The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-04-04
SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
Tho Us. and Abus. of Alcohol.

Tho Use and Abuse Of Alcohol.
Alcohol is never food. In ferment-
ed liquors, in distinction from the dis
titled, there is undoubtedly nutritious
element; though not to any great ex-
tent. They are to be regarded not as q
food, nor ss beverage, but possibly as
q condiment. If they are taken at all,
it always should be with the food. so as
to be mixed with it, and only in small
quantities. If SO taken they do no harm.
and may even do good as an aid to d.
gestion. In pure wine the proportion
Of alcohol is very small; in bottle OF
claret, for example, perhaps spoon
full and it seems to have been put there
for some wise purpose by the Creator.
The injury from pure fermented liquors
comes from excess in the use
so one may get the govt by eat.
ing to excess of beef steak, or kidney
difficulty by eating too much meat and
taking too little exercise. But the great
harm both to the individual and to So
ciety comes from the use of distilled
liquors, in which the alcohol is extract
ed by an artificial process and used sep
arately from the combination in which
God and nature have put it.
Distilled liquor, l will use that term
for the greater clearness, is never, IN
der any circumstances, food. 1t adds
nothing to the substance of the body.
1t is never digested. 1t adds nothing to
the forces of the body. On the contra
~, it weakens force. It acts as an IT.
ritant; and so diminishes force by COM
polling the body to put forth efforts in
order to get rid of the intruder. The
effect is the same as that produced on
the eye by the presence ola grain OF
sand. The eye is excited to state of
great activity to cast the intruder out
but its real force as an eye is not in
creased; it is weakened by the unnatural
exertion.
Nor is distilled liquor a fuel. 1t is
not burned; if it were we should find
the ashes, and of the ashes no trace is
found. 1t was commended some years
ago by three or four French chemists
that alcohol did not assimilate at all,
that it came out of the body just as it
went in. Experiments have since been
made, however, by Lowery, Ladinau,
Perry and others, and the conclusion of
the French experimenters has not been
altogether sustained. We can not &C
count for all the alcohol that goes into
the body, but we do not find the result
of any combustion, and we conclude
that none has taken place. 1t is true
that dose of alcohol will sometimes
produce sudden external glow, but it
does not add to the real warmth of the
body. This Fictitious glow is thus
produced: Alcohol introduced into
the body as a foreign sub.
stance acts, as I have previously ex-
planned, as an irritant in the manner
in which a grain of sand acts upon the
eye. The nerves of the stomach, and of
the heart, and of all the vital organs
are thrown into q state of excitement !;
the alcohol is passed directly undigest-
ed into the body; the blood hurrles to
get rid of the intruder, the rapidity of
the circulation is increased, and the
warm blood of the heart is thus hur-
ried too speedily to the surface where it
coOls off. But no additional fuel has
been furnished to the body to supply
the heat thus exhausted; the tempera-
ture of the body has on the contrary
been unnaturally lowered, and the vital
organs have been overworked in the
process. This has been proven at home
and abroad by frequent experiments.
Alcohol adds neither food, force nor
fuel to the human frame; what does it
do?
1t has been ascertained by a distin-
guished Sarant at st. Petersburg that
alcohol taken into the stomach passes
into the blood, in one minute and half,
undigested. It acts there disastrously
upon the blood corpuscles. These are
the little cars freighted with oxygen and
constituting the beginnings of life. The
alcohol impairs their vitality, robs them
of their oxygen, and destroys their use
fulness. This impaired vitality produces
the disease known as fatty degeneration.
Its operation upon the system is pre-
cisely that of increasing age. 1t hast
ems the inevitable approach of death.
In health the blood has st parts of fat
in thousand; in dIunkard the blood
has III parts in a thousand. The re-
suit of this radical change in the consti-
tuition of the blood is felt in every part
of the body. Bad blood can no more
make good brains, good nerves and
good muscle, than bad flour can make
good bread.
The most vital effect is, of course, on
the brain and nervous system. The first
and direct effect is produced by the Cir
culation of undigested alcohol in the
brain. This is the effect referred to
when people speak of liquor going to
their head; they speak in popular Ian
guage a scientific truth. It deadens the
higher faculties and leaves the drunk
ard under thecontrol of the lower ones
ne0Ascience, the affection, the reason
ing powers, are temporarily destroyed
and permanently impaired; and he
whom God made to be under the do
minion of reason comes under the rule
Of brutal instincts. If the drinkiny
continues the final effect is q hardening
of the brain and q permanent impairing
of the vital force and the controlling
power. The habitual drunkard has
literally deprived his brain of its power
to act.
But while the direst effect of the
drinking of distilled liquors is upon the
brain the evil is by no means confined
to that organ. Poisoning the blood,
alcohol poisons the whole system, and
affects with disease every vital organ
the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the |
These are the physiological
effects of alcohol as discovered by care
full scientific investigation by the most
eminent Psychologists. They are con-
irmed by widely extended observation
Of the practical effects of drinking as
in daily life. The working
man who takes his toddy in the MORN