Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/361

ALCOHOLISM. circulatory systems are more especially affected, together with the liver and kidneys. There is always more or less catarrh of the digestive organs, shown by dyspepsia, heart-burn, vomit- ing — especially in the morning — and usually diarrhea. The liver becomes enlarged from con- gestion, and may afterward shrink, pressing on the veins and bringing back blood to the heart from the abdominal viscera, leading to conges- tion of the bowels, hemorrhoids, and hemor- rhages. From changes in the organs of circula- tion there is a tendency to palpitation, fainting, and breathlessness on exertion. These altera- tions are degenerations of the heart, which may be soft or even fatty; fibrous changes in the walls of the arteries; and dilatation of the cap- illaries from paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves. This last condition gives the florid complexion and mottled appearance to chronic drinkers. There is, besides, usually some congestion of the kidneys: but it is erroneous to attribute Bright's disease mainly to alcohol. The lungs are subject to chronic congestion and catarrh of the bron- chial tubes and lung tissues. The muscular sys- tem suffers, the muscles becoming flabby and fatty. There is a great tendency to deposition of fat, and skin diseases are frequently induced by the vaso-motor changes.

Two characteristic results of the action of the drug on the central nervous structures are delirium tremens and alcoholic insanity. (See .) In treating chronic alcoholism the great point is to prevent the employment of alcohol in any form, and to invigorate the bodily and mental functions. See.

Alcoholism is also the term used by many sociological writers, especially French and German authors, in discussing the social evils arising from an abuse of intoxicants. Particularly important are the investigations of the relation of alcoholism to pauperism and crime, and the legal aspects of the subject as exhibited in the way various communities deal with drunkenness (q.v.).

The Committee of Fifty has made the best study of the subject in its volume on Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem (Boston, 1899). And consult also: "The Relations of the Liquor Traffic to Pauperism, Crime, and Insanity," Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics (Boston, 1895); and "Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem," Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Department of Labor (Washington, 1898). See.

AL'COHOLOM'ETRY (alcohol + Gk. /lirpov, metron, measure). A name applied to any process of estimating the percentage of ab- solute alcohol in a sample of spirits. Certain chemical methods have been tried for the pur- pose, but the one usually employed consists in determining the specific gravity of the spirit. As liquors, however, generally contain other sub- stances besides water, they must be carefully distilled before a determination can be made. Every mixture of alcohol and water has a spe- cific gravity of its own, which depends: (1) on the relative composition of the mixture, and (2) on the temperature; once the specific gravities of various mixtures have been determined, the com- position of a sample can be ascertained by de- termining its specific gravity and observing the temperature. The following table shows the spe- cific gravities of mixtures of alcohol and water,

containing 5, 10, 15, 20, etc., per cent, by weight of alcohol, at the temperatures 0°, 10°, 20°, and 30° C:

Percentnge by Weight ° ° ° ° of Alcohol. .901.35 .99113 .98945 in IM9.3 .98409 .97S93 .97995 O.'.ITSlll .97.527 .97142 .')l)« .96877 (141.3 ,5 .97115 .9(672 )1 85 .95628 .96.540 .9.".il!IK o.iiskra a5 <I!I5174 .94514 .93813 (].949:!9 (1.94i55
 * w
 * .H4
 * »ll

.92787 .') .9:W7T .n:i254 .92493 .91710 .9^940 .93182 .914110 .90.":77 n.91S48 .91(174 .90-J75 .90742 .KU944 ,88304 .89595 .S8790 O.S79i;l .87135 ro .88420 .87I113 .86781 .S5925 .87245 .86127 .855SO .84719 .86085 .85215 .84.'i66 .8.34,S! .84789 .8:iil67 .8:ill5 .822:i3 .83482 .82665 .81801 .80918 .821 19 .82291 .8043.3 .79,553 .80625 .79-88 .78945 .78096 See also article,.

ALCOHOLS. A name applied in organic chemistry to one of the largest and most impor- tant classes of carbon compounds. The alcohols possess in common certain chemical properties, though they are otherwise very different from one another. They all contain one or more hydroxyl groups (OH) linked directly to some fatty hydrocarbon group (such as methyl, CHj, ethyl, C,H,-„ etc.), and are subdivided both with reference to the number of their hydroxyl groups, and with reference to the nature of their hydro- carbon groups. When the alcohols are acted on by the chlorides or bromides of phosphorus, chlo- rine or bromine takes the place of their hydroxyl groups, and as a result, halogen derivatives of the corresponding hydrocarbons are produced. Thus, by the action of phosphorus pentachloride, ethyl alcohol may be transformed into ethyl chloride (mono-chloro-ethane), according to the following chemical equation:

C.H.OH -f PCI, Ethyl alcohol = C2H5CI -f Ethyl chloride POCI3 -f HCl

With reference to the number of their hydroxyl groups, the alcohols are divided into mono- hydric, di-hydric, tri-hydric, etc. According to the nature of the radicle to which these groups are attached, alcohols may be saturated or un- saturated, fatty or aromatic. With reference to their chemical constitution and behavior toward oxidizing agents, alcohols are further divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary alcohols are characterized by the mono-valent group CH,OH; the secondary, by the di-valent group CHOH ; the tertiary by the tri-valent group COH. The differences in their reactions are described below.

The alcohols are in certain respects analogous to the metallic hydroxides of inorganic chemistry. As, for instance, potassium hydroxide (KOH) may be considered as derived from water by replacing half of its hydrogen by potassium, so may methyl alcohol be considered as derived from water by substituting the hydrocarbon radicle called methyl (CHj) for half of its hydrogen, the corresponding formulas being: