Alcohol and the Nervous System by George Thomason, M. D.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 1, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 34.

Alcohol and the Nervous System

By George Thomason, M. D.

By GEORGE THOMASON, M. D.

Medical Superintendent St. Helena Sanitarium, St. Helena, California

WHEN alcohol is taken into the body, there is no tissue that escapes its baneful influence. The more highly organized the tissue, the more susceptible it is to any poisonous agent. Therefore for the delicate cells of the nervous system alcohol has a special predilection. The more highly developed the instruments of precision for measuring the effects of alcohol upon the tissues, the more apparent it becomes that abnormal functions of the glands and organs, and irritation and degeneration of the cells of the body, are induced by even so-called moderate quantities of alcohol.

Alcohol and the Flow of Words

Because of the more ready flow of words following the imbibing of alcohol, there is a misconception that alcohol is a brain stimulant; but this result can be explained entirely upon the basis of paralysis. One of the very highest centers in the brain is the inhibitory center. The power of inhibition is the first to be paralyzed by alcohol. Thus the power to make the finer discriminations is gone, and the power of judgment and reflection disappears.

It is seldom that any conception of an alcoholized brain will bear the test of sober thought. Professor Cushney, a prominent authority and author, says: "Even the smallest quantities of alcohol tend to lessen the activities of the brain, the drug appearing to act most strongly, and therefore in the smallest quantity, on the most recently acquired faculties, to annihilate those qualities which have been built up through education and experience — the power of self-control and the sense of responsibility."

Upon this point, Dr. Tanci says: "Even in small doses alcohol exercises a paralytic action upon the higher psychic faculties. Inhibition, in its more complex and elevated manifestation — judgment, modesty, reserve, shame, and prudence — becomes weakened and suspended. Action follows thought with greater promptness but less deliberation."

Professor Krepaelin, who has for many years been an indefatigable experimenter in connection with the effects of alcohol upon the body, determined that eighty grams of alcohol — the amount contained in an ordinary bottle of wine — used each day for twelve successive days, lessened the working capacity of the mind from twenty-five to forty per cent. He found, further, that in some cases the power to memorize was reduced as much as seventy per cent.

Is Never Sober

Professor Aschaffenburg, commenting upon these experiments, points the obvious moral that the so-called "moderate drinker" who consumes his bottle of wine as a matter of course each day with his dinner, and who doubtless would declare that he is never under the influence of liquor, is, in reality, never actually sober from one week's end to another. Neither in bodily nor in mental activity is he ever up to what should be his normal level.

Terrible Effects on the Nerves

The terrible effects of alcohol upon the nervous system are strikingly apparent in the brain degeneracy it produces, as evidenced by insanity. In the past fifty years, insanity has increased in this country more than three hundred per cent. There are now more than three hundred thousand insane patients confined in the asylums in the United States — more than are to be found in all the colleges and universities in the land. The writer was recently informed by a prominent judge of California that in his many years' experience he had taken pains to ascertain the reason in each case where he was obliged to commit a patient to the asylum, and that he had found that alcohol was the cause of the insanity in sixty per cent of cases. Statistics gleaned from all parts of the world show positively that at least fifty per cent of all insanity is due to alcohol.

Alcohol and Feeble-Minded Children

One of the most unfortunate effects of alcohol is its hereditary effect. This is manifested, so far as the nervous system is concerned, in the production of idiocy, imbecility, St. Vitus's dance, infantile convulsions, and epilepsy. The vast multitude of these unfortunate and helpless victims appeals loudly for relief and deliverance. In England and Wales there are 125,000 feeble-minded children confined in institutions for this class of cases. Of these, 85,000 are physical as well as mental cripples. There are more than twice this number thus afflicted in this country. Investigation of 2,552 cases of such children at an institution in France developed the fact that forty-one per cent of the cases were the result of alcoholic parentage.

The Late Prof. Forbes Winslow, of England, during his life one of the greatest of authorities on nervous and mental diseases, said that when both the father and the mother were given to drink, the children were destined to become either drunkards, criminals, or lunatics.

A Decided Contrast

An investigation of ten alcoholic families has shown the following: There were fifty-seven children produced, of whom ten were deformed, six were idiotic, six had either St. Vitus's dance or epilepsy, twenty-five were still-born, and only ten children, or about seventeen per cent of the whole, were normal.

The ten abstaining families produced sixty-one children. Two were deformed, two were pronounced backward, although not suffering from disease, three were still-born, leaving fifty-four, or more than eighty-eight and five tenths per cent, normal.

A nation's greatest asset is its children. It is an inalienable right of every child to be well born. No man or woman has a right to form any habit without first considering its possible effect upon his or her offspring.

Compared with the consuming, degenerating, body and soul destroying results of alcohol, the financial and every other consideration connected with the liquor traffic sink into insignificance. The physical effect alone, upon both the parent and the child, is a tremendous appeal for a blotting out of this nefarious business in all territory of our country yet stained and polluted by the production of physical degenerates and moral perverts through the maintenance on his throne of King Alcohol.