the line of its official duties it has brought forcefully to the general public a fact which will bear endless repetition. The liberal and continuous user of alcoholic drinks will do well to heed this warning, particularly at this season of the year when the gruesome death toll from pneumonia is being doubled.”

The same mail brought the Journal of the American Medical Association of March 4, in which the first editorial article is entitled “New Evidence Against Alcohol.” This article presents the most recent observations on the possible effects of alcohol in moderate doses. We quote:—

“The data already collected on the effects of alcohol are extremely voluminous. Some of the work may be said to be tinged with almost inevitable traces of personal bias, for the subject is one on which many persons have firm convictions, often based on ethical, social, or economic grounds rather than on physiologic evidence. Nothing is more convincing in this field, however, than clear-cut indications furnished by strictly objective scientific investigation of the possible effects of alcohol in moderate doses—for these alone are worthy of debate—on the functions of the human organism. Duplication of results, and frequent repetition of the experiments by independent investigators in a matter of such fundamental importance, will call forth no criticism of wasted scientific energy.

“Accordingly, the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, of Washington, ideally equipped for a re-investigation of the alcohol question under the best auspices, has taken up the subject anew with a thoroughness and on a scale which it is expected will satisfy the majority of scientists as to the dependability of the results. The program for this exhaustive experimental study of the physiologic consequences of the ingestion of small doses of ethyl alcohol in man, has begun with the psychologic aspects of the subject. This feature, studied by Dodge and Benedict, included the effects of alcohol on a selected group of interrelated processes covering the fundamental neural activities at various levels of the cerebrospinal

system, from the simplest reflexes of the lumbar cord to the most complex cortical arcs that could be measured accurately by available laboratory technic.”

The tests made involved certain nerve reflexes, the eye, speech, memory, and sensory changes, and were of a nature to insure accuracy. We quote the results as given in the last two paragraphs of the Journal editorial:—

“The greatest effect was found in the reflexes. In the patellar reflex, alcohol increased the latent time ten per cent, while it decreased the amount of quadriceps thickening forty-six per cent. In the protective lid reflex it increased the latent time seven per cent, while it decreased the extent of lid movement nineteen per cent. It increased the latent time of the eye reactions five per cent, and that of the speech reactions three per cent. Memory and the free associations were only slightly affected. Sensitivity to faradic stimulation decreased fourteen per cent after alcohol. The number of finger movements decreased nine per cent, and the velocity of the eye movements decreased eleven per cent, as a consequence of the ingestion of alcohol.

“These observations bring further evidence of the general depression of the neuromuscular processes at all levels of the cerebrospinal system. There is depression of even the simplest forms of motor processes, such as are found in eye and finger movements. Certainly nothing in all of this suggests any true stimulation, any increase in psychologic or physiologic efficiency. Impairment seems to be the keynote expressed by the depression. Here is the statement of the Nutrition Laboratory investigators: ‘In conjunction with the pulse acceleration, the general neuromuscular depression may be regarded as presumptive evidence of the effect of alcohol on organic efficiency. In none of our data is there any indication of a pure facilitation effect of alcohol.’ These scientific findings leave the conclusion of Quensel unimpeached. ‘Work and alcohol,’ he said, ‘do not belong together, especially when work demands wide-awakeness, attention, exactness, and endurance.’”

These authoritative statements are worthy of preservation by those interested in this subject.

L. A. HANSEN.