The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1890-05-28
ALCOHOLIC DISEASES.

Francis s. Smith in N. Y. Weekly.
#
ALCOHOLIC DISEASES.
Physical and Mental Injuries Produced
by the Use Of Strong Drink.
1t will be clear to every reasoning
and unprejudiced mind that chemical
substance, which possesses the power Of
producing in the living SO many varied
and important changes as those which
alcohol produces, can not fail to induce
in the organs of the body physical modi-
fications which are either good or bad.
That alcohol is incapable Of imparting
any good is now pretty generally ac-
knowledged. Its elementary construc-
ton precludes the possibility of con-
sidering it as substance of food which
can build up or sustain any vital struct-
ure or organ, such as muscle or brain;
and when it is freed from saccharine
foods there is no evidence whatever for
assigning to it the doubtful virtue of
giving fat to the body. In small guam
titles it quickens, in large quantities it
deadens nervous action. This is its
summum bonum, and its sumnsum NAHUM
The good is infinitesimal-the evil
infinite. Ths physical injuries from
alcohol are incomparably large because
of their extent. They graduate from
the simple exaltation of action, pecu-
liar to the excitement of the first degree
of its action, to the complete paralysis
pertaining to the astdegree. Wherever
organic matter of the body is en-
folded in membrane, there will alco-
hol penetrate, and then will func-
tional disturbances, followed by organic
degeneration, be set up We know now
Of definite and connected family of
alcoholic degenerative diseases. We
are acquainted with alcoholic phthisis,
or the consumption of drunkards; with
hepatic cirrhosis, or induraticn of the
drunkard's liver; with the dropsy, aris-
ing from the hepatic cirrhosis; with al
coholic dyspepsia; with alcoholic ep-
ilepsy: with alcoholic hypertrophy, or
enlargement of the heart; with alco-
holic asthenia, or feebleness of the
heart; with degeneration of the kidney,
and the accompanying train of kidney
diseases, classed vaguely under the
term Bright's disease. But the most
widespread devastations from alcohol
are those seated in the nervous system
and displayed in mental alteration.
The commoner known of these are the
acute affections, delirium tremens,
mania from drink, inebriety, or repeat
ed intoxication; to which must be added
the less understood yet serious condi-
tions. alcoholic epilepsy and alcoholic
paralysis. This last-named disease,
only recently clearly defined, is one of
the most widespread of the chronic dis.
eases resulting from alcohol, one of the
most obscure and one of the most fatal
An agent like alcohol, extensively
and recklessly used by mankind in all
parts of the world and capable of induc-
ing so many and serious diseases must,
of necessity. be the cause of tremen-
dous mortality, with the usual prece-
dence of many days of utter disable
ment and disease. The fact is so. 1t
is difficult to calculate the precise NOR
tality from alcohol, because we have
never yetfully diagnosed all the evils
leading to disease and death which
spring from it For example, up to this
time we have not added the mortality
due to alcoholic paralysis in the large
computations from which our results
have been drawn. Some years ago,
from the best data l could obtain.
estimated that in England and Wales
the annual mortality from alcohol was
fifty thousand per annum, an estimate
fairly confirmed by other observers, OF
an important and independent charac-
ter. Admitting its correctness, this esti-
mate makes the mortality from alcohol
to be about one.tenth of the whole NOR
.ality-a view which had been previous
iy expressed by the late DR.. Edwin
Lancaster, the coroner for Central Mid
dlesex-and which places alcohol, as
enc of the causes Of mortality, at the
head of those causes. This estimate,
however, must have been under the
mark, since it excluded altogether that
fatality which we now know to arise from
alcoholic paralysis, and excluded, also,
too rigidly, instances of direct poison
ing from alcohol and all accidents of a
fatal kind indirectly due to alcohol.
would not however, run any risk of be-
ing charged with over-statement and
would be content still to place the NOR
tally from alcohol at one-tenth Of the
whole mortality, in places where the
article is consumed in the same proper
tion as it is in England and Wales al
the present time; proportion fairly
representative Of alcoholic population:
generally.
Connected with the two subjects O
the diseases from alcohol and the NOR
taiity from it the question has Otter
been discussed as to the relative
amount of sickness presented by alb
staining as compared with non-abstain
ing communities and as to the relativ,
value of life in the two communities
II has been difficult to get at precise
conclusions on these subjects from thu
two circumstances, that in making com
parsons the social relationships of thu
different classes are largely different
aud the returns from the registers o