[Illustration:  Fig. 80.—­Two Principal Arteries of the Front of the Leg (Anterior Tibial and Dorsalis Pedis).]

This action, because it is quicker, has been considered also a stronger action, and the alcohol has therefore been supposed to produce a stimulating effect.  But later researches lead to the conclusion that the effect of alcoholic liquors is not properly that of a stimulant, but of a narcotic paralyzant, and that while it indeed quickens, it also really weakens the heart’s action.  This view would seem sustained by the fact that the more the intoxicants are pushed, the deeper are the narcotic and paralyzing effects.  After having obstructed the nutritive and reparative functions of the vital fluid for many years, their effects at last may become fatal.

This relaxing effect involves not only the heart, but also the capillary system, as is shown in the complexion of the face and the color of the hands.  In moderate drinkers the face is only flushed, but in drunkards it is purplish.  The flush attending the early stages of drinking is, of course, not the flush of health, but an indication of disease.[34]

198.  Effect upon the Heart.  This forced overworking of the heart which drives it at a reckless rate, cuts short its periods of rest and inevitably produces serious heart-exhaustion.  If repeated and continued, it involves grave changes of the structure of the heart.  The heart muscle, endeavoring to compensate for the over-exertion, may become much thickened, making the ventricles smaller, and so fail to do its duty in properly pumping forward the blood which rushes in from the auricle.  Or the heart wall may by exhaustion become thinner, making the ventricles much too large, and unable to send on the current.  In still other cases, the heart degenerates with minute particles of fat deposited in its structures, and thus loses its power to propel the nutritive fluid.  All three of these conditions involve organic disease of the valves, and all three often produce fatal results.

199.  Effect of Alcohol on the Blood-vessels.  Alcoholic liquors injure not only the heart, but often destroy the blood-vessels, chiefly the larger arteries, as the arch of the aorta or the basilar artery of the brain.  In the walls of these vessels may be gradually deposited a morbid product, the result of disordered nutrition, sometimes chalky, sometimes bony, with usually a dangerous dilatation of the tube.

In other cases the vessels are weakened by an unnatural fatty deposit.  Though these disordered conditions differ somewhat, the morbid results in all are the same.  The weakened and stiffened arterial walls lose the elastic spring of the pulsing current.  The blood fails to sweep on with its accustomed vigor.  At last, owing perhaps to the pressure, against the obstruction of a clot of blood, or perhaps to some unusual strain of work or passion, the enfeebled vessel bursts, and death speedily ensues from a form of apoplexy.