The Press., 1894-03-08
' w. C. T. U. DEPARTMENT.
The Effects of Alcohol on the Body. FrOi
 "Childhood: Its Care andsCulture."
BY MARY ALLEN WEST.

The EnecGS Of Alcohol on the Body. From
 childhood: Its Care and.Culture."
 BY MARY ALLEN WEST.
 tsKnow ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost? Whosoever defileth the temple of God, him will God destroy" The body was made for puri- ty; this law written in it's members, is violated by every impure act, by all ex- cesses, and it's penalty is death, death from destruction of the tissues, from dis ordered action of the organs-s -self-infict- ed death. ,.
 Human skill has never devised such perfect machinery as the body shows. Into this wonderful mechanism introduce the one agent which is the basis of all in- toxieating liquors -alcohol-an see what is the result. It looks innocent enough, the eye EAtnnot distinguish it from pure water, but we shall soon see that it's looks belle it.. It has very great fondness for water, so great that it will drink it up whenever it touches it. Water drinking | alcohol is such an inveterate water-drink- CT thatits effects are so deadly upon the human system. Did you ever think how large proportion of our bodies is water ? Oliver Wendell Holmes says the body consists of seven buckets of water, hod- full of coal and a little pinch of salts. Whimsical as this conceit seems, it is a good way to make us remember the scien- tific fact, that the body is seven parts water to one part of solid matter. Take the water all out and the body becomes a mummy, weighing but one-eighth as much as in life. As water forms so large a part of the body it must have a very inn portant work to do in it, and anything which interferes with the water supply of the body must be dangerous agent to introduce into it. Nerve tissue is the queen tissue of the body, the one through which the mind acts. Introduce alcohol in any of it's various forms and dilutions, wine, beer, or brandy, and at once it at tacks this nerve tissue. You have all seen-this tissue in the brains of animals, and you know how soft and jelly like it is. This softness is just as necessary for the transmission of the minds messages as insulation is to transmission by the elec- tric telegraph. Alcohol comes to this nerve tissue, drinks up as much of it's wa ter as it can, and so renders it hard. You can test this by pouring alcohol over a calf's brain. This hardening process is going on continually in the brain of the drunkard. An experienced surgeon, when dissectiHg human head, can tell the in- E stant his scalpel strikes the brain wheth- |Rr it is the brain of thinker, even though Esst be the darkest night, and the sense of been total abstainer, the scalpel passes Easily through his brain, as it would thro' Jelly; if thinker, it meets resistance re- quiring strength to overcome it. This same tissue makes the nerves, the white threads we call by that name being only the protecting covering of the active nerve tissue within. In this delicate, attenu- ated form the effect of alcohol on the nerve tissue is even more marked than where it is massed in the brain; they be- come like uninsulated wires which convey the minds messages but imperfectly, if at all.
 :. There are so many muscles in the hu- man body whose contractions and dila- tions must be in exact proportion to se- cure perfection of action, that if we had to control them consciously, we could think of little else. But God mercifully relieves us of this work by laying it upon the medulla. oblongata, at the base of the brain, which, as the scientists say, pre- sides over the correlation of muscular ac- tion. But this, being composed of nerve tissue, is also deadened by alcohol and cannot do it's proper work. Precision of action is thus destroyed, as we see in the staggering. gait of the intoxicated man. If enough, alcohol is taken, all voluntary muscular action is paralyzed, ;, and the