Select Temperance Tracts

by American Tract Society

The coats of the stomach become greatly thickened and corrugated, and so firmly united as to form one inseparable mass. In this state, the walls of the organ are sometimes increased in thickness to the extent of ten or twelve lines, and are sometimes found also in a scirrhous or cancerous condition.

The following case occurred in my practice several years since. 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 the stomach, and a vomiting of his food an hour or two after eating. 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 scirrhous and cancerous condition, and thickened to the extent of about 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.

I have never dissected the stomach of a drunkard, in which the organ did not manifest some remarkable deviation from its healthy condition. But the derangement of the stomach is not limited to the function of nutrition merely. This organ is closely united to every other organ, and to each individual tissue of the body, by its sympathetic relations. When the stomach, therefore, becomes diseased, other parts suffer with it. The functions of the brain, the heart, the lungs, and the liver, become disordered; the secretions are altered, and all the operations of the animal economy are more or less affected.

5. The liver and its functions. Alcohol, in every form and proportion, has long been known to exert a strong and speedy influence on this organ, when used internally. Aware of this fact, the poultry-dealers of England are in the habit of mixing a quantity of spirit with the food of their fowls, in order to increase the size of the liver; so that they may be enabled to supply to the epicure a greater abundance of that part of the animal, which he regards as the most delicious.

The influence of spirit on the liver is exerted in two ways: first, the impression made upon the mucous coat of the stomach is extended to the liver by sympathy; the second mode of action is through the medium of the circulation, and by the immediate action of the alcoholic principle on the liver itself, as it passes through the organ, mingling with the blood. In whichsoever of these ways it operates, its first effect is to increase the action of the liver, and sometimes to such a degree as to produce inflammation. Its secretion becomes changed from a bright yellow to a green or black, and from a thin fluid to a substance resembling tar in its consistence. There soon follows also an enlargement of the liver, and a change in its organic structure. I have met with several cases in which the liver has become enlarged from intemperance, so as to occupy a greater part of the cavity of the abdomen, and weighing from eight to twelve pounds, when it should have weighed not more than four or five.

The liver sometimes, however, even when it manifests great morbid change in its organic structure, is rather diminished than increased in its volume. This was the case in the person of the celebrated stage-actor, George Frederick Cook, who died a few years since in the city of New York. This extraordinary man was long distinguished for the profligacy of his life, as well as for the native vigor of his mind and body. At the time of his death, the body was opened by Dr. Hosack, who found that the liver did not exceed its usual dimensions, but was astonishingly hard, of a lighter color than natural, and that its texture was so dense as to make considerable resistance to the knife. The blood-vessels, which, in a healthy condition, are extremely numerous and large, were in this case nearly obliterated, evincing that the regular circulation through the liver had long since ceased; and tubercles were found throughout the whole substance of the organ.

I have met with several cases in the course of my dissections, in which the liver was found smaller than natural, shrivelled, indurated, its blood-vessels diminished in size and number, with the whole of its internal structure more or less changed. In consequence of these morbid changes in the liver, other organs become affected, as the spleen, the pancreas, etc., either by sympathy or in consequence of their dependence on the healthy functions of the liver for the due performance of their own.

6. Of the brain and its functions. Inflammation and engorgement of this organ are frequent consequences of intemperance, and may take place during a debauch—or may arise some time after, during the stage of debility, from a loss of the healthy balance of action between the different parts of the system. This inflammation is sometimes acute, is marked by furious delirium, and terminates fatally in the course of a few days, and sometimes a few hours. At other times it assumes a chronic form, continues much longer, and then frequently results in an effusion of serum, or an extravasation of blood, and the patient dies in a state of insensibility, with all the symptoms of compressed brain. Sometimes the system becomes so saturated with ardent spirit, that there is good reason to believe the effusions, which take place in the cavities of the brain, and elsewhere, are composed, in part at least, of the alcoholic principle. The following case occurred, not long since, in England, and is attested by unquestionable authority.

A man was taken up dead in the streets of London, soon after having drank a quart of gin, on a wager. He was carried to the Westminster Hospital, and there dissected. “In the ventricles of the brain was found a considerable quantity of limpid fluid, distinctly impregnated with gin, both to the sense of smell and taste, and even to the test of inflammability. The liquid appeared to the senses of the examining students, as strong as one-third gin, and two-thirds water.”