Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/294

286 soldiers taking the liquor ration succumbed to the morbific influences surrounding them so much more rapidly than before, that in less than sixty days the order was countermanded, and the liquor ration stopped. And that eminent surgeon and sanitarian added, with peculiar emphasis, that he wished never to see the same experiment tried again."

Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, has learned through his experiments that alcohol not only hinders the leucocytes in their war upon disease germs, but also tends to the multiplication of germs. Of this he says:—

"The antagonism of alcohol to the fundamental functions of life is further exhibited by its action on the cellular elements of living tissues and the free cells or leucocytes of the blood. Dr. Lionel Beale long ago pointed out how it affected the protoplasm of cells, and diminished the movements of amœbae, to which leucocytes are apparently analogous.

"But while alcohol is thus injurious to living protoplasm, or constructive protoplasm as it may be called, that which builds up, and forms all kinds of structures, and living beings of all higher types, I accidentally discovered that in minute quantities, under about one per cent., and even in such almost incredible amounts as I part in 100,000 ($1⁄10$ millilitre in 10 litres) it favors the growth and multiplication of many microbes whose function is antagonistic to the protoplasm of organized beings, and which may therefore be called destructive protoplasm. We know that these microbes are kept at bay by the vitality of the tissues : if this vitality is lowered they may prevail: as soon as life departs they set to work, and decomposition is the result. It is, therefore, not very surprising that an agent, like alcohol, which, we have seen, lowers the vitality of constructive protoplasm, should, on the other hand increase the vitality of destructive protoplasm. At any rate such is the fact. In the