Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/210

198 The brain and liver disorders induced by alcohol thus appear to be as closely correlated as those of liver and kidney. The mere fact of a splitting headache following upon a debauch in the case of a strong, healthy man, and a frontal or an occipital pain succeeding the drinking of a single glass of sherry in a nervously weak one, may be regarded, I think, as proof positive of the detrimental effects of alcohol on the nerve-tissues, as well as lead us to suppose that it is most probably due to the compression of the nerve-cells and fibers, which, as I have above tried to explain, may probably arise from the alcohol accelerating the heart's action, and thereby increasing the circulation in the intercranial vessels.

This statement necessitates the making of another—namely, that atheromatous degenerations of both the cardiac and cerebral blood-vessels are particularly common among men of great muscular and mental activity, who are in general spoken of as "good livers."

I have now to call attention to what appears to be a reverse kind of preliminary alcoholic effect on the nervous system—namely, that which is observed in the incipient stage of intoxication, and is almost invariably spoken of as a pleasant instead of a disagreeable sensation. Although I imagine that when a small quantity of an alcoholic stimulant is taken, the pleasurable feelings experienced may be probably entirely due to its increasing the cerebral circulation, I nevertheless think that when the amount taken is sufficient to be ultimately able to lead to complete unconsciousness, the preliminary stage of the intoxication, which has been described by some as one of sweet sans souci, is simply the offspring of a blunting of nerve sensibility—in fact, merely a partial or incipient stage of cerebro-spinal paralysis; precisely in the same way as feelings of a pleasing calm are oftentimes felt to precede the total unconsciousness of refreshing sleep, and soothing sensations of agreeable beatitude have been described as their feelings by persons who after a lingering illness have quietly and peacefully slipped away into eternity. In all of these cases the pleasurable sensations experienced are merely, I believe, due to the gradually increasing negation of nerve-sensibility.

Lastly, as regards the deleterious influence that small quantities of alcoholic stimulants exert upon the brain-tissues through the power they possess of so acting on the nerve-pabulum in the blood as to prevent its taking up oxygen and exhaling carbonic acid, and thereby becoming fitted for the purposes of brain nutrition. Alcohol does this exactly in the same way, though to a somewhat lesser extent, as opium. This is well shown by the results obtained from a series of experiments I performed on the