“It may possibly seem, at first sight, that I am leading immediately away from the subject of the secondary action of alcohol.  It is not so.  I am leading directly to it.  Upon all these membranous structures alcohol exerts a direct perversion of action.  It produces in them a thickening, a shrinking and an inactivity that reduces their functional power.  That they may work rapidly and equally, they require to be at all times charged with water to saturation.  If, into contact with them, any agent is brought that deprives them of water, then is their work interfered with; they cease to separate the saline constituents properly; and, if the evil that is thus started, be allowed to continue, they contract upon their contained matter in whatever organ it may be situated, and condense it.

“In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol those changes which take place from it in the blood corpuscles, and which have already been described, extend to the other organic parts, involving them in structural deteriorations, which are always dangerous, and are often ultimately fatal.”

ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE STOMACH.

Passing from the effect of alcohol upon the membranes, we come to its action on the stomach.  That it impairs, instead of assisting digestion, has already been shown in the extract from Dr. Monroe, given near the commencement of the preceding chapter.  A large amount of medical testimony could be quoted in corroboration, but enough has been educed.  We shall only quote Dr. Richardson on “Alcoholic Dyspepsia:” 

“The stomach, unable to produce, in proper quantity, the natural digestive fluid, and also unable to absorb the food which it may imperfectly digest, is in constant anxiety and irritation.  It is oppressed with the sense of nausea; it is oppressed with the sense of emptiness and prostration; it is oppressed with a sense of distention; it is oppressed with a loathing for food, and it is teased with a craving for more drink.  Thus there is engendered, a permanent disorder which, for politeness’ sake, is called dyspepsia, and for which different remedies are often sought but never found.  Antibilious pills—­whatever they may mean—­Seidlitz powders, effervescing waters, and all that pharmacopoeia of aids to further indigestion, in which the afflicted who nurse their own diseases so liberally and innocently indulge, are tried in vain.  I do not strain a syllable when I state that the worst forms of confirmed indigestion originate in the practice that is here explained.  By this practice all the functions are vitiated, the skin at one moment is flushed and perspiring, and at the next moment it is pale, cold and clammy, while every other secreting structure is equally disarranged.”

TIC-DOULOUREUX AND SCIATICA.