Page:Food and cookery for the sick and convalescent.djvu/91

Rh the most harmful, for they contain a considerable quantity of fusel-oil,—a poisonous natural product difficult to eliminate. This diminishes with age, when they mellow and improve in flavor.

Alcohol is used in the sick-room for bathing purposes, and is usually diluted with water. Its local effect is that of an irritant.

Alcoholic beverages produce:—

1. Cheer and good fellowship.

2. Excitement and buoyancy.

3. Loss of self-control and judgment.

4. Loss of control of muscular movements.

5. Stupor.

6. Depression.

The physiological effects of alcohol are as yet incompletely understood. Its effect on the respiratory system is very slight, and on the circulatory system very doubtful; but it is given for the purpose of stimulating heart action. If given in small quantities it assists gastric digestion; in moderate quantities, it retards the flow of gastric juice; and in large quantities albumen is precipitated. Its effect on metabolism is that of partially paralyzing the cells, thus causing them to lose some of their power to break down proteids, carbohydrates, and fats.

Effects produced by the habitual use of alcoholic beverages:—

1. Throat becomes husky.

12 [sic]. Chronic gastric catarrh.

3. Inability to resist disease.

4. Fatty degeneration of the liver and hardening of its cell walls.

5. Thickening of the walls of the arteries, especially the artery that supplies the heart. The heart, being improperly nourished, gives out, and heart failure is the result.

6. Apoplexy.