Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/283

Rh a dose of chloral is injected into another part of the body. The chloral, circulating in the blood, is known to paralyze leucocytes, and, as a result of this, they do not collect and wage war on the bacilli injected under the skin; there is very little local reaction, the bacilli get free course into the lymph and blood, and the animal dies. But, in the words of Dr. Broadbent, 'alcohol in excess has a similar action on the leucocytes, and this, as well as the deteriorating influence of chronic alcoholism on the tissues, predisposes to septic infection. A single debauch, therefore, may open the door to fever or erysipelas.' A similar experiment of Doyen confirms this. He found that guinea pigs can be killed by the cholera microbe, when introduced by the mouth, if a dose of alcohol has been previously administered. It has been the general testimony of observers in cholera epidemics that those addicted to much alcohol are far more liable to fatal attacks. But while large doses of alcohol are, of course, more obviously injurious, it would be absurd to imagine that lesser quantities are entirely without influence in the same direction. It has, indeed, been shown by Dr. Ridge, that even infinitesimal quantities of alcohol, such as one part in 5,000, cause a more rapid multiplication of the bacillus subtilis and other bacilli of decomposition, while, by the same quantities, the growth of both animal and vegetable protoplasm is retarded. Hence there can be no longer any question that alcohol renders the body more liable to conquest by invading microbes, less able to resist and destroy them. Alcohol, a toxine injurious to living cells, is destroyed or removed from the body as fast as nature can effect it, but while it remains, and while able to affect the cells at all, its action is detrimental to healthy growth and healthy life, and the less we take of such an agent the better for us. This is a dictum which it becomes the profession to enunciate far and wide. 'The less, the better' is a watchword which all may use, and the wise will interpret it in a way which will infallibly preserve them altogether from all possible danger from such a source."