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Alcohol Not a Stimulant

BY WILLIAM F. Boos, M. D.

Director Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Massachusetts General Hospital

T IS a much debated point even today whether alcohol produces any stimulation whatever over and beyond the reflex stimulation of strong liquors on the œsophageal and gastric mucous membranes in subjects unaccustomed to its use. The experiments of Kraepelin, it is true, may be interpreted as showing that alcohol produces a slight primary stimulation before the characteristic depressant action manifests itself. But these same experiments allow of another quite different interpretation: I quote from Schmiedeberg, than whom there is no greater authority on the action of alcohol: "But as against this [theory of Kraepelin] it must be emphasized that the motor stimulation is by no means present in all cases, and that where it does occur, the cessation of psychic control is amply sufficient to explain it. That the removal of inhibition does not in all cases produce motor phenomena is dependent on individual conditions."

This apparent stimulation from alcohol is seen only when small quantities are given, larger amounts, from one ounce upwards, produce motor paralysis without previous "stimulation."

From the above it will be seen that it is by no means an established fact that alcohol has a primary stimulating action, and until such action is fully proven I think it is wiser not to suggest in any way that alcohol could under given circumstances act as a stimulant.

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In pharmacology we classify drugs according to the action which is predominant; every drug unfolds a great variety of pharmacological effects, and if we were to try to do justice to each and all of these, there would not be any system whatever. For instance, strychnine, one of the most pronounced stimulants known, exerts a most powerful depressant action, which follows upon the primary stimulation. If the dose of strychnine taken is small enough, the secondary depression is so slight that we see clinically only a stimulation; but when death occurs through strychnine it is the result of complete paralysis of the central nervous system. Another example: no man in his senses would classify morphine among the stimulants, morphine the celebrated king of the "dopes ;" and yet morphine exhibits a most pronounced stimulation of the spinal cord, in quality exactly like that of strychnine. In some individuals this effect predominates to such an extent that it is impossible to produce in them the characteristic morphine sleep; on the contrary, the morphine makes them more wide awake than ever. Would we on this account call morphine a stimulant and advise its use for the purposes of stimulation? In my opinion, and I do not stand alone, any possible slight stimulation from alcohol, if there be any such, is merely a side issue which is utterly negligible in the consideration of the place of alcohol among our drugs.

What the Insurance Company Advises

N 1880 the per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages in the United States was 10.08 gallons. In 1909 it reached 21.85 gallons, an increase of 17 per cent.

Since 1880 the death-rate in the Registration states from degenerative diseases in which alcohol is conceded to be an important causative factor, has increased 104 per cent.

That alcohol is the sole, or even the chief cause of this increase cannot be authoritatively stated, but that it is a powerful factor is undeniable.

It is worthy of note that although the use of wines has increased only 25 per cent. and spirits 7.9 per cent. malt liquors show an increase of 139 per cent. Evidently beer is not so harmless a beverage as some people imagine.

The strain of modern existence is beginning to tell. While gross intemperance is being more and more condemned, tippling and social

drinking among the masses would appear to be increasing. Possibly the nervous excitement of American life increases the desire for what we call a "stimulant" but which in reality is a depressing narcotic-a “deadener" instead of a "bracer."

A hopeful sign is the growing tendency to abstinence among the leading men and women of the nation. A reform commencing at the top, will progress more rapidly, because of the powerful influence of fashion. When it becomes odd to drink, fear of public opinion may make for temperance more surely than fear of moral or physical injury.

ALCOHOL WEAKENS RESISTANCE TO DISEASE

In acute illnesses, grippe, fevers, bloodpoisoning, etc., substances are formed in the blood termed "anti-bodies" which antagonize the action of bacteria, facilitating their destruction by the white blood-cells and neu

tralizing their poisonous influence. In a person with good "resistance" this protective machinery, which we do not yet thoroughly understand, works with beautiful precision, and the patient "gets well."

Experiments by scientific experts have demonstrated that alcohol restrains the formation of these marvellous anti-bodies. Alcohol puts to sleep the sentinels that guard your body from disease.

Policy holders are warned against advertisements extolling the virtue of whisky in

disease. The callous cruelty of such advertisements lies in the fact that they appeal to the very people who are most injured by the use of alcohol-sufferers from rheumatism, chronic kidney disease, nervour subjects, etc.

There is no such thing as a "medicinal" whisky. One pure whisky is as good (or as bad) as another. Do not take alcohol as a remedy except on the advice of a thoroughly up-to-date physician who is free from prejudice. From Bulletin No. 5, issued by Postal Life Insurance Company, New York.

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A white corpuscle taking in and destroying germs.*

The Question of Self-Control

BY DR. VIPONT BROWN, OF MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

answered his more experienced friend, "like a fool."

Those faculties which are the last acquisition of culture and refinement are always the first to go. Thus the power of fine discrimination is soon lost and the connoisseur becomes highly appreciative of bad music, poor art, weak jokes, and fatuous literature. Especially does he appreciate himself and his own doings, and he thus becomes egotistic and self-assertive. And that all this is the result of paralysis, and not the result of stimulation, has been proved by numberless experiments which have been tried chiefly in the psychological laboratories of Germany and America.

HE physiologist has always laid great jumped like a bird. "You should say rather," stress upon what he calls "inhibition." The word inhibition means restraint. It is the brake that you put on your bicycle to prevent it running away with you down hill. Without this power of inhibition, we should all be mere creatures of impulse and slaves of passion. Indeed, it is the high development of this power of inhibition which, more than anything else, distinguishes the civilized man from the savage. Thus, for example, the hungry man sees food, but his acquisitive impulse is at once checked. In an early stage of his evolution toward civilization, it is checked by the recollection, that if he takes what is not his own, disagreeable consequences are likely follow. And in a later stage of his evolution toward civilization, it is checked by the fact that his moral sense of what is right prevents him doing what he knows to be wrong.

Now this power of inhibition, which has only been developed by a long and painful process of education and culture, is weakened under the influence of alcohol. And this is why the modest and reticent man becomes, under the influence of alcohol, pushing, offensive, and loquacious. It is not that the alcohol has stimulated his brain; it is that it has paralyzed his power of self-control. And because it is the result of paralysis and not stimulation his judgment is impaired, his willpower weakened, and his self-control diminished. His discretion also is impaired and thus the alcoholic is often given credit for "Dutch courage." Several years ago a very amateur climber in the Alps told a friend of his that whenever he had a crevasse to jump he always took a nip of spirits and then he

I often think that this self-appreciation which results from taking alcohol is one of the most potent factors in the wonderful power of fascination that it possesses over its slaves. Thus under its influence the cowardly man becomes in his own estimation, a hero. The despicable blackguard who is kept by his wife or his mother and never did an honest day's work in his life, becomes a swaggering braggart who has much to be proud of. Now it is easy enough to see how immensely pleasurable this flattering discrepancy between facts and feelings must be to the individual concerned; but surely it is equally obvious how much better it would be could such an one appraise himself at his real worth. Prof. Huxley fully appreciated this deceptive influence of alcohol, and although not always a total abstainer, whenever he had any good original work to do, then for the time being he became one.—British Alliance News.

*Cut from Primer of Sanitation by Prof. John W. Ritchie, copyrighted, 1909, by World Book Co., Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y.

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T IS a far cry from the microscopic onecelled yeast plant or amoeba to the million-celled man with his wonderful body, and a brain which sweeps the heavens, explores the earth and directs him to live or to die for a high ideal, yet each, as well as every intermediate creature, depends for its life and continuance upon the same fundamentals. Thus the amoeba must be surrounded by water; it must have food to nourish it, oxygen to combine with that food and produce energy, keep the fires of life burning-excrete the wastes from these processes and be able to reproduce itself. Nothing can be more fascinating or illuminating than to observe under a powerful microscope this tiny bit of jelly-like protoplasm touch a still more microscopic particle which is rejected if not nutritious, but otherwise "swallowed" by a "mouth" made at that point for the occasion and to understand how it absorbs the atoms of oxy

ing food, oxygen, excretion, renewal, and the watery medium (the blood plasma) in which to live, and which furnishes their food and oxygen and removes their wastes. If they lack any of these essentials or if the medium in which they live is poisoned, they languish or perish, the work of the organ which they form will be more or less impaired and the whole organism suffer. To learn then, what makes or mars health and vitality we should think of the body in terms of protoplasm of which the cells are actually made, and of the agencies and circumstances which affect it favorably or otherwise.

The watchword of every wise hygienist is Prevention, and that means to get back to the beginnings. The whole trend of modern sanitary medicine is to determine the presence of and to extirpate all those substances which are poisonous to protoplasm, whether in the air we breathe, the food and drink we takc

m

Cut from Human Body and Health by Prof. Alvin Davidson, used by kind permission of the American Book Co. Drawings of sections of cells from the human body. Magnified. b, bone cells; c, cells from membrane lining of the intestine; e, flat cell from lining of mouth; f, fat cell; n. nerve cell from the brain; m, muscle cell.

gen and then excretes the wastes resulting from its simple life processes. And then to watch it split into two separate individuals, each a perfect amoeba, is to get a deep insight into nature's method of creation. "In the beginning" was the single cell of protoplasm.'

But protoplasm is only the beginning. For as nature creates the higher forms of life she combines cells in more and more complex arrangements and soon has sets of cells specializing for particular kinds of work as manufacturing certain juices, carrying messages to the brain, acting as blood cells and the like. But generally for greater effectiveness they are massed in bodies called organs. As they have specialized work they come to have peculiar shapes, but all cells from the single one of the amoeba up to the highest developed cell in the gray matter of the genius' brain are essentially the same-bits of protoplasm requir

1. Authority for most of the article, Alcohol and the Human Body, Horsley and Sturge.

for nourishment, or whether insidiously conveyed by the germs of disease. These germs owe their dangerous powers to the fact that their excretions, or toxins, are powerful protoplasmic poisons, e. g., the toxin of diphtheria. Another example is seen in the cessation of a growth of the yeast plant when a certain amount of alcohol has formed in the liquid containing it.

If we wish to know the truth about the effects of alcohol on the human body we shall enquire what effects it has on protoplasm and, as many have investigated this point, the proof is ready. Sir Victor Horsley tells us that one of its primary effects is directly to interfere with the powers of the cells to take up the oxygen available, in a sense, to "cut their breath short." Indeed this poisonous influence is so great that the needed oxidation of the fats and starches taken into the body is so interfered with that fatty degeneration and other maladies occur in various tissues. Alco

hol also appears to steal a part of the invaluable oxygen in the blood and, the two combining, some of the oxygen never reaches the organs it has meant to vitalize. When we consider that when the cells are entirely cut off from oxygen, suffocation and death quickly follow, we can easily understand that to deprive the cells of a part of the oxygen required is to induce partial suffocation manifested in lowered vitality, possibly in diseased organs.

But alcohol may also deprive the cells of sufficient food for, according to Professor Woodhead (who quotes Abbott and Bergey), it appears that they are not able to take full advantage of the food materials circulating in the blood and impaired power of nutrition is one of the first poisonous effects of alcohol to be observed in alcoholized animals.

What of the growth and renewal of cells upon which vigorous health and the repair of injuries to the tissues depend? Do these proceed equally well when alcohol is permitted in the fluids bathing the cells? This is a question Professor Hodge wished to have answered

one part alcohol in a hundred of water either killed the seeds outright or only permitted germination to commence feebly. The developing protoplasm of the eggs of insects, reptiles, and fowls was similarly affected by even small quantities of alcohol when applied in a watery solution or vapor. "But,' someone may say, "perhaps moderate quantities of alcohol are not so injurious to the protoplasm of living animals."

Let us see. Dr. Richardson of England, experimented upon the little fresh-water jellyfish, the medusa, and found that a solution of 1 to 1,000, 2,000, or even 3,000 proved fatal. Time and again the trials were made, but they all resulted in proving that alcohol even when diluted with 1,000 parts of water, affected as a lethal poison the living protoplasm of these lower forms of life.

Still more interesting and suggestive are the experiments of Kesteven' on the amoeba because it is "the most typical of all cells" and is so strikingly like the white blood cells which, acting as scouts and soldiers of the body, capture and devour the germs of dis

$90006

Diptheria

Pneumonia

Tuberculosis

Grippe

Typhoid
Disease-producing germs. (Diagrammatic from Pratt).*
"Alcohol prepares the bed" for germ disease.

so he made a long list of experiments on toru-
la, or yeast cells, to find out. He estimated
the rapidity of growth and multiplication of
the torula cells both in simple solution and in
the same fluid when an exceedingly small
quantity of alcohol was added to it. The
following table shows that the growth and in-
crease of the cells was decreased in proportion
to the alcohol used, as he said, "The cultures
containing no alcohol were seen to win."

HOW ALCOHOL CHECKS THE GROWTH OF
YEAST PLANTS (TORULA)
Solution in which torula
was sown.

Normal solution, no alcohol
.001 per cent. alcohol

5.

.01 per cent. alcohol

.1 per cent. alcohol per cent. alcohol

Number of Torula Cells
found in each Cubic Mill-
meter after 7 hours.

2061 cells
1191 cells

992 cells
852 cells
69 cells

Cells all killed in 14 per cent. alcohol.

But it is not alone the protoplasm of yeast cells which suffers when its surroundings contain insignificant amounts of alcohol. For instance, Dr. Ridge found out by the most exact investigation that the protoplasm of cress seeds was injuriously affected by one drop of alcohol in a pint of water, and that *From Human Physiology by permission of Macmillan Co.

Lockjaw

ease. The record shows that in the case of all but two extra large ones the seventeen amoeba experimented on were quickly paralyzed or killed when to the water in which they were swimming actively, from 1 to 7 per cent. of alcohol was added. Other famous investigators tell us that similarly (though not to the same extent) when alcohol is in the blood stream it seems to make the soldier leucocytes sluggish and they cannot so quickly seize the dangerous germs; it also appears to make them less able to destroy the germs when caught and they are able to break away and continue their mischief. (Leucocytes p. 16.)

And so by these and many other impartial witnesses the fact has been established that from the lowest to the highest, alcohol in the medium surrounding the protoplasmic cell is injurious or fatal, according to the resistance of the cell and the strength of the alcoholic solution.

Here, then, we have the explanation of why the continued use of even moderate amounts of alcohol is injurious to human beings. (Continued on page 24.)

2. British Medical Journal, Apr. 18, 1908.