Hygienic Physiology : with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics - Joel Dorman Steele

To restore the equipoise must be the object of all treatment. We put the feet in hot water and they soon become red and gorged with the blood which is thus called from the congested organs. Hot footbaths have saved multitudes of lives. It is well in case of a sudden cold to go immediately to bed, and with hot drinks and extra clothing open the pores, and induce free perspiration. This calls the blood to the surface, and, by equalizing and diminishing the volume of the circulation, affords relief. [Footnote: Severe colds may often be relieved in their first stages by using lemons freely during the day, and taking at night fifteen or twenty grains of sodium bromide. Great care, however, should be observed in employing the latter remedy, except under the advice of a physician.]

6. Catarrh commonly manifests itself by the symptoms known as those of a "cold in the head," and is produced by the same causes. It is an inflammation of the mucous membrane lining the nasal and bronchial passages. One going out from the hot dry air of a furnace-heated room into the cold damp atmosphere of our climate can hardly avoid irritating and inflaming this tender membrane. If our rooms were heated less intensely, and ventilated more thoroughly, so that we had not the present hothouse sensitiveness to cold air, this disease would be far less universal, and perhaps would disappear entirely. [Footnote: Dr. Gray gives the following table:

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS AND NARCOTICS.

1. ALCOHOL.

That we may understand fully the effect of alcohol upon the human system, let us first consider its nature and the process by which harmless fruits and grains are made to produce a substance so unlike themselves in its deleterious effects.

HOW ALCOHOL IS MADE.—When any substance containing sugar, as fruit juice, is caused to ferment, the elements of which the sugar is composed, viz., hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, so rearrange themselves as to form carbon dioxide (carbonic acid), alcohol, and certain volatile oils and ethers. [Footnote: The precise relation between chemical phenomena and the physiological functions of the organic ferment is still to be discovered; and all that has been said, written, and brought forward to decide the question, need experimental proof.—SCHÜTZENBERGER.] The carbonic acid partly evaporates and partly remains in the liquor; the alcohol is the poisonous or intoxicating principle, while the oils and ethers impart the peculiar flavor and odor. Thus wine is fermented grape juice, and cider is fermented apple juice, each having its distinctive taste and smell, and each containing, as one product of fermentation, more or less of the inebriating alcohol. Wines are also made from other fruits and vegetables, such as oranges, currants, tomatoes, and rhubarb, but the alcohol which they contain is of the same nature in all cases, whether the fermented liquor has been manufactured in great quantities, by large presses, or by a simple domestic process for home consumption. It is important to remember this fact, as many people do not associate alcohol with such beverages as domestic wines and home-brewed ales, whereas it is always present with the same treacherous qualities which attach to it everywhere. An apple is a wholesome and useful fruit, and its simple juice, fragrant and refreshing, is a delight to the palate; but apple juice converted into cider and allowed to enter upon alcoholic fermentation, loses its innocence, and becomes a dangerous drink, because it is the nature of the alcohol it now contains to create an appetite for more alcohol. (See p. 185.)

WHAT IS A FERMENT?—Ferments, of which there are many varieties in nature, are minute living organisms analogous to the microscopic objects called bacteria or microbes, [Footnote: There is no well-defined limit between ferments and bacteria, any more than between ferments and fungi, or again, between fungi and bacteria. Their smaller size is the principal difference which separates bacteria from ferments, although there are bacteria of large size, such as are so frequently found in the mouth of even a healthy man, and which much resemble in their mode of growth some of the lower fungi.—Trouessart.] of which we have heard much in late years, especially in connection with the famous researches and experiments of the great French investigator, M. Pasteur. He tells us that "Every fermentation has its specific ferment. This minute being produces the transformation which constitutes fermentation by breathing the oxygen of the substance to be fermented, or by appropriating for an instant the whole substance, then destroying it by what may be termed the secretion of the fermented products." [Footnote: What we call spontaneous fermentation often occurs, as when apple juice turns to hard cider by simple exposure to the air. Science teaches us, however, that this change is always effected by the action of the busy little ferments which, wandering about, drop into the liquid, begin their rapid propagation, and, in the act of growing, evolve the products of the fermentation. "If the above liquids be left only in contact with air which has been passed through a red-hot platinum tube, and thus the living sporules destroyed; or if the air be simply filtered by passing through cotton wool, and the sporules prevented from coming into the liquid, it is found that these fermentable liquids may be preserved for any length of time without undergoing the slightest change."—Roscoe.] The effect, therefore, of fermentation is to change entirely the character of the substance upon which it acts; hence it is an error to assume that fermented liquors, as beer, wine, and cider, are safe drinks because the grains or fruits from which they are produced are healthful foods.

YEAST is a ferment which causes alcoholic fermentation. It consists of microscopic plants, which increase by the formation of multitudes of tiny cells not more than 1/2400 of an inch in diameter. In the brewing of beer they grow in great abundance, making common brewer's yeast. Ferments or their spores float in the air ready to enter any fermentable liquid, and under favorable conditions they multiply with great activity and energy. The favorable conditions include the presence of oxygen or sugar; [Footnote: Yeast, like ordinary plants, buds and multiplies even in the absence of fermentable sugar, when it is furnished with free oxygen. This multiplication, however, is favored by the presence of sugar, which is a more appropriate element than non-fermentable hydrocarbon compounds. Yeast is also able to bud and multiply in the absence of free oxygen, but in this case a fermentable substance is indispensable.—SCHÜTZENBERGER'S Fermentation.] oxygen being, as we know, necessary for the development and the reproduction of all cell life (p. 107), and ferments having the power to resolve sugar, which penetrates by endosmose into the interior of the cell, into alcohol, carbonic acid, glycerine, succinic acid, and oxygen.

BEER.—The barley used for making beer is first malted, i. e., sprouted, to turn a part of its starch into sugar. When this process has gone far enough, it is checked by heating the grain in a kiln until the germ is destroyed. The malt is then crushed, steeped, and fermented with hops and yeast. The sugar gradually disappears, alcohol is formed, and carbonic acid escapes into the air. The beer is then put into casks, where it undergoes a second, slower fermentation, and the carbonic acid gathers; when the liquor is drawn, this gas bubbles to the surface, giving to the beer its sparkling, foamy look.