Temperance | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 17, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 27.

Temperance.

Alcohol and the Heart Beats.

As a rule, it is well to let the processes of life in our bodies go on without noticing them, for doubtless it would make us very nervous to have the internal machinery in motion before our eyes. But to prevent people from abusing that delicate machinery, it often becomes necessary to show it; and if a person addicted to wrong indulgence is made "nervous" by the sight, it may save him from being made something far worse.

Dr. N. B. Richardson, of London, the noted physician, says he was recently able to convey a considerable amount of conviction to an intelligent scholar, by a simple experiment. The scholar was singing the praises of the "ruddy bumper," and saying he could not get through the day without it, when Dr. Richardson said to him:—

"Will you be good enough to feel my pulse as I stand here?"

He did so. I said, "Count it carefully; what does it say?"

"Your pulse says seventy-four."

I then sat down in a chair and asked him to count it again. He did so, and said, "Your pulse has gone down to seventy."

I then lay down on the lounge, and said:—

"Will you take it again?"

He replied, "Why, it is only sixty-four; what an extraordinary thing!"

I then said, "When you lie down at night, that is the way nature gives your heart rest. You know nothing about it, but that beating organ is resting to that extent; and if you reckon it up, it is a great deal of rest, because in lying down the heart is doing ten strokes less a minute. Multiply that by 60 and it is 600; multiply it by 8 hours, and within a fraction it is 5,000 strokes different; and as the heart is throwing 6 ounces of blood at every stroke, it makes a difference of 30,000 ounces of lifting during the night.

"When I lie down at night without any alcohol that is the rest my heart gets. But when you take your wine or grog you do not allow that rest, for the influence of alcohol is to increase the number of strokes, and instead of getting this rest you put on something like 15,000 extra strokes, and the result is you rise up very seedy and unfit for the next day's work till you have taken a little more of the 'ruddy bumper,' which you say is the soul of man below."—Pacific Rural Press.