Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/409

Rh in Bulletin No. 33 of the Hygienic Laboratory, published in 1907. Mice and guinea-pigs were used. The food, usually oats, was soaked in diluted alcohol, at first of five per cent, strength, then gradually increased to forty or fifty per cent. By carefully observing the weight of the mice, and not increasing the strength of the alcohol too rapidly, it was possible to keep the animals for months on this diet without any material loss of weight. After the lapse of weeks, in some cases, and months in other cases, these alcohol fed animals were given small doses of a poison known as acetonitrile. Other mice to whom no alcohol was fed were given similar doses of this poison. In the first series the mice which had received alcohol died from about one-half the quantity of acetonitrile required to kill those which had not received alcohol. In the second series with a somewhat stronger dilution the alcohol mice succumbed to one-half to one-third the dose necessary to kill the non-alcoholized animals. In no case was enough alcohol given for any symptoms of intoxication to appear, nor was there any outward indication of any injury being done by the alcohol. In another experiment a mouse was kept for four months on a diet of oats soaked in water, then 0.5 milligram of acetonitrile per gram body weight was injected. The mouse recovered. It was then fed on oats soaked in an alcoholic solution which was gradually increased to 45 per cent. After a little more than a month of this diet 0.2 milligram acetonitrile per gram body weight proved fatal. The weight of the mouse had remained about the same throughout.