CHAPTER XIV. DISEASES WHICH ARISE FROM THE USE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS, "All maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms MILTON. THE diseases which directly or indirectly originate in the use of intoxicating liquors, form an exceedingly fruitful subject for investigation. These indeed are so numer ous and obstinate in their character, as to form a very principal source of employment and emolument to the medical profession. It would be impossible in an Essay like the present, to enter into either a minute or professional investigation of the afflictive maladies which arise from the use of intoxicating liquors. It is intended to glance generally only at the most important of these, and in such familiar language, as will easily be understood by the popular reader. 1. The stomach, its functions and diseases.-The healthy performance of all the other functions of the human frame, principally depends on the functions of digestion. Hence the importance of the stomach and its operations. It is the storehouse and the shop of The whole body. True it is That it receives the general food at first, But all the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins, One of the first evils consequent on the use of alcoholic liquors, arises from the unnatural irritation and irregular action to which the stomach is thereby subjected. The application of alcohol in any of its varied forms, causes irritation or excitement of the coats of the stomach, in other words, diseased action. This undue excitement terminates in a loss of that natural sensibility to food, which previously had formed its most valuable property; in addition to incompetency to receive that peculiar and salutary stimulus, which actual contact of the food creates, and which is in a great degree necessary to healthy digestion. A thickened state of the coats of the stomach, which sometimes terminates in schirrus or cancer, is not unfrequently the result of alcoholic indulgence. Dr. Hodgkin remarks, that he has often found the membranes lining the stomachs of free-drinkers, thickened far beyond what was natural or healthy.* In a case which came under the observation of Dr. Ogston, "The whole of the stomach was found to be firm and the coats thickened, to at least three times their usual size." An intelligent physician relates the following interesting case :-"A middle-aged gentleman of wealth and standing, had long been accustomed to mingle in the convivial circle, and though by no means a drunkard, had indulged at times in the use of his old Cogniac with an unsparing hand. He was at length seized with pain in the region of his stomach, and a vomiting of his food an hour or two after he had taken it. In about eighteen months he died in a state of extreme emaciation. On opening the body after death, the walls of the whole of the right extremity of the stomach were found in a schirrus and cancerous condition, and thickened to the extent of two inches. The cavity of the organ was so far obliterated as scarcely to admit the passage of a probe from the left to the right extremity, and the opening which remained was so unequal and irregular, as to render it evident that but little of the nourishment he had received could have passed the lower orifice of the stomach for many months."+ Another injurious effect of alcoholic liquors arises from the circumstance, that they unnaturally accelerate the process of digestion; and partially prevent those important and effectual changes which are necessary to the complete conversion of food into nutriment. The importance of the due Hodgkin's Lectures on Health, 1835, p. 152. Ogston on Intoxication.-Edinb. Med. Journal, p. 292. An Address by a Physician, on the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Moral, Intellectual and Physical Powers, p. 5. detention of food in the stomach has been remarked from an early period. An old author, in a work originally written in Latin, A.D. 1648, remarks that wine should not be taken habitually after meals, because it unnaturally accelerates digestion, propels the food before it is properly digested, and lays the foundation of obstructions and putridity.* Dr. Cheyne and Dr. Thackrah make similar observations. ""T is true," remarks the former, "strong liquors by their heat and stimulation on the organs of concoction, by increasing the velocity of the motion of the fluids, and thereby quickening the other animal functions, will carry off the load that lies upon the stomach, with more present cheerfulness; yet besides the future damages of such a quantity of wine, to the stomach and to the fluids, by its heat and inflammation, the food is hurried into the habit, unconcocted, and lays a foundation for a fever, a fit of the cholic, or some chronical disease."† "The detention of food," observes Dr. Thackrah, “is necessary to digestion. The gastric juice does not decompose substances, like the galvanic aura. Its operations are gradual: by the contractions of the muscular coat it is applied to successive portions of aliment. All articles, therefore, which by their stimulus produce a rapid action, are injurious. To this, I attribute the circumstance of bitters frequently impairing the digestive process. They habituate the stomach to propel its contents, before these have undergone the action of the solvent fluid. This observation applies, of course, to bitters taken with food, as the hop in ale and porter." The use of alcoholic stimulants excites an unnatural desire for improper dietetic indulgence, and thus in several ways lays the foundation for various forms of indigestion, impairing, to a considerable degree the QUALITY and QUANTITY of those natural secretions, without the aid of which, nutrition cannot be effectively carried on and perfected. This valuable and essential fluid is secreted from the mouths of certain vessels on the lining membrane of the stomach. By a necessary and beautiful adaptation of the Creator, it operates on dead matter only, and will dissolve substances of the most inflexible and impenetrable nature. After death, the gastric juice which remains in the stomach, has been found to ulcerate and perforate its coats; during life they • Citante per Sinclair's Rules to Prolong Life, vol. ii. p. 6. Essay on Health and Long Life, by George Cheyne, M.D., F.R.S. 9th ed. P. 48-9. were impregnable to the operations of this powerful fluid. Of this fact, several well authenticated cases are on record. The most important feature, in regard to the gastric secretion, is the fact, that it always bears a DIRECT RELATION TO THE QUANTITY OF ALIMENT NATURALLY REQUIRED BY THE SYSTEM. Food swallowed in greater proportion than nature requires, becomes a painful source of general, as well as local, irritation. A greater or less quantity remains, for which there is not a sufficient amount of gastric juice to dissolve. This undigested matter then becomes more or less subject to chemical laws, and a process analogous to incipient putrefaction, necessarily takes place. The quality of the gastric juice, and its consequent fitness for the purposes of digestion, may be supposed to be materially influenced by any cause which disturbs the operations of the stomach, and prevents healthy nutrition. Dr. Beaumont, in his experiments on St. Martin, made some very interesting observations in illustration. When a feverish state of the system had been induced, either by overloading the stomach, or by such improper excitement as arises from the use of stimulating liquors, the villous coat of the stomach became sometimes red and dry, and at other times pale and moist, and lost altogether its smooth and healthy appearance. A vitiated, impaired, or entirely suppressed state of the usual secretions ensued. The follicles, or mouths of the vessels, from which the mucus which lubricates and protects the villous coat, is poured out, became flat and flaccid, and no longer yielded their bland secretion; and the numerous minute terminations, or papillæ of the nerves and vessels, were thus subjected to unnatural irritation. If these appearances of disease were considerable, the system sympathized, as was evidenced by dryness of the mouth, thirst, quickened pulse, &c., and what was still more remarkable and important in a dietetic point of view, no gastric juice could be procured or extracted, even on the application of the usual stimulus of food.* The dry and irritated state of the villous coat of the stomach, together with the cessation of the gastric secretion, easily accounts for the nausea, uneasiness of the stomach, and loss of appetite, which invariably follow after vinous indulgence. Hence is seen the great danger of continuing to use stimulants as a means of obtaining relief for distressing feelings, originally and entirely produced by • Physiology of Digestion, by Andrew Combe, M.D. the use of improper articles, and which can be effectually removed only by rigid abstinence from the cause of irritation.* Hippocrates makes strong allusion to the effects of wine in diminishing healthy appetite. "Water drinkers," he remarks, "have generally keen appetites ;" and again, "Hunger is abated by a glass of wine."+ 2. The bowels and their functions.-The functions of the bowels, although not so immediately injured by the use of intoxicating liquors, as those of the stomach, do not by any means escape from serious, and often fatal, derangement. Among these consequences, may be enumerated, irritation of their mucous or lining membrane, schirrus, and loss of their natural power in removing the useless matter which remains after digestion has been completed. Dr. Trotter, in speaking of the schirrus state of the stomach and adjacent organs, thus remarks:-"The intestines, pancreas, spleen, and perhaps the kidneys, are also liable to the same affliction; all of which, after a certain time are incurable, and often speedily fatal. The dram and purl drinker may sooner experience these evils than other drunkards; but even the guzzler of small-beer has no security against them. Nay, so sure and uniform is this ef fect of producing diseased bowels, by fermented liquors, that in distilleries and breweries, where hogs and poultry • Dr. Beddoes made the following experiment:-" An equal quantity of the same food was given to two young dogs of the same litter; immediately after feeding, three drachms of the spirit of wine of commerce, mixed with a single drachm of water, were poured down the throat of one of the animals. In five hours both were opened, within a very few minutes of each other. The animal to which the spirit was given had its stomach nearly twice as full as its fellow. The bits of flesh were as angular as immediately after they were cut off by the knife, at the time of feeding, They were also as firm in their substance. In the other dog, these angles were rounded off, and the pieces throughout much softer. Strong liquors are often equally productive of indigestion in man. Many hours, and even a whole night, after a debauch in wine, it is common enough to reject a part, or the whole, of a dinner undigested." † Hipp. Sect. ii. Aphor. 21. p. 1245.-A striking illustration of this effect is related by Dr. Beddoes, in his Hygeia, and as having come under the observation of Miss Seward. This well known writer met with a family of poor children, whose pale faces and emaciated bodies forcibly attracted her attention. Upon inquiry of the mother how they were fed, she was informed "that they did not eat much, and that what they did eat was not sufficient to nourish them without gin and water." It proved, indeed, to be scanty vegetable fare. Miss Seward, after stating to the woman the pernicious ef fects likely to follow from such a regimen, advised her to purchase a little animal food with the money she expended in gin, and to give the children water to drink with their meals. Bless you, madam," replied the poor woman, "if I was to do that, I should never be able to satisfy them in these hard times; I was used to give them water, but they were always hungry, and I could not beg or buy victuals enough for them." |