ALCOHOL.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 282, 18 December 1918, Page 14

ALCOHOL.

(Paper by Dr T. G. Campbell.) Alcohol is in small doses an excitant, in large doses a narcotic, and in any dose an irritant poison. The same may be said of chloroform or opium. 1 have said that ether and chloroform were cousins to alcohol, but as a matter of fact they are daughters. Disregard the poetic license, and these are the scientific facts: When rectified spirit is distilled with sulphuric acid, ether is produced, and when rectified spirit is distilled with chlormated lime chloroform is produ((d. Like mother, like daughter, a family trait common to the lot is to impair the efficiency of organs affected by paralysing the nerve endings. in the case of the vapour poison, the effect soon passes off with the advent of fresh avir, but in the case o advent of fresh air, but in tlm case of the fluid poison greater and more i>ermanent damage is done. Alcohol hardens the arteries, so that they lose their elasticity, and become rigid, like pipe-stems, thus bringing on premature old age, so that it is a saying among doctors, “A man is just as old as his arteries.” Biandy, whisky, gin, and rum tontain about 50 per cent, of alcohol; port wine, ib to 17; sherry, 15 to 16; claret, 5 to 7. There is icason to believe that alcohol tends to anaesthetise rather than stimulate the brain, but by dilating the cerebral blood-vessels, it may so flush the brain with blood that inlelle<tual activity may 1>“ temporarily increased before the anaesthetic effects have had time to manifest themselves. My flushing the brain with blood, alcohol may prodm e temporary excitement and aid the imagination, bui it ends by dulling the edge of the mtelle<t, and is unfavourable to sustained mental work.- Dr. Robert Hutchinson, the greatest authority on food.