FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D.
(Battle Creek, Mich.)
ON THE BRAIN.
“The effects of alcohol vary greatly in different individuals, and in the same individual at different times. One person is rendered sentimental, another bellicose, while in a third there may be no appearance of excitement, the first distinct symptom being profound slumber. When drinking is indulged in in company, the excitement stage is a very common phenomenon, but if alcohol is taken without the exhilarating accompaniments of bright lights and exciting companionship, it is less frequently seen, and the question has therefore arisen how far the environment produces the excitement in alcoholic intoxication.
“In small quantities it generally produces a feeling of well-being and good fellowship, along with increased confidence in the powers, mental and physical. Larger quantities are followed by a certain amount of excitement, marked by laughter, loquacity, and gesticulation. The face becomes flushed and hot, the eyes brighter and livelier, the pulse is accelerated. Even at this stage the self-control is partially lost, and the will power is weakened. The speech may be brilliant, but it betrays the speaker; the movements are more lively, but they are often undignified. The loss of self-control is often indicated further by furious bursts of anger and unreasonableness, or by the indulgence of maudlin sentimentality and sexual fancies. The sense of responsibility and the power of discrimination between the trivial and the important are lost, and the individual has no regard for the feelings of others or the ordinary conventions of life. If the bout be further continued, the movements become uncertain, the speech becomes difficult and stammering, the walk becomes a stagger, and a torpid slumber follows.” — Cushney on “Action of Drugs,” 1900.
Alcohol produces mental anaesthesia, and slows all mental processes, but it deceives its victim by making him believe that he is thinking more profoundly and more rapidly. Thought is less logical and more superficial. Noted authors, writing under the influence of alcohol, have felt that they were turning out wonderful and beautiful productions, but the next morning they found that their writings would not bear criticism. Alcohol perverts the judgment (Prov. 31:5), blunts the perceptions, holds the self-control in abeyance, and primarily acts as a narcotic and diminishes sensibility. Prov. 23:35 refers to the action of alcohol, and also to the fact that it possesses the power of lessening pain. A man says, “They have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.” He would rather take a beating under the influence of wine than to quit its use, and when he awakens, he will seek it yet again to be ready for the next beating. This shows the anaesthetic action of alcohol upon the body. Very small quantities of alcohol will lessen pain. Men take to drink frequently to “drown their sorrows,” and to blot out the memories of accumulated miseries. It is because of the anaesthetic influence of alcohol that it is so frequently sought. It is a moral anaesthetic. “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish [so that he may perish more easily], and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.” Prov. 31:6, 7. Alcohol depresses the memory; and if constantly used, the memory is permanently injured, for the poison destroys the brain cells by which memory is possible.
“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Prov. 20:1. Alcohol makes a man feel rich when he is a beggar, well when he is sick, strong when he is weak, warm when he is freezing, happy when he is miserable, full when he is starving, working fast and hard when he is hardly moving, refreshed when he is exhausted and weary, like an angel when he is a demon.
Sir Lauder Brunton, an eminent English authority on the action of drugs, has the following to say in regard to the action of alcohol on the brain: “The effect of alcohol appears to be, as it were, to shave off the nervous system, layer by layer, attacking first the highest developed faculties, and leaving the lowest to the last, so that we find that a man’s judgment may be lessened, though at the same time some lower faculties, such as the imagination, may appear to be more active than before, just as I told you that in case of other parts of the nervous system, when you remove inhibition (the controlling power), you apparently increase the activity of a center, and that the highest centers have an inhibitory action upon the lower ones. Thus you find that after a man has taken alcohol, his judgment may be diminished, but he may become more loquacious and more jolly than before. Then after a while his faculties become dull; he gets stupid and drowsy. This is the narcotic and anodyne action of alcohol. As a hypnotic it causes sleep, as an anodyne it removes pain, as a narcotic it also disturbs the balance of the faculties, so that the man is no longer able to see and judge things as he did before, but at the same time the man may still be able to walk. Later on it affects the motor centers.”
The spirit of alcohol creates an intense hatred in the mind against the Spirit of God, and holds its victim in such terrible bondage that there is little disposition even to desire the Spirit of God.
Under the influence of alcohol, with the will power gone, the natural character of an individual is revealed. He does things that are perfectly natural to the “carnal mind.” When a man is under the influence of the Spirit of God, the divine character in him is revealed, and then he does that which is unnatural — he denies himself, and reaches down to help the lowest of earth.
ON THE MUSCLES.
Alcohol lessens the contracting power of a muscle, and slows its action, though one feels that he is stronger and quicker. A beer drinker will shovel less dirt than an abstainer. A regiment of soldiers without beer, whisky, or brandy, will march more miles, more quickly and with better maneuvers, with less fatigue the next day, than a regiment supplied with liquor. Different nations have thoroughly demonstrated this fact.
Alcohol destroys the sense of fatigue, and causes a man to work when he is weary and exhausted. Nothing could be more harmful in wearing out the human machine.
ALCOHOL AND HEAT PRODUCTION.
There is a popular notion that alcohol warms the body. Nothing is more deceptive and fallacious. Alcohol is drunk in cold weather in order to keep warm, and in hot weather to keep the head cool! Alcohol dilates the vessels of the skin, and so, by causing more blood to circulate on the surface of the body, the skin is actually warmer. This warming of the skin warms the sensory nerve endings, which in turn convey this sensation to the brain. The brain centers are actually deceived by this sensation, and are made to feel that the body is warm and out of danger, and hence they check the production of heat. As a matter of fact, the skin is warmed at the expense of the internal organs, and the loss of heat from the surface is so great that the internal and vital organs are chilled, endangering life. Hence alcohol is no protection against cold, but renders one more susceptible to it.
Arctic explorers who abstain from liquors endure the extreme northern climate far better than those who drink. In 1786 Prince Paternkin, prime minister of Russia under the Empress Katherine, gave a state dinner to peasants. All ate heartily, and brandy flowed freely. A very cold night set in, many were unprotected, and the next morning sixteen thousand were found frozen to death.
Brunton reports the following case: “A party of engineers were surveying in the Sierra Nevadas. They camped at a great height from the sea level, where the air was very cold. Some of them drank a little whisky, and felt less uncomfortable; some of them drank a lot of whisky, and went to bed feeling very jolly and comfortable indeed. But in the morning the men who had not taken any whisky got up all right; those who had taken a little whisky got up feeling very unhappy; the men who had taken a lot of whisky did not get up at all,—they were simply frozen to death. They had warmed the surface of the body at the expense of their internal organs.”
Alcohol lessens the oxygen-carrying powers of the blood, and prevents it from giving up the oxygen to the tissues; oxidation is diminished, hence heat production is reduced. To increase oxidation is one of the fundamental principles in23the treatment of fever, yet many physicians regard alcohol as almost indispensable in the treatment of fevers. It is true that alcohol lowers fever by increasing loss of heat from the skin, but its injurious effects much more than counterbalance this one action, which may be produced much more effectually with water.