These considerations throw some light upon the way in which chronic narcosis, like other diseases entailing structural derangements, may be transmitted from father to son. As a matter of observation it is known that drunkenness may run through whole families, no less than gout or consumption. Or, like other diseases, it may skip one or two generations and then reappear. It is evident that the children of a drunkard, born after the establishment of nervous degeneration in the father's system, may inherit structural narcosis attended by a latent craving for alcohol. Some unfortunate persons thus seem to be born sots, as others are born lunatics or consumptives.
The hygienic rule in all cases of structural narcosis, whether acquired or inherited, is total abstinence once and always. These unfortunate creatures cannot be temperate, they must therefore be abstinent. As Sainte-Beuve profoundly remarks concerning that ferocious Duke of Burgundy for whom Fénelon wrote his "Télémaque," he was such a wretch that they could not make a man of him, they could only make him a saint: that is, he was got up on such wrong principles that, whether bad or good, he must be somewhat morally lop-sided and abnormal. Just so with those whose nervous systems are impaired by alcohol: we cannot make them healthy men who can take a stimulant glass and want no more,—we can only make them teetotalers.
Those too who have not got themselves into this predicament will do well to remember that there is extreme danger in the common practice of drinking as much as one likes, provided one does not get drunk. "Getting drunk" means paralysis of the cerebral hemispheres; but, as we have seen, paralysis of the cervical sympathetic, shown in flushed face and moist forehead, occurs some time before the more conspicuous symptom. It is a narcotic effect, and must be always avoided, if the narcotic craving is to be kept clear of. Therefore a man who wishes to enjoy alcohol, and reap benefit from it, and be ready at any time to do without it, like any other wholesome aliment, must always keep a long way this side of intoxication. If ten glasses of sherry will make him garrulous, he will do well never to drink more than four.
Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be well to note certain cases, collected by Theodore Parker, of consumptive families, in which those members who were topers did not die of consumption. It appeared that, in certain families whose histories he gave, nearly all those who did not die of consumption were rum-drinkers! And from these data Mr. Parker drew the inference that "intemperate habits (where the man drinks a pure, though coarse and fiery liquor like New England Rum) tend to check the consumptive tendency, though the drunkard, who himself escapes the consequences, may transmit the fatal seed to his children." Mr. Parton, who quotes this, thinks it poor comfort for topers. We doubt if there is any "comfort" to be found in it. It is contrary to all our present science to suppose that consumption can be prevented by narcosis. The prime cause of consumption is defective assimilation: the tissues, from lack of sufficient nerve-stimulus, are incapable of appropriating food. How absurd, therefore, to suppose that narcosis, which impairs the stimulating energy of the nerves, can check an existing tendency to consumption! What the consumptive person needs is stimulus, not paralysis. But it is easy to believe that the same impaired nutrition of the nerves which may in one person end in consumption, may in another person act as a predisposing cause of narcosis. Insanity, consumption, and drunkenness, are diseases which appear to go hand in hand. Dr. Maudsley, in his great work on the "Pathology of Mind," gives instructive tables which show that these three diseases may alternate with each other in the same family for several generations, culminating finally in epilepsy, idiocy, paralysis and impotence, when the family becomes happily extinct. This consanguinity of diseases appears more marked when we extend our view over a certain extensive locality. The figures cited by Gov. Andrew appear to show that both drunkenness and insanity are far more common in New England than in other parts of the Union; and consumption is proverbially the New England disease. We are inclined to suspect, therefore, that in the families mentioned by Mr. Parker, the children inherited structurally defective nervous systems, the consequent symptoms being in one case pulmonary and in another case cerebral.
This, we believe, is all that we need contribute at present to the subject of alcoholic narcosis. It will be seen that in maintaining that the Coming Man will drink wine, we are not recommending that the Coming Man should go to bed drunk. An argument drawn from purely scientific data, when once thoroughly mastered, is likely to be of more avail in checking intemperance than all the "spurts of extravagance" which teetotalers can emit between now and doomsday. Mr. Parton asks, Why have the teetotalers failed? They have failed because they have exaggerated. They have failed because they have not been content with the simple truth. They want the truth, the whole truth, and twice as much as the truth. If they would only hoard up the nervous energy which they expend in making a vain clamour, in order to use it in quietly investigating the character, causes, and conditions of alcoholic drunkenness, they might make out a statement which the world would believe, and by and by act upon. At present the world does not follow them, because it does not believe them. When the zealous aquarian anathematizes a rum-shop, we sympathize with him; but when he rolls up his eyes in holy horror at a glass of lager-bier, we laugh at him. When he says that a quart of raw gin taken at a couple of gulps will kill a man stone-dead, we cheerfully acquiesce. But when he says that the gill of sherry taken at dinner will impair our digestion, render us susceptible to cold, steal away some of our vigour, and muddle our head so that we cannot write an article in the evening,—we can but good-naturedly smile, and try another gill to-morrow.
The stimulant effects of alcohol upon the nervous system are very similar to those of tobacco. Like tobacco, alcohol stimulates the alimentary secretions, slightly quickens and strengthens the pulse, diminishes weariness, cures sleeplessness, puts an end to trembling, calms nervous excitement, retards waste, and facilitates repair. By its antiparalytic action, it checks epilepsy, quiets delirium, and alleviates spasms and clonic convulsions; and in typhoid fever, where excessive waste of the nervous system is supposed to be one of the chief sources of danger, it is used, as we shall presently see, with most signal success. It thus appears, like tobacco, to be in general an economizer of vital energy and an aid to effective nutrition. It also directly assists digestion; but as Mr. Parton thinks it does not do this, we will first quote his opinion, and then see how much it is worth.
"Several experiments have been made with a view to ascertain whether mixing alcohol with the gastric juice increases or lessens its power to decompose food, and the results of all of them point to the conclusion that the alcohol retards the process of decomposition. A little alcohol retards it a little, and much alcohol retards it much. It has been proved by repeated experiment that any portion of alcohol, however small, diminishes the power of the gastric juice to decompose. The digestive fluid has been mixed with wine, beer, whisky, brandy, and alcohol diluted with water, and kept at the temperature of the living body, and the motions of the body imitated during the experiment; but, in every instance, the pure gastric juice was found to be the true and sole digester, and the alcohol a retarder of digestion. This fact, however, required little proof. We are all familiar with alcohol as a preserver, and scarcely need to be reminded that, if alcohol assists digestion at all, it cannot be by assisting decomposition." (p. 64.)
We would give something to know how many readers, outside of the medical profession, may have detected at the first glance the fatal fallacy lurking in this argument. Of its existence Mr. Parton himself is blissfully unconscious. The experiment, no doubt, seems quite complete and conclusive. We have the gastric juice mixed with alcoholic liquor, we have the suitable temperature, and we have an imitation of the motions of the stomach. What more can be desired? We reply, the most important element in the problem is entirely overlooked. It is the old story,—the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out; and nothing can better illustrate the extreme danger of reasoning confidently from what goes on outside the body to what must go on inside the body. For in order to have made their experiment complete, Mr. Parton's authorities should have manufactured an entire nervous system, as well as a network of blood-vessels through which the alcohol might impart to that nervous system its stimulus. In short, before we can make an artificial digestive apparatus which will work at all like the natural one, we must know how to construct a living human body! In the case before us, the nervous stimulus, ignored by Mr. Parton, is the most essential factor in the whole process. There is no doubt that a given quantity of undiluted gastric juice will usually perform the chemical process of food-transformation more rapidly than an equal quantity of gastric juice which is diluted.[9] But there is also no doubt that when we take a small quantity of alcohol into the stomach, the amount of gastric juice is instantly increased. This results from the stimulant action of alcohol both upon the pneumogastric nerves and upon the great splanchnic or visceral branches of the sympathetic. Just as when tobacco is smoked, though probably to a less extent, the gastric secretion is increased; and the motions of the stomach are also increased. This increase in the quantity of the digestive fluid, due to nervous stimulus, is undoubtedly more than sufficient to make up for the alleged impairment of its quality caused by mixing it with a foreign substance. The action of saliva and carbonate of soda supply us with a further illustration. In artificial experiments, like those upon which Mr. Parton relies, alkaline substances are found to retard digestion by neutralizing a portion of the acid of the gastric juice. Yet the alkaline saliva, swallowed with food, does not retard digestion; and Claude Bernard has shown that carbonate of soda actually hastens, to a notable degree, the digestive process. Why is this? It is because these alkalies act as local stimulants upon the lining of the stomach, and thus increase the quantity of gastric juice. It is in this way that common salt, eaten with other food, also facilitates digestion; although salt is a preserver, as well as alcohol.
Here we come upon Mr. Parton's second blunder. He talks about the "decomposition" of food, and appears to think that digestion is a kind of putrefaction, so that alcohol, which arrests the latter, must also arrest the former. He says: We do not need to experiment, for we know that alcohol, which is a preserver, cannot digest food by decomposing it. This unlucky remark illustrates the danger of writing on a subject, the rudiments of which you have not taken time to get acquainted with. Before attempting to lay down the law upon an abstruse point connected with the subject of digestion, common prudence would appear to dictate that one should first acquire some dim notion of what digestion is. The veriest tyro in physiology should know that the gastric juice is itself a preventer of putrefaction. It will not only keep off organic decay, but it will stop it after it has begun.[10] In this sense of the word, it is as much a preserver as alcohol.
As it takes time to expose all the fallacies which Mr. Parton can crowd into one short paragraph, we have thus far admitted that alcohol impairs the quality of the gastric juice by diluting it: as a matter of fact, it does not so impair it. If it is a preserver, it is also a coagulator. It coagulates the albuminous portions of the food, thus enabling them to be more easily acted upon by the gastric secretion.[11] So that, on looking into the matter, we find the stimulant dose of alcohol doing everything to quicken, and nothing whatever to slacken, digestion. It coaxes out more digestive fluid, and it lightens the task which that fluid has to perform.