Alcohol and its Effects on the Human Body

Southland Times, Issue 20615, 13 October 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

Alcohol and its Effects on the Human Body

■—First Prize.Alcohol is a highly-inflammable and intoxicating spirit contained in beer, whisky, rum, brandy and wine, etc. Many people, in the hope of quenching their thirst, drink these injurious liquors instead of the pure water (the natural drink God has provided us with), and as alcohol is really a hot, burning liquid, it has quite the opposite effect. Then when alcohol is taken into the body it produces such a hot, burning sensation that some of the water in the blood is used up in order to get rid of this unpleasant feeling, thus destroying and poisoning the blood of its power to carry nourishment to all parts of the body. Alcohol greatly affects the heart by making it beat very rapidly for a time and preventing it from beating quickly enough afterwards, therefore the drunkard’s heart is worn out long before its time. The effect alcohol has on the liver is noticed very quickly, as it does mischief by preventing the liver from doing its work properly and upsetting the whole of the digestive organs and causing it to become much smaller and shrivelled. When a person drinks alcohol a certain amount of it makes its way to the brain, it deadens or sends the brain and nerves to sleep, so that a person in this condition is quite incapable of thinking clearly as you would notice if you were io see a drunken man trying to walk along the street or mount a cycle, his nerves seem quite useless. In fact alcohol poisons and injures every organ in the human body, and it is our duty as girls and boys of the British Empire, to remember and do our very best to help in every possible way to rid the country of this intoxicating drink. Unhappiness and poverty are brought into hundreds of homes where this dangerous drink is partaken of, causing much acute suffering to women and little children. The majority of persons in our prisons to-day are there chiefly through committing wrong whilst under the influence of this most injurious and poisonous spirit. “Oh that a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains!” —Cousin Daphne Woodward (13), 18 Catherine street, North Invercargill.