Nervous derangements follow as a matter of course, for the delicate membranes which envelope and immediately surround the nervous cords, are affected by the alcohol more readily than the coarser membranous textures of other parts of the body, and give rise to a series of troublesome conditions, which are too often attributed to other than the true causes.  Some of these are thus described:  “The perverted condition of the membranous covering of the nerves gives rise to pressure within the sheath of the nerve, and to pain as a consequence.  To the pain thus excited the term neuralgia is commonly applied, or ‘tic;’ or, if the large nerve running down the thigh be the seat of the pain, ‘sciatica.’  Sometimes this pain is developed as a toothache.  It is pain commencing, in nearly every instance, at some point where a nerve is inclosed in a bony cavity, or where pressure is easily excited, as at the lower jawbone near the centre of the chin, or at the opening in front of the lower part of the ear, or at the opening over the eyeball in the frontal bone.”

DEGENERATION OF THE LIVER.

The organic deteriorations which follow the long-continued use of alcoholic drinks are often of a serious and fatal character.  The same author says:  “The organ of the body, that, perhaps, the most frequently undergoes structural changes from alcohol, is the liver.  The capacity of this organ for holding active substances in its cellular parts, is one of its marked physiological distinctions.  In instances of poisoning by arsenic, antimony, strychnine and other poisonous compounds, we turn to the liver, in conducting our analyses, as if it were the central depot of the foreign matter.  It is, practically, the same in respect to alcohol.  The liver of the confirmed alcoholic is, probably, never free from the influence of the poison; it is too often saturated with it.  The effect of the alcohol upon the liver is upon the minute membranous or capsular structure of the organ, upon which, it acts to prevent the proper dialysis and free secretion.  The organ, at first, becomes large from the distention of its vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and the thickening of tissue.  After a time, there follows contraction of membrane, and slow shrinking of the whole mass of the organ in its cellular parts.  Then the shrunken, hardened, roughened mass is said to be ‘hob-nailed,’ a common, but expressive term.  By the time this change occurs, the body of him in whom it is developed is usually dropsical in its lower parts, owing to the obstruction offered to the returning blood by the veins, and his fate is sealed....  Again, under an increase of fatty substance in the body, the structure of the liver may be charged with, fatty cells, and undergo what is technically designated fatty degeneration.”

HOW THE KIDNEYS SUFFER.

“The kidneys, also, suffer deterioration.  Their minute structures undergo fatty modification; their vessels lose their due elasticity of power of contraction; or their membranes permit to pass through them the albumen from the blood.  This last condition reached, the body loses power as if it were being gradually drained even of its blood.”