Your ShelfYour Projects

ALCOHOL NOT

4%

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 15, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 36.

Read the full edition

ALCOHOL NOT

By Frederick M. Rossiter, M.D.

A STIMULANT
An Irritant and Depressant — Its Action upon the Heart
By FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M.D.
FOR thousands of years alcohol has deceived men and women into thinking it possessed great virtue, because it "braced them up," and made them feel better and stronger, put energy into their muscles and keenness into their brains. But, alas, what a deception! How terribly a man must be deceived to think that he has had a "boost" forward, when he has had a hard shove backward!

No SCIENTIST WILL AFFIRM IT

There is no scientist of any repute who would be willing to say that alcohol is a stimulant to any good thing or action. Alcohol is a drug, and conforms to certain rules governing the action of drugs. There are a number of drugs that are stimulants. We use the word "stimulant" in various ways. For instance, sunlight is a stimulant to all life. It stimulates all life-giving forces. It makes things grow. Oatmeal is a physiological stimulant. We say that a horse feels his oats. They put life into him.

IT BORROWS FROM THE FUTURE

A drug stimulant is different from this. It is a substance that enables the body to utilize more of its reserve energy in a given portion of time. In other words, it enables the body to borrow for to-day what it should use tomorrow. It imparts no energy to the body, but gets energy out of the body by its action of irritation rather than stimulation of the nerve cells. It makes the body do more actual work in a given time. In this sense strychnin is a stimulant. It stimulates the spinal cord, the heart, the lungs, but it has no effect upon the intellectual faculties.
When taken into the body, the most noticeable effects of alcohol are on the nervous system. It acts on the faculties of the brain in reverse order to their development. That is, it acts first on the faculties that come into action last. These are judgment, will-power, and self-control. Alcohol does not stimulate better judgment. It does not enable one to weigh questions better where right conclusions are necessary. It does not strengthen the reasoning powers. We are considering only the moderate use of alcohol. Even the liquor men are willing to admit that in excess it is a bad thing.
The will is the power to choose to do a thing or not to do it. It is mental inhibition. Alcohol removes the inhibitory powers of the will. More crime and immorality are committed when alcohol is used. Why?—Because inhibition is lost and self-control is diminished.

IT REDUCES EFFICIENCY

Professor Kraepelin, of the university of Munich, with an instrument that will register an error in time of one two-hundredth of a second, made tests on a group of men with and without wine, writing figures by hand and on the typewriter.
When a glass of Bordeaux wine was taken after meals, the test showed a decrease in mental processes to the extent of seven to fifteen per cent, and more mistakes were made. In one test continued daily for two weeks, at the end of that time the deficiency had increased up to fifteen and one fourth per cent.
Typesetters lost over nine per cent efficiency in one week after taking a "gentlemanly drink" after the noon meal.
He also demonstrated that under the mild action of alcohol the association of ideas is much slower. The ability to remember diminished rapidly under the influence of moderate drinking.
Alcohol quickly removes the power of the sight centers to recognize the color red. This makes it a real, positive danger to railroad engineers.
So after all the experiments have been summed up showing the action of alcohol on all the mental powers, it can be positively shown that it is always a narcotic and a depressant and never a stimulant to any mental quality.

ITS ACTION ON THE HEART

But says one, "Alcohol is a heart stimulant; for do not people give it when one becomes suddenly weak, after some shock?" People are still doing this to some extent, but it is because they do not know any better. To give one a drink of whisky or brandy under such circumstances is unscientific; and more than that, it is dangerous.
Alcohol weakens the heart action, and lowers the blood pressure, and makes the heart beat more rapidly but with less power. It does this by removing the control of the "governor" nerves to the heart. When the "governors" on a steam-engine fly off, the engine pounds itself to pieces.
Alcohol has about the same effect on the heart that grease or soap on the rails would have on an engine that was pulling a load. The wheels would go faster, but the entire train would slow up, and might even come to a "dead stop." Anything that weakens the heart action weakens the entire body and lessens the endurance.

IT DIMINISHES MUSCULAR POWER

It has been shown that the degree of the capacity and capability of a man for work is the weight he can continue to lift with the index finger of his right hand. This is measured by means of an instrument called the ergograph. Experiments with this instrument have been repeated in thousands of instances; and in every case, alcohol is shown to increase fatigue and diminish muscular work. The practical application of this fact is that men who drink alcoholic liquor during any kind of labor do less work and poor work. A laboring man shovels less dirt. A soldier marches fewer miles.
In brief, alcohol stimulates an inordinate desire for itself, but does not stimulate the brain, the heart, or any vital process. Only when it is eradicated and exterminated can the nation begin to realize what a destroyer and deceiver it has been.