SCIENTIFIC OPINIONS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 17, 1890

SCIENTIFIC OPINIONS.

The Scientific American gives many a good stroke for temperance from a scientific standpoint. In its last issue is a valuable article from the Medical Record on "The Influence of Moderate Drinking on Health," most of it quoted from Dr. Harley, the eminent English hepatologist. Comparing the mortality statistics, he shows that with men exposed to the temptation of frequent "nipping," the mortality is six times greater than among those representing all other industries combined. The liver, the kidneys, the heart, and the nervous system, become most frequently affected in moderate imbibers. Almost every drop of alcohol taken into the stomach is absorbed by the branches of the portal veins, and carried to the liver. By experiments with dogs he proved, as long ago as 1853, that the mere injection of alcohol into the portal vein disorders the hepatic function to such an extent that the animal becomes diabetic in a few hours. The kidneys suffer only less than the liver, being one degree further removed from the stomach. Dr. Harley claims to have obtained pure alcohol from the kidneys of persons who died intoxicated, by the simple process of distillation.

The bad effect upon the heart consists in inviting disease in the predisposed, as well as in augmenting disease which already exists. Alcohol taken in small quantities, frequently repeated, acts deleteriously upon the nervous system, by keeping the blood-vessels engorged, and causing them to press upon the nerve-cells and fibers. This interferes both with the proper performance of their functions and with their nutrition. The nerves also suffer indirectly through the action of alcohol on the blood. Dr. Harley found that five per cent of alcohol exerts so powerful a chemical effect on the blood as to entirely derange one of its most important functions—that of respiration. Alcohol seems to act like an asphyxiant; it diminishes the power of the red corpuscles to absorb oxygen and to exhale carbonic acid, in the same manner, though to a less extent, than morphia. This peculiar chemical action of alcohol on the blood nerve pabulum may give a reasonable explanation of the paralyzing action of alcohol upon the nervous system, since oxidation is the motor power of all vital action, and, in direct pro-