Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/37

 Dr. Mussey says:—

Dr. Nathan S. Davis said in an address given in 1891:—

"When largely diluted with water, as it is in all the varieties of fermented and distilled liquids, and taken into the stomach, it is rapidly imbibed, or taken up by the capillary vessels and carried into the venous blood, without having undergone any digestion or change in the stomach. With the blood it is carried to every part, and made to penetrate every tissue of the living body, where it has been detected by proper chemical tests as unchanged alcohol, until it has been removed through the natural process of elimination, or lost its identity by molecular combination with the albuminous elements of the blood and tissues, for which it has a strong affinity.

"The most varied and painstaking experiments of chemists and physiologists, both in this country and Europe, have shown conclusively that the presence of alcohol in the blood diminishes the amount of oxygen taken up through the air-cells of the lungs; retards the molecular and metabolic changes of both